Each week, Eric Rhoads answers two art marketing questions from listeners like you during the Marketing Minute Podcast. Browse the marketing minutes here to learn tips on how to sell more art.

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 44

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on how to know which publications in which to advertise your art, and insights on paying percentages to art galleries.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 44

 

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
Here’s a question from Amanda Houston, from Cornelius, Oregon. Amanda says how do I evaluate which publication to go deep into? I assume she means advertising. If I want to be in the waters where the money is flowing, which is a term I teach in marketing, which publication will allow me to grow my list of calls collectors and potential galleries, art brokers, interior designers, etc. Well, Amanda goes back to your strategy. You have mentioned a list of growing strategy but for different areas of focus, you’ve said galleries, collectors, art brokers, designers, you need to pick one which is your 80 percenter, which is the one that if you’ve got nothing else you go after that one particular one. I don’t think you should try to go after all four. I don’t think there’s any publication that’s really going to give you all four you know, if you want designers, you might want to spend, you know, massive amounts of money for a page in Architectural Digest or maybe it’s a local designer thing in your community. If you want art collectors, you know, who are looking for representational art, you know, and you want really rich ones. You go with something like fine art connoisseur, but if you want plein air collectors, those people happen to be in plein air magazine. So there’s a lot of different things and you’ve got to kind of decide Which you want. galleries are a low target because you can’t control your career with galleries as effectively. And you won’t get your prices up until you’re in their high demand top tier. Now I’m not trashing galleries, I think they’re a really good idea. But we put a lot of emphasis on galleries, I think earlier in our careers because we think, oh, they’re going to solve my problems. The problem with having a gallery is that if you have only one, then you’re relying on their ability to sell and if they mess up, or they have a bad month or a bad year, you’re going to have a bad month or bad year. That’s why I want to control things I want to control who in how I say who I sell my art through and how I sell it. And that way you can control your pricing you can get your prices up, etc. With a three year branding campaign that’s going to help you because branding helps you get your prices up. It’s going to help you get to galleries, it’s going to help you get in a lot of what a lot of different people collectors and so on. You know, you can reach galleries and collectors through one publication typically like the one that I mentioned. But designers, big world, you know, national, local, the cost to reach them can be, you know, 100 times the cost of reaching art collectors. It just depends on how you want to approach it. So first and foremost, Amanda, get your strategy down. And once your strategy is down, that will make a huge difference in what you decide to chase.

Okay, next question comes from Mark Dickerson in Mission Vallejo, California who says I have a quick question. I know you’ve talked about this in the podcast. I don’t have gallery representation yet. But when I do get a chance to really want them to be my art marketing partner and I want to offer the gallery a percentage of everything I create, even if it never hangs in their gallery. I want them to know we are in this together. How much of a percentage should I pay the gallery for any work I produced that night hangs in there gallery 25% I want to have this figured out. So when I get a chance to partner with a gallery, I’m ready to offer them to be my partner and all of my art. Mark respectfully, why would you do that? I you know, I think that the idea of having a gallery partnership if a gallery sells something for you, typically they want somewhere between 40 and 60% depending on your stature, you know, like if you’re a you’re a high level artist, you might get paid 60% they keep 40% if you’re a newbie, they might keep 60% but somewhere around that 50% area’s what they’re going to pay, but they get paid for what they sell. Now, I’m not suggesting selling around them, but why would you give a gallery a percentage of everything you sell, even if they don’t do it for you? I think that would be folly. Now. I think it goes back to what I said earlier is that a lot of people want to advocate they don’t want to delegate then want to advocate, the idea is you delegate to a gallery and you say, okay, your responsibility is we agree to that you’re going to sell my paintings at this percentage for a certain period of time and and hopefully so many per month, you know, you can’t predict that exactly. But when you advocate, you’re just saying here, take over my career and run with it. And the problem is when you have somebody taking over your career, they may or may not do it as effectively as you want them to. And you know, it’s like, say, okay, you hire a manager, and you say, okay, go do whatever you want to do. Well, all of a sudden, that managers spend all your money and run off with your wife. Just never know. So you’ve got to be really careful about advocating versus delegating. And I think that’s a really important thing to think about. So, you know, typically 50% is what the gallery gets, and I like to have a balance. I think that every artist should have a certain percentage of their work or certain type of their work that they’re doing. Selling direct. And that, you know, some galleries don’t like that. And I understand that. And if they’re willing to give you enough of a good deal and enough sales, then it might be worth allowing them to do that. I know people who do it very effectively, but I don’t want my art to be in one gallery and then sit there for months and not sell, I need those paintings to sell to be able to pay my bills. And so as a result, you want to have something, you know, I like to have balance. I like you know, sometimes there’s hot markets. You know, there was a time when Silicon Valley was really hot, and people were spending money there, there were time that certain vacation spots were hot, and there were other cities that were not. So I like the idea of having my work in an area that’s hot as well as two or three other areas maybe and and that way, you know, and there are also economies that are based on seasons. So you know, like if you have a gallery in Cape Cod, they’re not going to sell much in the winter probably. If you have a gallery in Hawaii there may not sell much in the summer. You know that you’ve, you’ve got a ski resort. Well, ski resort probably is popular in summer and winter. So you got to kind of figure that out. And I like to, I like to spread the risk to at least three and sometimes a little bit more. I personally am only in one gallery. And that’s because I can only produce a certain amount of work because I don’t paint for a living. And I just got a call that that gallery is thinking about closing their doors. And so what do I do now I got to figure out a new gallery to go into, right. So I think you want to make sure that you have control and I didn’t have control in that particular case. Anyway, I hope this is helpful.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

How to Submit Your Art Marketing Questions: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-11-10T10:47:32-05:00November 30th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 43

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares thoughts on resources for pricing your art, and why marketing is critical to getting your work seen and sold.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 43

