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 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
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 34

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 how to use marketing to make your art stand out from the rest, and ways to protect your art when it’s being sold through a gallery.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6AYd7q3mY&feature=youtu.be

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.

Here’s a question from Justin and Eclair Wisconsin who says how do I stand out? Other than with the quality of my art? How do I get folks excited and enticed to buy my work when there are so many others to choose from? Clearly art marketing success goes away. Beyond the art itself. I’ve sent out announcements to past collectors and their response is non existent?

Well, Justin, there’s a you know, there’s a lot to all of these things. But first off, there’s lots of lots of lots of questions in what you’re saying, I’ll drill down here first, I’m a big quality guy, quality should matter. But sometimes quality is a matter of opinion, right? We’ve all seen paintings that we never understand why they sell or why they get a recognition or why they’re, they’re famous. I won’t mention any names, but I saw a painting by a famous artist the other day, and I thought this is like third grade work, but that’s their thing anyway, so we can’t necessarily understand it. But we do want to do the best quality we know how to do and try to always elevate our quality and try to always learn and get better painting sell because they create emotional responses. Sometimes they stimulate a memory of a childhood or a thought or a place of just fond memories, creating emotional sponses about having an emotional response when you paint it, paint the emotion that you feel and that will help people connect with you. So if you love it, somebody else probably will too. And of course, in my first art marketing video, I talked about the importance of telling stories, and how to tell them stories will help sell paintings. I’ve often attach stories to the backs of my paintings. Give them to the galleries so the galleries can tell the stories, and it helps people connect. There’s four different personality types and some types can see things and will buy immediately. Others need to be nudged. They need a little reassurance or they need stories to help them connect. That’s why salespeople train salespeople are really important because salespeople know how to read customers, get them engaged, ask them questions, talk to them about things without being pushy, you want to be ethical and not pushy. And and they oftentimes will tell stories, but there is a crafting of stories that takes place part reality part fantasy, which I go into in that video, but you start with stories And people will help connect. It’s also true people have lots to choose from. But there could be 1000 paintings in a gallery you could walk in and one will stand out and you are emotionally stuck on it. Now the key then is getting that person who’s emotionally stuck on it to buy it. That’s where some sales training comes in. But quite frankly, it’s just a matter of engaging people getting them to talk about it. Don’t talk to them so much don’t give them a bunch of spiel that makes them want to walk away ask him questions, ask him whether you seem to be interested in that painting. Tell me about it. What what are you seeing in there? Is it stimulating a memory or a thought and get them talking about it that can help and then also good salespeople can direct people to buy our PR marketing success does go beyond art itself. The key to marketing is to create desire is to create exposure sometimes need people need to see things time and time and time again. They need to know you they need to know your brand. They have to feel comfortable with you. All of that ties into it. You’ve got to draw attention to your art to yourself, marketing can be about making it feel important or special or exclusive to. So, announcements oftentimes fall flat, you mentioned announcements, they fall flat, they usually don’t work because usually they’re dull and they’re boring. And they’re all about you. They’re not about the reader. But also you got to keep in mind that you got to find different ways to get these announcements in people’s heads so they can see them, you know, frequency sells things. Repetition sells things. And you want to have the ability to remind people you know, if you send something out a month in advance, and then you know, you get no response, you send it out again and again. I developed a program that I call art marketing in a box, and it’s designed for artists who want to want to become kind of like local superstars and to sell locally, and it has a lot of repetition instruments in it to give you opportunities to be in front of people on a regular basis. Hope that helps.

The next question is from an anonymous reader, understanding why here the person says I’m going through a crazy stressful situation with a gallery not sending my art back to me. They’ve represented me for 19 months without a sale, not come through on their promises and have not sent my art to me when I’ve asked them over a month ago, they have over $20,000 worth of art.