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the marketing minute I answer your marketing questions which you have emailed to me, [email protected] Also be sure and say where you’re from name and town. Here’s a question from Peter Shorady. It doesn’t say where Peters from says Do you know of any books about the sector. We have pricing art. No, no, the answer is no, I don’t have any idea of any books about the pricing of art. There are literally hundreds of books out there on the psychology of pricing and and pricing specific, but they tend to be pricing in a retail environment. I’ve read lots of them. A lot of them have conflicting information, there’s nuggets you can get from every one of them. But art is something special because art is not a commodity, typically. And as a result, it’s done a little bit differently. Pricing art is something I deal with in my books, my website, my videos, my podcasts. Well, this is podcast now, I guess. Anyway, it’s very dependent on how it’s being sold environment has everything to do with pricing, as does the target audiences. For instance, billionaires and even millionaires think differently than thousand heirs and appealing to that psychologism Pardon. I oftentimes tell the story of the lady who went to the 10th show. Artists tells me the story. She says how much is the painting? He says it’s, it’s $4,000. She writes out 40,000 hands in the check. She says, No, it’s, he says, It’s not for 40,000 it’s 4000. And she says, well, it must not be any good, she rips up the check. So, pricing is you know, a high price oftentimes signals a high value, a high value painting, for instance. But sometimes you have to establish yourself to get high price other times some environments you don’t, but understanding the audiences and the environment, how things are framed, who’s selling it, you know, a high end Art Gallery, a low end Art Gallery, a show, you know, how you do everything really plays into it. Pricing is almost almost always based on the strength of your brand. I mean, if I said I’ve got a Richard Schmid painting for sale or I’ve got a Clyde Aspabig painting for sale. I’ve got a Ken Coleman painting for sale, you’re going to perk up because you know the strength of the brand. If I say, you know, Larry Leadbetter than you might not know the strength of the brand. And so if you build your brand, the better your reputation, your reputation for quality, desirability, collectability importance, the better your price is going to be. Of course, scarcity plays into your price as well. If you’re a painter that produces a lot of paintings versus someone who produces very few, that scarcity is important. So you build a strong brand, and you increase your chances of getting higher prices.

Next question, Melissa in Trenton, New Jersey who says many artists feel their art speaks for itself, and they just make the art and they will eventually get discovered why marketing? Well, Melissa, there was a movie called The Field of Dreams. Remember the theme? If you build it, they will come? Well, I think it’s kind of a lie. It’s kind of like the starlet who sits in in the drugstore in Los Angeles in Hollywood, waiting to be discovered, you know, Lana Turner. It happened to Ilana Turner one time hasn’t happened to anybody else that way ever since then, and, and it turns out, by the way, that was made up by a press agent, and it wasn’t the way it worked out. after all. You could wait a long time and never get discovered. Anybody remember thing called the phone book? I mean, why put your number in a phone book just waiting for somebody to call, right? You if you if you know you’re going to get discovered? Well, somebody will figure out how to find you right? Well, your art can speak from itself. But if no one sees it, it’s kind of like if a tree falls in the forest, you know, does it make a sound if your heart might speak for itself, but if nobody sees it, you’ll never be able to hear it speak. It has to have an audience. It has to be exposed. If it’s sitting in a closet in your studio, and it’s never seen, it’s not speaking, if it’s on your website, it’s not necessarily speaking, you know, people think, Oh, I’m gonna put a website together and all of a sudden, my world is gonna change and then they call me and they say, hey, I’ve got a website, but nothing’s happening well, because you’ve got to expose your website, you have to drive people to it, you have to find strategies to bring people in. If it’s just sitting on your website, it’s just as bad as sitting in a closet or almost just as a bad website isn’t something that people typically accidentally stumble on to they might click a link because there’s a story on your website that gets their attention, and that’s Marketing. But that’s rare. So you’ve got to find ways to get people to best specifically look for you. Now, it does happen occasionally for some businesses like hot restaurants starts up and the word travels and every everybody goes there because everybody’s telling everybody else. That’s word of mouth marketing. But the reality is the restaurant was smart, because they invited the right people for the opening. They invited the press, they invited some big influencers, the local mayor, you know, some people who own local businesses, they invited people who are going to talk. And so that’s marketing that’s inviting people. paintings are personal, they’re not going to appeal to everybody. So you’ve got to have lots of eyeballs to connect you to the special person who that painting speaks to and is ready to buy. They’ve got to have the money, the time a place to hang it. It’s got to be perfect timing. That’s why volume in reach can be a good thing, but you don’t want reach everybody you want to reach people who are specially interested, especially interested in art. Now Marketing is kind of like being the kid in class who raises their hand for the teacher. You know, don’t raise your hand, if you’re not willing to get called on. And you know, you might get called on randomly once in a while, but not likely. Or imagine holding a wedding and forgetting to send out the invitations. The invitations are the marketing. Sometimes the entertainment is the marketing invitation, say, you know, we’ve got cool and that gang or somebody like that, playing at our reception. If you want to sell your art, you are in business, you’re in business. And most failures happen in business because they lack marketing. Every business does it. It can be soft, it can be quiet, it can be elegant. It can be loud, it can be obnoxious, it can be awful. You get to choose but without marketing, you starve. Anyway, I hope that’s helpful. That’s the marketing minute.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

How to Submit Your Art Marketing Questions: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-10-28T09:09:23-04:00November 23rd, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|1 Comment
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 42

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on how to get your art seen (and sold) in a small town, and how to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to advertising dollars.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 42

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions which of course you can email me, [email protected] Here is a lesson. Here’s a question from Carla. I don’t know where Carlos from it says, How do I get my art seen. I live in a small town and they want my work. They just don’t want to buy it. Now, Carla, you’re not alone. Sometimes people value things more if they are at a distance. It’s called the consultants rule. You will not hire a consultant in your town but you’ll pay more for that person and hire him if they live 100 miles away, or even more if they’re thousand miles away. It seems to be true in the art world too. So you’re not alone. You know people often sometimes think that buying Art in New York is better New Yorkers won’t buy it in New York they’ll buy it in LA you know it’s kind of funny. But you know it’s it’s true to some extent in people’s heads you know they’ve got this hang up. So it can be a distance thing so you could just be in a gallery elsewhere and then make a living and and that’s a cool thing. Not everybody though wants it for free. Usually people who can’t afford it want it for free. So I say always say stand in the river where the money is flowing, find it a fluent marketplace, where do the people with money, who could buy paintings hang out in your area, do a show at a local affluent restaurant, do a show at a high end Country Club or a golf club or some place you know hair salon where all the wealthy affluent people go do something and you will sell you will have success. They’re assuming your work is holding up and you got to be ready to make sure it’s holding up but it probably is and so people are willing to To pay for things that are of quality and so get it out there. The key to marketing is your presence, get it known build awareness, build your brand, and repeat, do charity events, raise your profile and it will raise your sales.

Next question comes from Amanda. Amanda says, if I’m going to put some really big marketing dollars behind advertising, what is the biggest biggest bang for my buck paid social media ads, printed publications, how much in each 50/50 or 30/70, etc? Well, Amanda, I honestly can’t answer that question. Because I don’t know your strategy. And you can’t answer it either. Till you know your strategy, you have to pick one single goal. This is the mistake. Everybody says, you know that they’re like, well, I want to sell some paintings, but I also want to build my brand. I also want to do this. I also want to do that. Pick one goal because that one goal will determine how and why Where you spend your money? Now you will get side benefits with one goal no matter what, but you have to focus on that one goal. So there are steps to each goal. Most goals of any substance take two to three years to accomplish, sometimes more, sometimes less. So what is the one thing you absolutely must get done in the next three years as if your career depends on it, because it does in terms of how much each. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t dilute your effectiveness. Now, I’m a big Facebook advertiser. I spent a huge amount of money just last week, but I also am a huge magazine advertiser, online advertiser, I do a lot of advertising for a lot of my projects, because I’m a marketing guy. Of course, I advertise. But I don’t recommend you spend money in social media unless you have a giant war chest. A big war chest and Quite frankly, unless you know how to do it, you have, you’re competing to outbid companies for proper ad space. And honestly, I don’t think it works very well for art. I’ve seen some people do it, but I’m not really convinced. And it can work well for branding. But you got to make sure you’re branding to the right people. It’s very expensive for branding. And I think the key to most media is that you want to own it, dominate it, one media property, one magazine or one website and dominate it for three or more years. And once you’ve dominated, then you’ve got to keep your momentum and just kind of be committed to that. But once you’re getting fruit out of it, then you can start spending money at other places as well. But you if you divide it up, you’re going to slow down your effectiveness, you’re going to slow down. You know, it’s like I see people say, Well, I’ll buy a little in this issue and a little business magazine, a little in that magazine, and then you dilute it and you’re not being effective people the same exact People need to see you seven to 10 times over and over and over again before they’ll even make a decision to buy. So focus on dominating something. That’s one of the reasons our magazines are in business. We teach people to dominate, dominate. That’s what will happen. And of course, you will see a huge shift in your career if you do it that way. But what happens, happens so many times, people are like, I’m not seeing enough results fast enough. So they stop and they kill their momentum. And they’ve already got like five or six impressions. They just need a couple more impressions with certain people and those people start buying, but they back out too soon. It’s very frustrating anyway, don’t throw your money away. advertising is expensive. You got to do it right. And only big advertisers like Coca Cola or Mitsubishi or Mercedes or somebody can afford to dominate a lot of media. I can’t afford to you probably can’t afford To some people can but you dominate one thing first keep it alive for years it will pay volumes to you. volumes.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-10-27T09:56:32-04:00November 16th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 41

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares insights on unconventional ways artists are selling paintings now, and pricing prints versus originals.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 41 >

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mywy7AykXCE

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the art marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions. And you just email them to me [email protected] Here’s a question from Bob Ragland, says I’m interested in knowing how artists are selling their art in untraditional ways. Well, I’m interested to I’m always keeping an eye on that. Bob the untraditional quickly becomes the traditional once it works, as you know, we’ve observed because of Coronavirus, we observed a lot of people doing some new and interesting things. One thing I saw recently is an artist doing a raffle for a painting and they’re selling tickets at 10 bucks or 20 bucks each and the goal is to sell enough tickets to cover the cost that they would normally get and got a lot of entries and did a raffle and then it’s doing another one. Another artists I saw is doing an auction. Where you don’t actually see the painting? You’re buying an unseen painting and you’re auctioning for it. And lo Papa did this and started the idea. Laguna plein air painters and I was in it as a matter of fact, they raised over $20,000. So it could be done by an artist as well. And and of course, lately, lots of people are doing virtual art shows with links to buy. And that’s been very effective for very many a lot of galleries and artists doing it so I think it’s something that will probably continue. I like to see people thinking outside of the box hate that term though.

The next question comes from an anonymous person in Las Vegas, who says do prints that are the same size as the original devalue the original painting I worry that some people won’t know the difference? Well, prints are controversial and some hate them. Others love them. I’ve watched a lot of artists make some money with prints. I’ve watched them do licensing to print companies. Which is not as much money but you’ve got somebody working for you, night and day and and selling that for you. So I think that’s a pretty good thing. I think prints are a nice thing. Because a lot of people cannot afford an original but they go into a gallery or they see your work, they’d like to own it, but they can’t afford it original. I don’t know that that’s going to stop somebody from buying an original. Obviously, it’s going to be priced considerably different. And quite frankly, some people say, hey, if I never sell the original, but I sell 100 prints off of it, I’m making more money than I would have from the original so it doesn’t really matter. Some galleries love them. Some galleries hate them, you got to have a talk with your gallery about that. I don’t know if size matters might not be a bad idea to vary the size a little and quite frankly, it’s nice to have different sizes. But if you get too small, then you’re going to have a minimum price that you might not want. Remember, you want somebody walking out of the gallery out of your booth or whatever spending a decent amount of money and you want to make sure your prints are valuable but also that you’re making money on them prints are not cheap to make not good ones not by the time you put them in a What do they call that, I want to say a frame but it’s thicker the term matte There we go. Anyway, sometimes it takes a little time for those words to enter this old brain. Anyway, Matte and then of course piece plastic or something to put it up and and I think it’s something to talk to your gallery about, but I don’t see any problem with doing it. I used to think there was a problem. I’ve changed my tune on that a little bit. I think anything goes today you got to survive. You just got to make sure you’re being ethical.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-10-14T10:08:03-04:00November 9th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 40

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares thoughts on why “marketing” and “selling” shouldn’t be considered “dirty words” for artists, and if it’s okay to barter your paintings in exchange for goods or services.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 40

 

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions. You can email me anytime [email protected] This question comes from Sammy in upstate New York who says I keep hearing that I need to learn to sell and market my artwork, but I feel selling in marketing or dirty words. Can you address that? Sammy? I hear that a lot. I don’t know what’s caused it, but I think you could be confusing, unethical marketing and high pressure selling with the terms marketing and selling. Everybody who is in business has to do marketing everybody. hospitals, doctors, lawyers, churches, charities, even the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts do marketing and selling, but marketing selling gets a bad name from those who abuse it. You know, the arm twisters? The ones who do the curb commercials that are screaming at people, people who are unethical in some way I think that’s, you know, that’s abusive. Think of it this way. If you’re in the fourth grade and your teacher asks you a question and you raise your hand In a way, that’s marketing, right, you’re raising your hand, putting yourself out there finding a way to get noticed. Now, I don’t recommend ever doing anything unethical and marketing or in marketing or pushing yourself too hard in sales. But I also know that repetition of a good solid ethical message will increase, improve increase your sales. So, repetition is everything. And most artists are like, well, I don’t want to be too out there. You You, you can’t be too out there. You maybe you could be too out there if you sent 30 emails a day, but you just you just got to be considerate of others. So think about this. Am I okay if my work never sells, because I’m not willing to seek out ethical ways of marketing or selling. And if you’re okay with that, that’s fine. But chances are if you want things to sell, you can’t rely on Anybody else to do it for you? You can’t always rely on even a gallery to do it for you, you have to control your own destiny, your own career. And the way to do that is to really master and understand marketing. I’ve got lots of articles on marketing, ethical marketing at artmarketing.com.