Well, to anonymous, I’d say I’m sorry. I’ve had it happen. I once had my photography in a gallery in Seattle. And the gallery disappeared. I didn’t live in town. I didn’t even know it for a long time. And I lost all my artwork. Interestingly, I was at a cocktail party somewhere, not even in Seattle, and the guy said, you know your name sounds familiar. Were you in a gallery in Seattle? I said, Yeah, a lot years ago, 20 years ago, he said all my brother on that gallery he was looking for you. He said, Give me your address. I’ll get all your artwork back and I got it all back, surprisingly. So sometimes things are misunderstandings. But anyway, to this particular question, there’s a lot to it. But first, I always recommend you have to have a gallery agreement, which states things like what happens if they go back to What happens if you want your artwork back? Who pays for shipping? Who does what? And how is it framed? My gallery has, you know, it has to have, it has to have hooks on the back, it has to be ready, you know that kind of a thing? Secondly, you say you’ve been 19 months without a sale, but do you really know that maybe they sold some and they kept the money and haven’t paid you. Oftentimes galleries will get into the situation where they don’t really know how to manage their money. And so they get some money in they pay their light bill and then they realize, Oh, I can’t pay you and they’re intending to pay you, they get some other money. And then they’ve got their advertising bill. So reputable. reputable. Experienced galleries typically don’t do that. But sometimes new galleries do and they’re well meaning they just get themselves in trouble. They don’t know how to handle their money. So you got to work with them. But you could have somebody Secret Shop to see if your work is hanging. Or you can go on the website and find out that you know, maybe, maybe you can find out if it’s sold, but most importantly is don’t be sneaky, I don’t think you have to be sneaky. there probably was not a sale, but maybe they’re just ignoring you. It’s hard to know. The best is not to sneak around just give it some more time call him a few more times, don’t be angry just mentioned that you feel like things aren’t working out and you’d like to pull out how can we arrange that Don’t be a jerk. Because if you’re a jerk, they won’t want to talk to you. And they might, you might even say, look, if you’ve sold my work and you’re just weren’t able to pay me for whatever reason, we can work something out. But let’s just get this worked out. I want to get the rest of my work out of there. And maybe they’ll talk to you, maybe they don’t. If that doesn’t work, if you’ve gone to the website, your stuffs still up there. They’re still in business. you’ve verified that. You can send a registered letter, maybe having an attorney politely ask them to respond within so many days and don’t make threats. It’s not necessary, but they’ll get the point. And then if that doesn’t work, you can you can go in and make a threat I suppose. That’s why contracts matter. You want to have something in writing You know, if you sue for your work, if you don’t have a contract, you’re not likely to get it. Especially if there’s a bankruptcy. So, got to have a contract. I think that’s the best thing. There’s no reason to be nasty or unbusinesslike you have a reputation to uphold, even if they don’t. So be nice, be civilized. Also, you could drop in and simply say, I’m here to pick up my work. I had a client who owed me $18,000 one time, they wouldn’t pay me they wouldn’t take my calls. I try it and try it and try it. So I got on an airplane, I flew to them. And I went in at eight o’clock in the morning, I said, Hey, I’m here to pick up my $18,000. They said, Well, we don’t have it. I said, Well, I’ve been calling it’s past due. You’ve been, you know, I’m not a bank. I’ve got my payroll, I can’t make and, and I need you to pay me. They said, Well, we can’t. I said, Well, I’m gonna just sit here quietly, and I’ll just wait till you bring me a check. And they said, we’re not bringing you a check. I said, Well, I’ll I’ll sit here all day if I need to. So I sat there all day, till five or six o’clock at night. They’re closing up the office. They said, Sir, you need to leave? I said, I’m sorry. I can’t. They said, well, we’re closing the office. I said, that’s fine. I’ll sleep here. And they said, No, you can’t. I said, Well, why don’t you call the police. And then you can have me removed. And so they got angry, and they went in, they cut the check. And they said, we’ll never do business with you. Again, I said, I understand that. But quite frankly, I don’t want to do business with people who do business this way and don’t pay me. So I got my money. And sometimes that’s what it takes. I’m not suggesting that but sometimes you have to be firm. But be professional where you can be nice, be civilized, you don’t want to do something you’ll later regret. Anyway, that’s the marketing minute. I hope you enjoyed it.

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 |2020-08-21T15:48:15-04:00September 21st, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
Read More

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 33

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 handle it if the gallery representing you isn’t focused on selling paintings, and how we can educate “art voyeurs” to become art buyers at galleries and festivals.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 33 >>>

 

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.