The next question comes from an anonymous listener who says, Is it okay to barter with my paintings in exchange for goods or services? Well, anonymous, everything is about strategy. For instance, if there is something you would pay cash for any way, that’s part of your strategy, and it helps you save cash. Why not barter? For instance, let’s say your strategy says that you have to have a program in the local high school yearbook. All right, well, I wouldn’t buy an ad in the high school yearbook if it wasn’t part of my strategy, but they might say, Well, you know, give us A painting so we can use it for a charity auction. that’s a that’s a win win. But don’t, don’t buy things you don’t need just because you can trade it, right. And be careful about that too. People get into trouble with barter sometimes because they don’t necessarily understand it. You want it to be part of your marketing plan, if it’s part of your strategy, but make sure you get dollar for dollar and document it carefully. Everything should be in writing. Also, I’m not an attorney or an accountant, but you should check with them. Because I think that barter is treated the same as cash, meaning you probably have to pay tax on what you receive. I haven’t done barter in many, many, many, many, many years. But I remember when I did, I had to file as if it was income, and so does the person you barter with so can’t hurt to double check. The key to barter is only saving cash that you would have spent anyway. So think about it that way and I wouldn’t overdo it. You don’t want to get a rep. mutation is somebody who does all bartering all the time. But you know, there might be a time to do it from time to time. You know, one thing that happens a lot of artists will trade paintings. It’s not barter per se because you’re not buying a service in exchange for a painting. But a lot of artists do. Just say, Hey, I’ll give you a one of mine If you give me one of yours. Anyway, hope this helps.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-10-02T12:45:34-04:00November 2nd, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 39

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice for artists who may be ready to start advertising, and marketing tips for more established artists.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 39

Art Marketing Minute Podcast with Eric Rhoads - ArtMarketing.com

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the art marketing minute I try to answer your questions. All you got to do is email them to me [email protected] Today both questions come from a listener named David Cruz whose first question is at what point in an artist’s career do you suggest they try advertising to reach potential buyers? Is it effective for artists still trying to establish themselves or is it better Left to more well established artists. Well, David, it starts by being ready. And what I mean by that is your work has to be developed and strong enough to sell. And you have to be able to do consistent enough painting so that your paintings are all pretty much consistent with one another. So you have more winners than losers. And you have to have that confidence to begin as fast as possible and never let up. And what I mean by that is that marketing becomes a lifetime commitment. If you’re planning on selling art for your lifetime, you have to plan on marketing for a lifetime. I’m in business. I have to constantly be marketing the minute I let up, my business stops, I don’t have any more customers. That’s the same for all artists. Now. There’s various forms of marketing. Part B of your question you said…

You ask if it’s effective for artists still trying to establish themselves to be marketing or if it’s better for established Artists? The answer is Yeah, both. But let me tell you a story about an established artist. He was famous top of the game really big deal making lots of money selling lots of art. In fact, he had such momentum that he decided he could save all this money on his advertising. And he stopped because everybody knew him. And he was okay for a while because he had a brand he had some momentum, but his momentum was lost. And within a very short period of time, nothing was selling anymore. And as a matter of fact, he was out of sight, out of mind, all of a sudden, he wasn’t being invited into shows. He wasn’t being invited to galleries. And as I talked about, there’s a thing called attrition. So people are always in and out of the market, the average gallery or artists loses 10% of their potential buyers every year simply because those people are out of the market for some other reason. But there’s another group of people who may be coming in if you’re refreshing that well. He wasn’t doing that. So all of a sudden nobody knew who he was anymore he was it was a has been, I hate to use those terms. But he became a guy who went from being on top to being on the bottom making nothing and nobody knew who he was he was contacting artists and, and guy me and other galleries and they were like, sorry, you don’t know who you are. And so he had to re establish himself and rebuild his career. He lost a lot of momentum lost a lot of years, because he had stopped. The minute you become an artist professional, meaning selling your work, you have to start marketing on you’re working on your marketing, even if it’s a year out from when you plan to launch, you need to learn it. You need to make plans, you need to plant seeds, you need to develop strategy, you need to develop a marketing plan. Everything always takes longer than you think it will. We’re all optimistic things take time and you you have to build momentum. Momentum actually helps sales but you have to build momentum in the beginning and takes time to build momentum and experimentation and trying different things. Marketing is a life time commitment. Your next question is aside from quality, what are the major criteria that buyers look at to determine if a piece of art is worth paying 1000 versus 10,000 for? Well, it’s all perceived value and perceived value is emotion as a BMW seven series is the same car as a Bentley with a few extra touches, but it’s $100,000 more in price. perceived value comes from branding and looking successful and that branding saying that you’re successful in subtle ways. It comes from social proof, meaning other people prominent customers who are buying your work and it’s visible that they are social proof could be being in the right gallery. Everybody knows that gallery sells paintings that are expensive. It comes from having courage and it comes from A slow build up of a collector base, raising that collector base to buy your work and raising your prices a little bit every year, being invited to the right shows being seen at the right places. And I saw one artist who had some courage he put his price out there 200 K, he got it all of a sudden he was $100,000 artist. So you cannot typically launch your career selling hundred thousand dollar paintings, although I’ve seen it done one time, but it was from a famous sculptor who switched to painting and just put $100,000 price in his first painting and got it prices about perception. Who you’re seeing with being in the right galleries getting into the right shows into the most important museums, showing that your work is embraced and accepted at a high value. Now I go into a lot of depth in my books and videos about pricing. But everything you want to accomplish in your art career, other than your painting ability can pretty be accomplished through some form of marketing. It starts with knowing where you want to go, why you want to go there and then developing your strategy and your plan. I hope that helps.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-09-29T10:23:02-04:00October 26th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 38

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on how to make your social media posts more interesting than others, and smart ways to get your work into an art gallery.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 38

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the Art Marketing Minute I answer your art marketing questions email them to me, [email protected] By the way, that’s a good place to go for lots of art marketing tips. So here’s a question from Justin in Eclair Wisconsin, who says I’m pretty active on Facebook, especially in artists groups. I also have Twitter and Instagram, which I barely use, but My question is, how do I make my posts more interesting than anyone else’s?

Well, Justin, congratulations. That’s a brilliant question you should be asking yourself, we all should. But first, let me ask you why you care. Now, I know you’re not here to answer. But you could get noticed by yelling fire in a movie theater, which by the way isn’t legal. But getting attention isn’t always what you want. You know, it’s the old thing that you know, you put in a print ad sex now that I’ve got your attention, well let people get turned off by that kind of thing. So first, you need a strategy. What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you want people to pay attention to you? What do you what do you hope to have happen? Do you want them to look at your artwork? Do you want them to know your name? Do you want them to buy art? And if it’s about branding, that’s one thing. But keep in mind that the people you’re talking to is kind of like singing to the choir. Right? Most artists have most of their followers, friends etc. are not necessarily people are going to buy paintings from them, which is a big problem if that’s what you’re trying to do. If it’s not what you’re trying to do, it’s a great, great situation. So know what you’re trying to do. And then make sure you have an audience of the people you need, which is a little tougher. So here’s another way to answer the question, though, or here’s answering your question. First, the most important thing in any communication, any speech, any ad, any email and a subject line, the most important thing in anything, is the first thing out of your mouth. If I walk onto a stage, and I say, Hello, my name is Eric Rhoads. I’ve already lost him. But if I say, today, I’m going to tell you how you can take. I’m going to tell you how you can put $50,000 in your pocket by the end of next week. I’m gonna have everybody’s attention right now. I got to live up to that. I got to tell them the truth. I got to tell them something is get their attention. But you’ve got to have something compelling. So we call that a headline and a headline is used to draw people in. And if you don’t have a headline, they’re not going to get drawn in headlines make up about 80% of the success of an ad of an email of a subject line opening the email. And that is everything. So I have spent years reading books, studying headlines, go into webinars, going to seminars, working with consultants, I have worked with some of the best headline people in the world to learn and grow and teach you and I can I can teach you some of that stuff. Probably at the plein air convention. I could do that. Anyway, you’ve got to grab attention and curiosity, but you got to do it in a in a way that is appropriate is tasteful is ethical. And also you’ve got to get their attention fast. After the headline, what’s the next most important thing? Well, it’s the next most important thing you talk about or say So you draw them in with a headline, then you ask you have a sentence or you ask a question that draws them in further, then you go a little further and a little further and a little further. Now there’s other ways you can do it. Like in my Sunday coffee, I do a little different approach. It’s a much softer approach. But I’m I’m trying to create a much softer approach in that environment. So I don’t do these, these real big time attention getting headlines there. Sometimes I do, but not often. So anyway, great images also make a great difference. You know, people are drawn to really, really good, interesting, compelling images. And of course, what we just learned in the plein air podcast about how the eye is drawn to certain things. That is something that in the Dan Hill podcast, that’s something you’d really like, that will help you.

Okay, this next question comes from Todd who says, You said that reaching out to galleries is a bad idea to make you look desperate.

I agree. Being a Canadian trying to gain a foothold in the USA market. How do I go about gaining gallery representation and gaining an audience? If nobody knows me? Well, by the way, Todd is really good painter. So hi, Todd. Here’s what I would tell you. First off, it doesn’t matter if you’re a US citizen or from New Zealand or from Canada. Getting into a gallery is tough no matter how you slice it, and it’s not going to be necessarily a disadvantage for you one way or the other. The number one question I devote most of my time to in art marketing is this gallery question. How do I get in? You see galleries are inundated with artists submissions. So my rule is to Zig when others zag you know, everybody is emailing galleries, they hate that most of them, not all of them. They they’re getting emails. They’re getting up unsolicited packages, sometimes they’re getting unsolicited paintings in the mail, they got to open them up, they got to look at them, they got to put them back. They got to mail them back. They hate that. That’s really annoying. So what can you do that’s different, you know, just showing up to the door with a handful of paintings. That’s annoying. You know, you’re there in the middle of their day. They’re busy, maybe not right now, but normally, and so be different, do something else no one else is doing now I believe the best way is to be introduced in or get somebody to recommend you. But I also think that you want them to follow you and be tracking you without them knowing that you’ve made them do that. Now that’s a very stealth kind of thing. I talk a lot about that in some of my books and videos. But essentially, one of the ways to do that is by leaving intelligent comments on their social media. If they’re posting something, don’t go Hey, look at me, hey, look at me, call me do this with me. You know, just write a nice intelligent comment and it If they see you on there enough, don’t go too much. It’s it’d be the equivalent over over texting somebody, just, you know, being there on occasion and say something smart. And then eventually somebody go, Hmm, this person smart. I wonder who they are. And they click on your thing. And they go, Oh, I think I’ll follow them. Oh, nice artwork. Well, I think I’ll keep track of it. Scott Jones told me one time that he has a dummy email address, and he uses it to keep track of artists and to see what they’re up to. And you know, usually when you first tune in that, you know, they don’t have a good portfolio, they maybe do one out of 10 good paintings. And so you keep an eye on these artists over the three, four or five years to see if they get better, they get consistent and so on. And then if they do, you know, they might be tracking you quietly and secretly. So that’s something. Remember people want to do business with successful people. It’s the old rule of you know, how do I get successful? How do they wanted me to be successful, but how do I get successful and the answer is easier than most realized. galleries You’re drawn to big names, they want the best artists, they want the artists with the big names who are going to sell the most art, the ones who are in the most demand. And the best way to get a big name is to advertise. Now you can spend a lifetime doing shows and getting recognition and and all of that other stuff, getting articles about you. And that’s really important, you should do that. But the problem is that even if you let’s say there were five art magazines, you probably can’t get in all five of them in the same year, because they don’t want to do the same thing everybody else did. And they’re not going to get one story a year. You’re not going to get one story sometimes every two or three years, unless it’s paid for play. And that’s when when magazines are selling their articles, which is a no no as far as I’m concerned. But people do it all the time. Anyway, the idea here is you want to be seen and recognized and so buy ads, and you could buy ads and we have found and research has supported the fact that people think that ad campaigns content in an art magazine is equally as good as article content because they’re there to look at beautiful paintings. And so your ad is getting you seen more and more and more and more, the more you repeat it, the more you’re seeing, the more your name grows, the more that other people start talking about you, the more you get invited into other places. And so advertising is fast, editorial is slow. So I think that this is a really great strategy. I’ve used it my whole life and it’s very effective. And it’s a great way to get noticed a lot and get things done fast. And of course, galleries will be drawn to people who are supporting themselves in advertising because they’re going hey, this, this person believes in themselves. I’m going to watch what they do and plus they’re seeing your work and they’re starting to like your work. Next thing you know you get invited in. Also once you’ve built your brand, you can command higher prices and that just continues to grow, the more your brand grows. Hope this helps. Anyway, that was the art marketing minute.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-09-23T09:34:49-04:00October 19th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 37

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how to get your website and social media presence noticed; and how to know when it’s time to find an art dealer (and how to do so).