In the marketing minute I try to answer art marketing questions from you. You can email your questions to me [email protected] By the way, there’s a lot of content at artmarketing.com. A lot of ideas for you. So here, this listener said he’d like to be anonymous. I assume it’s a he but I actually I know it’s a here because, I saw his email. And he says, My art is in a new gallery, but the gallery owner is focused on creating her own art. And as far as I can tell, isn’t focusing on marketing the gallery. There are no Facebook campaigns, no ads, no email campaigns, there’s nothing going on. And all the people coming into the gallery are the owners, friends and artists, I’m not seeing a lot of activity. So the first part of my two part question is how do I advise and help this gallery owner, reach out to the local market and help educate them about buying local landscape paintings? And what main steps should she take? I don’t know if the gallery has other than landscape paintings, but the answer is going to be the same no matter what and that is, first off, you gotta you gotta learn marketing and I can help her with that. You can point her to some of my marketing stuff, but I even have a blog for galleries, but I don’t want to be now. Negative so forgive this. But if you own a business, any kind of a business, but especially in this case in art gallery, it cannot be a hobby, or it will fail unless you’re independently wealthy. On the other hand, a gallery that knows how to promote an advertising is more likely to succeed. Now, my gallery works very hard for its artists and for itself, it’s always getting local stories in the newspaper on local websites, it’s always advertising, it’s doing direct mail and social media. They’re really working it they sell a lot of art. As a matter of fact, I sent a piece in and two weeks later, it was gone. They sold it. One of the reasons I selected this gallery is because they’re aggressive. The worst thing is the gallery that does nothing and hopes people will walk in and buy something, but that’s kind of the old days It doesn’t work that way very much anymore. So yeah, there are gallery owners out there that have people walk in and but the traffic is typically not enough. So one gallery I, I know one owner, I know actually makes calls all week long to potential and previous buyers, you have to work it, gallery owners have to work hard. That’s why I say, if you’re in a gallery and you’re in a good one, they’re earning their money, don’t be so worried about paying them their commission, they’re earning it, you know, you don’t want to be the one that’s on the phone all day trying to drum up business do you. Chances are if the gallery owner is serious, she would be doing all these things now. Now maybe she needs to learn them. And maybe you can offer help and suggest that she do some things but the way I would approach it is say, hey, I’ve noticed I’m not seeing a lot of marketing and so on. Would you be willing to let me help you with that? Or would you be willing to let me give you some ideas if she or he says no, then move on. You will spend a lot of time frustrated that they’re not working for you if your paintings are in that gallery. So in that case, If you don’t believe they’re going to work it, move on, because it’s not going to do you any good paintings are going to sit on the wall and not move, you don’t want that. You want a gallery, that paintings are moving off the wall all the time or as much as possible. So this goes to the point about selecting a gallery. We artists think it’s up to them to select us. And to some extent it is because you want to be invited in. I have a whole strategy on that in one of my videos but I tell artists to develop their wish list of galleries that they want to be in and I give them very specific information on how to promote yourself ethically and appropriately to them. But in your target list, you’ve got to do your homework. Is the gallery advertising and are they doing it frequently? are they sending out invitations to shows? you should get on their list. You should get on their email list and find out are they doing a lot of shows? Do they generate publicity? Are they properly working social media and I say properly because most social media strategies are flawed and most of the things that people think they’re doing a social media strategy is not working for them. And they can’t tell. They can’t see because they assume everything they post is getting out there. The reality is only 2%. Now 2% of everything you post, let’s say you have 5000 people on your Facebook, and you post your assuming all 5000 people see it, no 2% see it. It’s not always the same 2% but usually these days, they’re repeating a lot of the same 2% so there’s strategies around that. But the social media advertising can be effective if it’s done right, but it’s just not a matter of pressing boost post. It’s not a matter of doing what everybody else is doing. There’s a whole new realm of technological developments and new ways of making social media work. We’re doing a lot of it. And we’re using some experts to help us with that. Most people don’t know about those kinds of things. But when interviewing a gallery asked them about their process, how do they sell Who does the selling? How do they present their work to buyers? What happens when somebody walks into the gallery? How do they get visitors? How much is sold online? How much selling do they do via the phone? And how often are they selling artwork? If they say, well, we’re selling one or two pieces a month, you have to ask, Well, how are they paying the rent? Well, if they’re expensive pieces there, they can pay the rent. But if they’re inexpensive pieces, they’re eventually going to be out of business and you want to hang with winners, you know, you could be friends with people and I have a lot of friends that are not necessarily successful at what they do. They’re still friends and I love them. But I’m not going to put my career in their hands. I’m going to put my career in my own hands and in the hands of people who are going to succeed and that’s what you want to do. So do your homework. Your second question says, I find that many art lovers who attend art galleries and festivals are art voyeurs who visit as a form of entertainment instead of for the purpose of purchasing art. How do we educate this fan segment and convert them to buyers? I think your term art voyeurs is interesting. You know, I used to be an art lawyer, I would go to art shows because I liked art. And once in a while I’d buy a piece. I never ever went intending to buy a piece. And I don’t think most people go intending to buy a piece. They go to see things to see what they like. And if they see something they like, they might buy it. I have been literally to hundreds of art openings. And I can tell you that a good gallery can convert what you call art voyeurs into art buyers, and a poor gallery doesn’t know how to do it. And I think it’s about the gallery and their sales process, the training they give their people and how they engage people. Clearly, you start by inviting past buyers, known buyers, people who have spent money in the past because you want them they’re spending money again, second, you target people who have money and you can Find people through various lists. You can advertise in targeted places affluent magazines. For instance, my magazine. If you’re thinking a national strategy, my magazine Fine Art connoisseur is the most affluent art collector magazine in existence. It’s got billionaires and multimillionaires and no it doesn’t have tons and tons of them. It’s got probably three 400 billionaires and 1000 multimillionaires. How many do you need to buy a painting? Really? I have one gallery tells me every time he advertises he sells an average of $80,000 worth of artwork because he’s selling pieces that are expensive. Now that doesn’t work for everybody but there are places that you can go for affluent people. And so you want a gallery that’s working every show, all their sales people are they’re working, they’re engaging customers appropriately, asking them questions, engaging them about art, and they gently nudge someone into a decision. Now, other galleries I know are not working it. They sit and they drink with their customers, they socialize, they’re having a good time. But they’re not doing any selling. They’re just hanging out with people and you need to do some selling. And that doesn’t mean you have to be inappropriate or nudge people too hard or be obnoxious. There’s very appropriate ways to do it happens all the time. And and if you go to a good gallery, and you observe how they do it, you’ll see that these people are pros and they know how to do it. So don’t do it the wrong way. Don’t be pushy or obnoxious. Everybody though, needs a little bit of a nudge. You know, sometimes they just need to be kind of help realize that they love it and they want to take it home. Chances are these art voyeurs you call are coming to the gallery that you described, and chances are, they’re probably not serious about buying, but they can get nudged into it. The gallery that you described doesn’t sound like they’re serious about selling. So they’re going to be serious about it when they can’t pay their rent But by then it’s too late, of course, because, you know, when you’re once you’re out of money, you’re out of money. And it’s hard to fix that. So you got to be proactive and get ahead of this. So it’s important for everybody, whether you’re an artist, whether you’re a gallery, whether you have a business, it’s important to understand the principles of selling and marketing. Selling in marketing can make the difference. I was in a meeting today, and we were talking about a strategy that would make certain things that we do even bigger, and it’s all always about selling and marketing. So keep that in mind. 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.