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 37

 

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
Here is a question from Ginger box. I don’t know where Ginger is from. Ginger says I have no idea how to get people to see my paintings on my website or on Instagram. I see some people with thousands of followers but I have no idea how to reach that many. How can I get my art noticed on my website and Instagram? Well, ginger, I have a saying and the saying is tactics without strategy fall on deaf ears. What that means is that unless you have a clear purpose and maybe you do a clear purpose or clear direction for your messaging Everything will be cloudy and your response rates will go down, you won’t get the followers you want. So I’d like to ask you why now you’re not here to answer the question. But why do you want them to see your paintings? What actions do you want them to take? Are you trying to sell paintings? Are you trying to get them to friend you? Do you want them to join your blog? Do you want them to visit your website so you can capture their email address? Each of those would be a different strategy. And you want to have one clear strategy that you want to accomplish with whatever it is you’re trying to do, whether it’s instagram or facebook or something else, because the strategy you use will be more on track? depending the answer to your question varies depending on the strategy. So if you want to sell paintings, a great strategy would be to get them to come to your website, of course, not just to see paintings, but more importantly, so you can communicate with them about other things that you’re doing. And that’s why you want to get their email address and so you got to get them to give you their email address and you got to create something and incentivize people To get them to come there, we use things like 240 plein air tips, and people come and get those. And that way we have their information so we can contact them and tell them about all the cool stuff we’re doing. All success is based on repetition. And so people need to hear your message seven to 10 times and Whatever method you know, sometimes it’s on Instagram or Facebook, sometimes it’s an email, sometimes it’s something else. But you want to get seven to 10 impressions in a fairly short period of time. And most people will visit a website one time and they’ll never return again. Once they’ve looked around. They’re thinking, well, I’ve seen it they don’t think like well, I’ll go back and see what’s new. You got to kind of get them to do that by other things. So what you can do is once you get them to your website, get their email, then you can ask them if they want to opt in for your newsletter or for something else you’re going to do and if you can get them to provide that or even a mail address that You can send them, a free ebook, you can send them a free book it send them different things. And it’s that repetition that really sells product if that’s what you’re trying to do. Now, my art marketing at a box product does this. It’s very effective. And it really forces repetition. It’s all done for you. It’s all pre written. It’s all scheduled. And so you have something to do every single month. And if you follow the strategy that really works effectively, people tell me they’re doubling and tripling their sales from it. So I think that the idea of repetition is really important. And you’ve got to define first what your specific tactics are. We use an Instagram guy, and, and this Instagram guy tells us certain things we need to do and don’t need to do and one of the things you need to post something every single day, what you post needs to fit within what people are there for. And so, like he said that people’s response rates go down and they unfriend you or unfollow you very fast. If, for instance, you’re a person who posts a historic painting every day, and then you post a picture of your dog, the minute you post, picture your dog, people go away and they go away forever. So you got to be consistent with whatever it is and make sure that you’re talking about that particular thing. If the goal is to get them to the website, focus on images that create curiosity, get them to want to see the whole image by visiting the website that’s a very effective but rarely use strategy I’ve seen used very effectively.