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 |2020-09-16T12:05:16-04:00September 14th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
Read More

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 32

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 why you might want to reconsider writing exhibition proposals to get into art galleries, and how to build your own mailing list.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 32 >>>

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 from things you send in email your questions to Eric at art marketing.com. Here’s a question from Carolyn Hancock. It doesn’t say where Carolyn is from, but she says Eric, I’d love to get your feedback on writing an exhibition proposal. I’ve created a body of work that should be exhibited as a whole For the full impact, what is the best way to introduce today’s galleries or museums or nonprofits? Thanks for all you do for supporting artists. But Carolyn, I gotta tell you, I’m not big on writing proposals. I got it. I have spent so much of my life writing proposals and having them rejected and not having them even read in some cases, that I decided I’m just not doing proposals anymore. I think it’s a big giant, waste of time. Now, there are certain environments where proposals are necessary. You know, like if you’re doing proposals for a grant or something, absolutely got to do it. It all seems very formal to me, but I like to think that we tend to hide behind email and proposals and PDFs and things like that. The reality is that if you want to get something done, it’s best to either get face to face or phone to phone. Let me explain why. Let’s imagine for a second that you’re a busy gallery or music Director, you get hundreds of emails a week. everybody’s asking you the same question. Everybody wants to be in your gallery. You know, gallery owners tell me they get 1500 2000 unsolicited artists who are reaching out every every week or every month to try to get into their gallery. Well, you don’t want to do what everybody else is doing. You want to be different. And so if you’re busy, I was with a gallery director. We were having a meeting and while we were doing meeting, he was opening up glancing in and throwing things in the garbage. And I said, What is that he said, you know, artists proposals people have sent, he said, and I get 150 emails a day. He said, I if I spent all my time doing this, I never get anything else done. So to them, it’s, you know, it’s important, but they have other things they have to do too. So if you’re busy and you have to sort through things or you have your assistant if you have one sort through things. Well, what’s left is about 2% to get their attention, if you open your own email, and your goal is to get Through it fast, you’re looking for certain keywords or clues. So you can hit Delete fast, right? I get dozens of proposals. Every month, I get proposals for articles. I don’t hit Delete in those cases, I just forward them to my editors because I don’t make those decisions they do. It’s up to them. And I get proposals for tech stuff. Sometimes I forward it, sometimes I delete it, you know, I get probably dozens of people every month say, you know, we want to do SEO for you or we want to build websites for you. I already know we have that covered. So I just hit delete, I don’t even respond. I can’t possibly respond to everybody. I’m not trying to be a jerk. But these are people who are coming unsolicited. If I know somebody, I’m always going to respond anyway. People are looking for ways to eliminate work. And so if you’re one of the many proposals coming in the door, chances are they’re not going to read it or if they read it, they’re going to read the first headline and if the headline doesn’t grab their attention, they’re gone. So I scan things that come through. So guess what never happens though. Nobody ever calls me. It’s very rare. Once in a while people will email and ask for an appointment once it all somebody will call. And sometimes I give appointments to people that way but it’s got to pique my interest, you got to get my attention, you got to get their attention. And if not, you’re not going to get an appointment. Now I’m not trying to sound difficult. It’s just that there’s a lot going on and I can’t do it all. So you gotta kind of pick and choose. So what you say in your email or your headline or your subject line has to pique interest if you are going to do a proposal. You need something in that top headline in that proposal that’s going to sound exciting and get them interested. And it shouldn’t be about you. It should be about them. In other words, what is this going to do for me this is going to draw crowds. This is going to get a lot of attention. This is going to get national publicity Look at what it’s going to do for them always shift this to what’s in it for them, or what’s in it for me, right? So don’t make things about you make things about them. If you can get a meeting, then you can sell yourself on your idea and you can overcome objections when they come up. I was at a meeting the other day and somebody brought up a couple of objections. I said, I’m glad you mentioned that, because here’s why. That’s not a problem. And then they went, Oh, yeah, okay. But you can’t do that when they’re reading a proposal. And most people are not going to give you the time and attention to call you and ask you those questions. They’re just going to move on. So tailor your presentation to people’s needs to so you want to start by asking them, what are they looking for? What are their needs, if you’re doing gallery shows what kind of shows you looking for? What do you want them to accomplish? And then when you’re doing your proposal, you can say what you mentioned that you really need something that’s going to generate a lot of publicity. Here’s why this is going to generate a lot of publicity. See, that’s how it works. selling yourself In person is the best way you don’t have to take any sales courses. You just have to be yourself and be willing to tell people what’s on your mind. But always listen first, remember, you got two ears, and one mouth, use two ears and listen, stop and listen and then adjust your course as you go. And of course, if you know someone who will introduce you in, you’ve got an 80% chance of increasing the likelihood of getting a meeting. So I hope this all helps.

The next question came up in our figurative art convention marketing sessions. It says the question is about how and why to build your list. Well, what would your life be like if you owned your own media? Let’s say you’re me. Let’s say you own Fine Art connoisseur magazine and plein air magazine and realism today and American watercolor and fine art today and Plein Air today or the Plein Air convention of the figure convention, or the video companies, streamline and Liliedahl and creative catalyst. All of those are platforms and their opportunities to promote. So if you could advertise your own in your own media for free, it’s a real benefit, right? Well, I can do that. Other people pay a lot of money to be in my media, but I can advertise my own stuff for free because it’s my company promoting my company, right? So what if you could do that? Well, building a list is like having your own media. When you have a mail list and email list and and by the way, both are a good idea. You can email them or mail them as much as you want. Of course, you want to be respectful. You don’t want to over mail, you want to be careful about that. You want to make sure they’ve opted in to receive things, but you can do anything you want. So now you can email things like new painting announcements, workshop announcements, newsletters and things Like that, whereas you could still buy advertising and you still should buy advertising. But this is a way to expand on it. So I like to say, look for everything you do to drive one particular initiative and that’s building your list. I try to do that very much. on your website, you should have something that makes them join your list on your social media talk about it, you should have business cards to talk about it. You should have it on the signature of the bottom of your email talks about it on your you know, everything that you do talk about build my list. Well, the way to do that is to create an incentive product. Let’s say you want to do the 20 best paintings you’ve ever done or 25 best paintings, you can say I’ve got an ebook of the 25 best paintings I’ve ever done in the stories behind them, takes you 10 minutes to create it. Make a nice cover, put it on your website, they click on it says you know free, just enter your email address. Now you have the ability to to email them and and talk to them. And this is the way to build customers for whatever it is you’re doing. And if you want something very specific, build an E book that’s specific to that. So if you wanted something for painters, and something different for collectors have a different subject for each and that collectors will go with the one subject, the painters will go with the other. Of course, we’re finding today, a lot of collectors are learning to paint, so you might get them to do both. Anyway, I hope that helps. But having your own media is a beautiful thing. So if you can, you could do that. That’s a great thing. And the nice thing about email is that you can control it a little bit more, right, you can mail it now, there are things called open rates. And so if you get like a 18 or 15% open rate that’s considered pretty good. Not everybody’s going to open every email. And so you know, that’s in a social media only 2% of the people on your newsfeed ever see what you’ve put out there. Only 2% so if you’ve got 10 thousand people, you’re getting to 200 people. And we all think that everybody sees everything, but it’s just not true. So this is something you can control a little bit more. Now you got to have the speaking of headlines and subject lines, you got to have powerful headlines and subject lines on your email subject, and on your headline because if those don’t draw people in, then nobody’s gonna pay attention to it, so you’ve got some homework to do. Anyway, I hope that’s been helpful. I want to remind you that I’ll be doing art marketing three mornings live at the upcoming plein air convention and also the upcoming figurative art convention. It’s kind of fun to do live because we can interact and you can ask your questions. So come and join us. Anyway, that is today’s 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 |2020-09-08T09:07:03-04:00September 7th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
Read More

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 31

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 making prints of your artwork, and how licensing works to help you make more money from your art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 31 >>>

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 to give me a question or two, Tell me who you are your name and your town and email me [email protected] Today, two questions come from the same person Brent in northern Utah. He says I paint really, really small, often five by seven or less with watercolor pencils. I also have painted a lot of digital paintings using art rage, which is a an app. Because of the nature of my original pieces. I believe the best way to monetize these would be to sell prints in this way. I could even be scaled up if I desire. So my main question for you is, what’s your best advice on selling prints? Well, Brent, it’s an interesting question. It’s one that comes up a lot. A lot of artists talk about selling prints. Selling your originals is an option of course. But In most cases, the smaller you paint, the smaller the price, you may or may not get a lot of money for smaller paintings, it’s hard to know I haven’t seen your work. But exceptional work will sell no matter what the question is always the price point. The nice thing about your medium of pencils and painting small as you can scale it up. Or if you’re painting and art rage an app, you can scale it up to almost any size print. The print market can be tricky. And prints are oftentimes a question for artists But usually, because they don’t want to devalue their originals by making prints some fear that it’s going to make the buyer feel like it’s less of a painting if there are more prints out there. But I quite frankly think it’s the opposite. I think if you have a couple of really good paintings, I wouldn’t do it with every one. They have a couple of really good paintings, you make prints of those. You’re ahead of the game. If you’re the buyer, because you have the original and of course others can have a print but it’s not the original and of course it can be signed and numbered if you want to do that. So I don’t think it hurts you. And of course, the question becomes where do you distribute and sell these prints, you do it online, you do it in a gallery. There are lots of online sites willing to carry your images and, and print on demand. And you want to vet out their quality before picking them, because you want to see if they’re going to get your colors right, they’re going to do nice paper and so on. And dig around till you find somebody to do that. Now, you can also work with a print distributor. Some of these companies sell to galleries or hotels, or even places like Target, they mass produce them. So they’re not necessarily printing them out as you play prints, but they’re mass producing, printing them. And then they pay you a per print fee or royalty of some kind. It’s not a lot of money, but it can add up if you get a lot of volume. And of course, if you’re at a place like Target, they may sell thousands or maybe 10s of thousands. So lots of these companies can also do licensing your work.