Eric Rhoads
Next question comes from an anonymous person who says…By the way, we don’t make these up. I don’t know who sent this but… says I tend to be overly shy I find myself unable to reach out and make sales. I work full time. And it’s my lifelong dream to be able to make a living as a full time artist, I entered juried shows and Plein Air Convention or competitions, and I’m a member of a couple of prominent art societies. I know I must persist and that it’s my own self holding holding me back. My questions are at what point is it more beneficial to find an art dealer to sell your work rather than going it alone? And how do you know what to look for an art dealer to find a reputable one, so as to not be taken advantage of, well, it’s a, I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff here for you, my friend. And the first thing is, this is kind of like one of those. I don’t know how to describe this. It’s like you, it’s a lot harder to get an art dealer if you’re not famous. And it’s like, how do I get famous if I don’t have an art dealer, it’s kind of one of those endless loop kind of thing, there, there will be come a time in your career that once you’re selling it off and your work is, is selling well that you’re going to want an art dealer. But getting one early on isn’t easy. Now I talk a lot about how to get them in my various products, my videos and so on. But, it’s not easy. Then. Here’s the Another thing I’d like to say, and you’re not gonna like my answer, I’m sorry. And I don’t want to offend anybody. But artists should not typically shift the responsibility their career to somebody else, like a gallery. The reason is that you have no control. And if they fail, you fail. Now, I’m fine with having art galleries. And in some cases, I’m fine with even in exclusivity with an art gallery, if the relationship is fruitful enough, and if you have somebody who is really truly a professional, that’s not likely to be going out of business, but every business no matter how good they are, has fluctuations of good and bad weeks or months or years. And it it’s fluctuations of local economies or national economies or, maybe they’re a Hawaii gallery, and all of a sudden traffic to Hawaii stops for some reason. So if you’ve got mouths to feed, including your own, you want to have control. So the part you don’t want to hear is you’ve got to get beyond your limiting beliefs. You said you You yourself said you know you have them, you’ve got to get stronger. Now think about this, if we have back troubles, we need to fix the problem. So maybe we go to a doctor or a chiropractor or we say, my back problems are persisting because I need to strengthen my core. So you have to develop those muscles in your core, maybe you’re getting a trainer, maybe you go to the gym and you’re working on it. If you’re in business, including selling art, which is a business, then you have to always be developing new muscles, if you’re in business, you have to have an accounting muscle. You have to sit you have a sales, muscle and marketing muscle, shipping muscle, those kinds of things. And so you got to get really good at a lot of things. That doesn’t change who you are, you’re still an artist at heart. And but, for that moment, you’re flexing that muscle or putting on that hat, for that moment, you have to track your, your financial stuff, you got to do that. You can’t expect somebody else to do that. You can get help. You got to have control, you have a weakness, and you’ve got to overcome it. And if it’s about selling because you’re shy, then you have to overcome that shyness. Don’t let yourself off the hook and give yourself an excuse because you’re shy, step up and overcome it. Even if you, you know, it’s gonna be tough. If you think it’s hurting you, you’ve got to overcome it. And I’m not trying to be rude or insensitive, but shyness is based on lacking confidence. And confidence is about getting better control over your state of mind. Now, I can say this because I used to be painfully shy. I couldn’t stand and talk in front of three people. I would look down at my feet, I’d speak quietly, I did not believe any else. Anyone else wanted to hear anything from me. I now I became a radio DJ at the age of 14. How did I do that? Well, I was talking to a microphone in an empty room. But the minute there were other people in the room. I couldn’t do it. And so I had this alter ego, this other persona. And so I was I knew it was in me, but I couldn’t do it in front of other people. And so one day my mentor said, Look, if you want to accomplish your dreams, you’ve got to overcome your shyness, and he recommended Toastmasters. So I joined. And I hated it. I had to stand and speak in front of 30 people every week, and I was horrified. But every week it got easier and easier and easier. And soon I quit. And I was fairly comfortable. And then one day, I had an opportunity and I had to speak in front of a crowd of thousands of people. And I was so petrified, My hands were sweating, and I was wanted to vomit, and I was, didn’t want to come out and it was really scary. But I got out there and I knew my material, because if you know your material, you have confidence. I knew my material. I had rehearsed it, and I pulled it off. And I want to tell you that I do art marketing bootcamp at the Plein Air Convention every year in front of 1000 or more people and I’m up there for three mornings. in a row for an hour and 15 minutes or something, I rehearse that in my room the night before, I want to make sure I’m confident I don’t want to go in there and wing it. A professional never wings that a professional is always on top of things. So you just have to learn how to be professional, how to be prepared for sales and how to understand it takes some training, get beyond all of this, you can do it. Your real issue here is that you’re getting in your own way. And anytime any of us are getting in our own way, we cannot buy that excuse. , if you’re you’ve put on too much weight and you can’t do something because you’re you put on too much weight. You have no one else to rely on, but yourself to solve that problem. If you have a knee problem or a back problem, it’s your responsibility to go resolve that you know you don’t, you’ve got to find somebody to help you with. In this case, you got to find somebody to help you. I wouldn’t want anyone else making decisions for me in my country. In my my career and and controlling my life and my family, because if your gallery goes under, and you have nothing else going on, you’ve got a problem. But if you have galleries, two or three of them, and you also have some other things going on that is done appropriately for the galleries, so they’re not feeling like you’re undercutting them or doing something sneaky behind their back. Then you have a business and everybody needs a business. You don’t ever want your business relying on a single pillar. Being in one gallery is a single pillar. Think of the Parthenon with one pillar holding it up. That pillar goes down, that top part goes down, right? You need multiple pillars, so you got to learn these things, develop your muscles, and you got to trust me on that. Anyway, hope this is helpful.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-09-04T14:13:25-04:00October 12th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 36

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on the idea of setting out a tip jar while painting in public, and marketing tips for getting into fine art galleries.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 36 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:
Here’s an anonymous question from a listener and I don’t know the name. It came from social media. It says I paint outside a lot, and I get a lot of compliments. But I’m wondering if it would be okay to set out a hat, much like street musicians where it can collect tips. What do you think?

Well, I spent a lot of time in the direct marketing world and they have a saying, test everything. I think it’s well worth trying it and testing it. But keep in mind that if you encourage more viewing of your performance, then it might be disruptive. I test it though I put out a hat, throw some money in it to private so to speak, so that no one wants to be first, right? They want to see that social proof that somebody else has put money in. I’d also try a hat with a sign that says something like I make my living as an artist or I’m a starving artist, anything you can do to help any typical help and try it both ways and see which one works. I think it’s worth trying. Why not? And of course if you want to gather people around And have them watched that’s fine too. You could also put on your side you know paintings are available for sale and of course you could put some out that are for sale if you want to do that. There are really no rules. I think everything should be tried and tested if you’re comfortable with it, as long as it’s ethical.

Now the next question comes from Peter in New York, who says I’d appreciate listening. I appreciate listening to the podcast on YouTube, the as we put it there to any marketing tips for getting into fine art galleries would be interesting. Thank you.

Well, I’m happy to help Peter. We’ve talked about this a lot. We continue to, you might want to do a couple things. First off, listen to some other art marketing podcasts, and also our marketing minute podcast and also go to artmarketing.com where I’ve got a lot of articles and things about this, but the first thing is to put yourself in the shoes of the gallery. What is it they want? What are they trying to do? What do they need, what will make their job easier. They want artists who are going to sell and sell well Who are going to make money for them who don’t sit and take up valuable wall space without selling? So how can you prove to them you’re that artist. Next ask yourself what their life is like. My friend at a gallery in New York is annoyed by all the email and mail and packages he gets from artists soliciting him. Most of it goes in the trash without ever looking. Now he can find artists on his own and he can get referrals to artists. And this looking at all the emails and packages is a giant time suck. So he just doesn’t do it. He just ignores it. Now most artists don’t do their homework. He says that he doesn’t sell any modern or abstract paintings yet more than half of the artists who send in are sending in modern or abstract painting, so it’s just more of a waste of time. So do your homework. I have a whole volume on getting into galleries in my video series and I touch on it pretty heavily in my book, make more money selling your art, but the best thing to do is to get invited to not push yourself now sometimes you can but it can backfire. on YouTube, so somebody too pushy, somebody doesn’t want to deal with you. You need a strategy to get invited in and I go into depth on that in some of my videos. But the bottom line is how can you get them to invite you without ever calling them without ever emailing them? And without ever mailing them a bunch of stuff to make them aware of you ask yourself that question, how could I get them to invite me in? There’s actually a lot of ways Why don’t you sit down and write down six or seven or eight or 10 or 20 ways that get somebody to invite you in without calling, emailing or or mailing? Now if you can answer that question, you’re going to solve the problem. I’ll let you think about that.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected] And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-08-28T15:35:45-04:00October 5th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 35

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares insights on using social media for marketing (even if you avoid social media), and networking tips for freelance artists.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 35 >>>