I see your second question. Here is the licensing the images, but you have no idea how that works. Well licensing is a big industry for those who don’t understand it. Let’s start by saying that if you have a brand name, let’s say it’s Coca Cola, coke will license their image. And you’ll see it on products. You know, if you walk into any gift shop, you might see nostalgic Coca Cola posters with Santa Claus. Or you might see the polar bear is a stuffed toy. They don’t make all those products, they licensed them. And people who make products go around and find people who have interesting names that they can logo put their their logos on their products. So a friend of mine does this with prints or not prints but with paintings. So he has a deal with a major licensing firm who sells his license of his images. And they represent him at the big annual licensing conference where people shop for brands for their products. In his case, his paintings go on calendars and mouse pads and coffee mugs and you name it t shirts. He gets a percentage of everything sold. It’s negotiated for him by the firm, and they keep a percentage for doing it for him. And he’s making a few extra thousand dollars a month, which is not so bad. Some years are good. Some years are not good depends on how things do you know, and art styles can be cyclical. But he’s been consistent for about 20 years, getting money every single month from paintings that he could have only sold one time and so this way he gets more money out of his paintings. So I think it’s a good thing but you want to find a professional licensing firm that’s going to be trustworthy. Do it all for you because trying to do this on your own is not a good use of your time these people know their market. Well, I hope this has been helpful. This has been 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 |2020-08-14T15:05:52-04:00August 31st, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
Read More

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 30

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 “building celebrity” can propel your art career, and how to get better results from your mailing list.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 30 >>>

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 0:35
Here’s a question from Francis in Dallas. Eric in your book you talk a lot about building celebrity. Isn’t that a bit much I mean, artists are not really celebrities. Well Francis gets your point and I respect it. But consider this a lot of artists become celebrities Some are even national celebrities are gonna think about Norman Rockwell or and Andrew Wyeth are possible Or Salvador Dali. You know, and there are times a lot of people became very famous. I mean even Thomas Kincade became very famous, right? but many are celebrities of sorts just in the art world like there there are a lot of people in the art world who know who Richard Schmidt is, or CW Mundi, or Katherine Stats or Casey Baugh, or Jeremy Lipkin. You know, those people are stars in our world in the world of collectors. So they’re kind of celebrities, right? I think so. People love to associate with celebrities or what they consider to be the best of the best. And when you’re well known, you’re kind of considered the best of the best and that can help your career because you don’t have to explain who you are, or tell your story. It makes everything so much easier. It eliminates friction at the gallery, eliminates friction at sales. I mean, you know, in the art world and you say, Richard Smith, everybody’s going I really know who he is right? I’d love to own one of his paintings. That’s the effect that you want and galleries know it. And people, as a result will pay better prices. Typically, they’ll want to own something of yours because it makes them feel connected to you. And of course, because you’re well known, they respect that even more. And though Yeah, it shouldn’t really be that way. Because we should be known for just the quality of our paintings, but the quality of our paintings helps make us more well known and celebrity, right. So that’s kind of how it works. Anyway, maybe the word celebrities a little too strong, but you could even become a local celebrity or local recognized artist anyway in your community. And you can really build that to your advantage. I know lots and lots of artists who are really well known in their community or their region or their state. And like Rick Wilson, a friend of mine in Indiana, I mean, he he had CW Mundi, really well known around Indiana, Rick’s becoming more and more known CW has been known for a long time. And so in Indiana, they’re even more famous than, than most and yet. courses, some of them are becoming famous or have been famous in the national scene as well. So that’s pretty cool. Anyway, that stuff all helps your career paves an easier path for you to sell more paintings, and get more invitations to events over time get invited into galleries. And it’s worth considering. Now that celebrity is built through a number of ways. And that can be built through marketing, public relations, advertising, in our marketing in a box product, we have a system that kind of teaches people how to do that kind of stuff and how to you know, just get out there and get known, get in front of the right charities and get invited to those things and get highlighted at those things. So that’s anyway, a little touch on Celebrity.

Eric Rhoads 3:39
The next question is from Kimberly, in Chico, California. Kimberly says, I have a mailing list and I’m pretty good about sending things to my list. And I have been for about 10 years. But I’m not getting the kind of response and results that I used to get and I’m not really sure why do you have any ideas? Well, Kimberly first I’ve been to Chico, California. In fact, there’s an old department store, downtown Chico that is now an antique store. At least it was when I was there. And I bought a painting in there for about 20 bucks. Maybe it was even I think it was 10 bucks. It was a kind of an old frame. It’s very dark and had a big tear in it. And of course, everybody just ignored it. And I could kind of see through it and it ended up when I cleaned it up and fixed it. It turned out to be a really beautiful Hudson River school painting. I’m not sure who did it. It’s not signed, it’s probably not worth a lot of money, but it’s worth more than 20 bucks and it’s beautiful. So to get to your question, a couple of things come to mind. The first thing is messaging. Whatever you are sending, has to be wanted or has to be entertaining. And if it’s male or it’s email, it’s got to cut through the clutter, get them to pay attention and needs to be useful and interesting or helpful. So you got to shake it up once in a while. If you have The same stuff, the same format you’ve been sending all the time, you’re not going to get people paying attention. So shake it up, make a difference, change the logo, change the look, make the content different, do some different things to get attention. And that will help people pay more attention to it. I get emails from, oh, gosh, lots of artists who send me their newsletters, and some of them are really great. And I opened them every time and some of them are really boring. And I delete them without opening them. Why? Because I know which ones are great and which ones are boring. And the same people will know that about you. So don’t be boring. So Kimberly, the problem though, is probably not just being boring or maybe not getting attention. The most likely thing has to do with a management of your mail list. And this could be your direct mail list, or your email list. There’s a concept called attrition. Let’s say you have 1000 names on your mail list. And let’s say that each year 10% of those thousand names, which is 100, people will move, die, drop off your list, or maybe not be in the market anymore. Maybe it’s because they have too many paintings and they’re retiring. That could be an average year. So for every year that you have not replaced those hundred names, you’ve lost names. So for instance, over five years, you would have lost 500 people. And you gotta have at least 500 more people on the list just to make the list right. And it’s, it can’t just be people, it’s got to be people who are likely to be buyers. You don’t want non buyers you don’t want people who aren’t interested in art. Yeah, you might be able to convince a few but you want to look for the people that are the closest person to a sale, which is somebody who loves art buys art. Maybe you met him at an art show, that kind of thing. I don’t know if you ever saw my art marketing bootcamp videos, but one of them I talk about, I show this big picture of an elevator and it’s not an elevator and escalator and it’s an up and down, right? There’s one big row going down, there’s one big row going up. And the point is, is that there are always people in and out of the market and in and out of your list. Let’s say somebody inherit some money, you know, Uncle Charlie dies, and they get a few thousand bucks. And they’ve had their eye on something they love for a long time. They get that thousand bucks burn in a hole in their pocket, guess where they’re going to go? They’re going to go out there. That’s why advertising needs to be continuous, not on and off. Because you want to submit ideas about paintings or your products in the eyes of people who are maybe saving themselves. Well, maybe someday maybe they even know they inherited the money but they can’t buy it yet to lawyers send the check. Or maybe they get a better job or they get a bonus or something like that. So that’s people coming into the market. People going out of the market, they retire, they lose a job. They have Have a financial crisis, the stock market crashes and they don’t have any money anymore. And they may never return. Right? So galleries experienced this all the time and galleries know typically that you have to keep advertising because advertising brings new people into your list. And they’re if you’re advertising in the right places, they’re qualified people, right? So anyway, you always have to be mining for new names, not just names, but names of people who love art. And typically people who have the money to buy it, you know, you don’t want to it’s it’s okay to send your newsletter to somebody who doesn’t have the money, but they’re not going to buy anything. So just keep that in mind. Always be looking for new people. And people ask me, should I buy a list? Now typically, not because typically, you want to build your own list, it’s better that way. And there you know, there’s expenses associated with it. But you can be collecting cards and advertising and collecting leads. You want to make sure that everybody who comes to your website has a chance and an incentive. To sign up for your website, that’s really important. Anyway, 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 |2020-07-31T12:19:04-04:00August 24th, 2020|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments
Read More
Go to Top