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:
In the marketing minute I answer your art marketing questions. All you got to do is email me, [email protected] Here’s a question from a YouTube listener who said, I’m a fairly successful artist, I make a good living and I refuse to do social media. For me, it’s a giant waste of time and I’d love to hear your thoughts as to whether or not an artist should engage in any social media at all. Well, it’s not an easy answer because it can be a giant time suck and it’s hard to measure the value unless you do it exactly right, which is something very few people know how to do. Now a lot of people are posting a lot of stuff And posting progress shots and posting their paintings. But I’m not sure that a lot of people are selling a lot of paintings from it once in a while somebody gets a Hey, I want to buy that painting. But there are not very many people who are actually selling a lot of art. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because they’re not doing it properly. I think it can be done properly. I would refine your question a little bit more by asking is not doing it hurting your business, you say you have plenty of business. And if that’s the case, it’s probably not hurting it. But just keep in mind, a lot of people built a business and they have momentum, and then it dries up and it stops suddenly, because they’re not keeping their momentum up. That’s why advertising is important to things like that. But social media can be advertising and there is advertising opportunity there. But it’s a whole different game on social media works very well for things where it’s clicking buy this now, and it’s not necessarily an expensive item. So So clearly, Facebook, Instagram, etc, are mainstream and most people are on it. But does it sell art? Well? Is it gonna get you into more galleries? It might I mean, there are gallery owners who watch and they clearly are paying attention to what people are posting to find out what they, what they’re doing whether or not they’re bringing them in. It’s not automatic, of course. But again, there’s a formula. You know, today, it’s kind of like not being in the phonebook and the old days, you know, when people use phone books, if you weren’t in the phone book or the Yellow Pages, they wouldn’t remember you well. Being on the web is more like being a phone book, of course. And I think having a website is absolutely critical too. And it sends a signal if if you’re not doing it well or if you haven’t updated in 30 years, but anyway, a lot of people will randomly learn about you discover you because someone may have clicked on or commented on your Facebook and then they see that and they you know people pick up on it, but Most artists actually don’t have many collectors following them. Some do. Most of the artists have their friends, fellow artists following which is nice, a nice way to be seen nice way to be social. But it’s not necessarily moving the sales needle, although artists do buy paintings and so that can happen. But you have to know how to do it exactly. And I do hear stories about a few people selling consistently, but not very much. There is one thing to know is there’s a false belief about Facebook, and even Instagram. And that is that we think that everything we post is being seen by all of our followers. Well, on Facebook, only 2% of the people on average, will actually get to see what you post and that’s assuming they see it because they’re scrolling through, they might miss it. If you don’t have good creative, you don’t have good graphics. If you’re not saying something interesting. They might buzz right by it. I do that all the time. I’m flipping through just going fast. So just because it’s somebody’s speed doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be seen. So what you want to do is, of course, if you’re working on business, you want to be in a controlled environment, that’s an environment you control yourself or someone that you know. And trust controls a controlled environment, to some extent would be email, except you can’t control it completely because you might end up on a spam list or you might get no open rates, advertising, you know, things like our magazines, our newsletters, like some of the stuff we produce, obviously controlled environment, it’s, it’s gonna get out to the right people. But you have to, no matter what you’re doing, if you’re using it for marketing, there’s three legs on the marketing stool, and I talked about this in my books in my videos, and that is that you’ve got to have great attention getting content or copy. copywriting is very important headlines are very important. And that’s true on social media too. You’ve got to get people’s attention, you got to have a great graphic. Next, you got to have a great audience. And that is An audience who is the audience that you really need to reach. And then of course, you’ve got to have repetition, any message. In order for people to take action on it usually has to be repeated and seen by that individual eight or 10 times, and sometimes over longer periods of time depending on how much time has passed because we lose memory of certain things when we sleep. And so in a short period of time, you want to be seen 789 10 times in a longer period, it might be 30 4050 times depending on if you’re building a brand or you’re trying to sell something in particular, great content, great copy, great audience and repetition without those things, most marketing will fail. The next question comes from Jan Coby. It does not say where Jan is but she says, I used to paint as a greeting card artists for five years for the leading greeting card company now teach art part time and I’m developing a line of card ideas. I would love to free For other card companies, and share my new ideas, but I don’t know how to proceed. I have a list of greeting card companies and art directors all over the US. And I plan to send them five by seven postcards to my best work for consideration. What’s your best advice for me to find freelance work?

Eric Rhoads 1:04:19
Well, Jan, you must be pretty good. I think that the first thing is to take an inventory of what you already have. You have connections at the big greeting card company. And unless you left on bad terms, maybe they would become your best customer. as a freelancer. Have you thought about that if you open that door? Secondly, you’re probably in touch with a lot of other greeting card designers. And they probably worked for other companies too. And they know former designers they know art directors, maybe ask them the question. Can they make introductions? Can they tell you who they know? My guess that they’re probably not a lot of greeting card companies. I might be wrong, but I don’t think there are hundreds of certainly probably Not thousands. And my guess is that they all have designers on staff or they all use freelancers, one or the other, maybe both. So why would they buy your designs? What’s unique about your designs, you need to come up with a compelling reason to get their attention. This is called strategy. Cease mailing postcards is a tactic, what you put on those postcards and what you’re targeting and who you’re talking to and what your messaging is. That’s strategy, cards or tactics. Now, let’s say there are six to 10 companies and six to 10 art directors. Why send a card? Why not just pick up the phone and call each of them and introduce yourself? It’s only six people. So if you get a no, you can probably ask a couple questions and learn about the likelihood that you would succeed with them long term. And if it were me, I’d start my own card company. Then the key is getting distribution and being able to afford to print your cards but You’re up against some big guns. So why not create something unique and different, like an online greeting card company, make it so that they can order online cards through an app and have them auto mail to the people you want with the messages you want. There are some apps out there that do that kind of thing. I don’t know if they have designs like what you provide, but you could certainly work with apps or you could do it yourself. My rule is that self employed is always better than employed. In other words, you’re controlling your destiny more if you have your own business. So think about that. Now, being a freelancer is having your own business. So that’s a good thing. But you’re also relying on other people. If you can rely only on yourself and your great marketing and your great distribution. Think Big and you can control your own world. Now related to your question about postcards, I love postcards. They’re very effective. Now they’re expensive. They’re not as expensive as other types of mail, but you can probably count on you know, 50 or 50 cents or $1, or card, depending on how many people you’re sending to if you’re sending to 1000. You know, it’s going to cost you 1000 or $2,000 for a mailing. And postcards don’t typically work without what we call repetition. And what I do postcard campaigns, I like to hit people over and over and over again in a few weeks period of time, you know, every week every two weeks twice a week, you will grow on them, people will start paying attention, they won’t respond immediately, but eventually a high percentage of them will respond. Anyway, hope this helps. This has been the art marketing minute.

Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

By |2020-08-27T12:05:39-04:00September 28th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
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