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 know if your website is up to par in order to effectively sell your art, and understanding why collectors might pass on your work even when they compliment it.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 50 >

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
Thank you Jim Kipping and in the marketing minute I try to answer your questions. I do answer them. I don’t know if I answered him well, but you can email your questions to me [email protected] And here’s a question from Robert, in Norfolk, Virginia, who says I know it’s important to have a website. So I do have a simple one. But how do I know if it’s good enough? Well, the way you know that, Robert, it’s a great question. You can’t know if it’s good enough unless you know what its purpose is and when What the purpose is going to use and how it’s going to serve you. So you need to know how you will measure success, right? So some websites are there to get your work seen others are there to sell work. Others are there to gather names of potential customers, there’s a lot of different strategies you can take. But you want to start with your goal in mind. All right, so if I’m building a website, what do I want to do? I’ll in my particular case, I wanted to communicate information and then I’ve got to make sure that I’m gathering names and so I, I oftentimes offer a free incentive of some kind. So somebody has a reason to, to offer me their email address and they can get on my newsletters or whatever I’m offering at the time, but you want to start with a goal in mind and then determine what is success now if I have a website and I get no visitors, it’s not a success. How many visitors Do I need and want How many? How easy is it to find my stuff? How is how many names do I want how you know what kind of sales Do I need or you know what’s considered Good sales from your website, you know, if it’s costing you money, and it’s not bringing you any value that’s of no value to you really, you know, it’s kind of like imagined, in the old days, we had what we call phone books, you probably remember those some of you do. And, you know, there were, you know, three inches thick in a city like New York, probably, you know, six inches thick of phone book with thousands, 10s of thousands, millions of names in it, and addresses. And, you know, it doesn’t do you any good to be in the phone book unless somebody’s looking for you. And so you’ve got to find a strategy to make them want to look you up. There are literally probably hundreds of millions, if not billions of websites now. And so the question is, how do you get them to find you? What’s your discovery tool? How are they going to find you? What What do you want them to do when they get there? What actions do you want them to take? So I can’t really answer your question about how, whether or not it’s good enough, because good enough is defined by your goals. And so you first got to start out with your goals, then.

Next question comes from Katrina Gorman in San Antonio, Texas. Katrina has sent us a whole bunch of questions. We like her a lot, because we like questions. Here’s one of them that she sent. And she says, if people tell you over and over, they love your work. But you notice these same people are buying work from another artist, what’s a good way to find out? Why, or should you not even worry about it? Well, Katrina, I think first off, people are generally good. And they mean to compliment you because they, it may not be an expression of interest, they may they may genuinely like your work, but they don’t want to own it. Or maybe they’re complimenting you a lot, because maybe they’re thinking you’ll give it to them. I mean, that could be possibility. But liking something and wanting to own it or different things. Owning art is very special, something that speaks to really only just one person, if there’s one original, it’s for one person, so sometimes it needs to find the right buyer. Now, I wouldn’t overthink this, you know, appreciate the compliments, pay attention. If the complements are over the top or come in frequently or a lot on a particular piece, because then you can kind of take it to the next level. So you can find a way to ask, you know, maybe so you don’t put them on the spot. You don’t you don’t have to say, Hey, would you like to own that? Because they might, you know, they might not know how much it would cost or be embarrassed if they can’t afford it or whatever. But you can say, you know, the old remember, I’ve got a friend who is asking for me kind of thing. You know, you could say, Do you know anybody who would love to own it, I’d like to find it a loving home. And if you happen to know somebody who would love to own it, you know, I’m trying to get, you know, certain amount of money for it. And you know, if you know, or you might say, you know, you you seem to like the slot, do you have interest in it? And if you do, tell me what you’re thinking about in terms of what you’re thinking about paying, you know, the reason to do that is because they could be thinking about $1 and you could be thinking about $100 or they could be thinking about 200 And you could be thinking about $100 and so the nice thing to do is just to say you know what, what have you got in mind? And if there’s a big gap then that’s gonna make it a little uncomfortable you can say wow, you know I was hoping to get $100 and you’re only willing to pay $5 you know please understand I need to make a living on this and so you know if you want to come up a little bit maybe I can come down a little bit but please know that you know, I’ve got to get a certain range and I’m sure you understand that this is how I make my living. So anyway, you can keep it third party by saying you know if if you know somebody who thinks it’s a fit, you know, that kind of thing or you can just be honest and say hey, you know, what are you thinking I noticed you bought some other art you seem to be interested in this but you haven’t. You haven’t expressed interest in buying it if you want to buy it that’d be cool with me we can figure that out. You know, sometimes just straight out upfront, be honest as possible is probably the best way. A lot of people play games. I don’t like to play games anyway. I’m paying attention to signals as well. important though, you know, if people if you’re in a gallery setting, and people go back and look at it a couple times, if they’re talking about it, or if they’re looking deeply, you know, look for things that they’re showing signals of interest. And then you can engage them, you know, maybe you don’t say, hey, do you want to buy it? That’s a little awkward, but you can say, Hey, does that painting remind you of anything? And maybe they’ll say, yeah, when I was a kid, there was this mountain with a river going through, you know, that kind of thing. And so you can look for ways to deepen that conversation. So they tell you that you said, Well, tell me a little bit more about that, you know, well, I really had this wonderful childhood, you know, when I visited my grandparents, and that house in the painting reminds me of my grandparents really tell me more and you know, so they’ll, they’ll deepen, and as they deepen, they will tend to deepen their commitment and interest and talk themselves into it because sometimes people just need to talk themselves into something you can’t ever talk anybody into anything. Don’t even try. It is not it’s not in in your DNA. It’s not an My DNA you know, I might, if I see somebody is interested in something, I might highlight something, but I’m not, you know, I can’t twist somebody’s arm and talk them into something. I mean, you don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to be talking people into things that they don’t want.

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

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

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 what to say to a potential buyer to keep them engaged, and where to start if you’re brand new to marketing your art.

Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 46

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
All righty. Well, in the marketing minute I try to answer your questions. There are no stupid questions, just stupid answers and those would be coming from me anyway. Just to Tell me your name and your town and submit it by email [email protected] All right. Here’s a question from Katrina Gorman, from San Antonio, Texas who asks What advice can you give to help follow up conversations with a collector or a potential buyer? If somebody is interested in your work? And they say they need to think about it. When should you follow up with them? And how many times are too many to follow up without feeling like you’re bugging them? If you can’t reach them? Well, Katrina, you’re not gonna love what I have to say here. I’m sorry, I’m you kind of hit a nerve. I know that you’re This is going to hurt but when some when you’re approached by somebody, let’s say you’re in a store and somebody approaches you and says, Can I help you? What do you say? Just looking? So what do you say when you want to not buy something? You say? I need to think about it. That is a story. Doc term, we all use it, I need to think about it. You don’t want to lie to somebody, you don’t want to hurt their feelings. And so you say, I need to think about it. Well, those words are the kiss of death. When you hear those words, you are almost dead in the water. I say almost because I’m going to teach you some moves. But anyway, if they need to think about it, they’re probably not interested. Now, they might be but maybe they don’t want to be pressured. Maybe they do want to think about it. But usually, it’s a way to escape. Now, I’m going to show you a couple of things that are effective. It’s going to take some courage you ready for this? Katrina? Well, first off, you say this, then I’m going to give you a little roleplay here. So it’s you, you say, Are you interested in this piece of art? And they say, Well, I don’t know. I need to think about it. And then you say, Well, tell me about it. Tell me about it. And what are you thinking? And they’ll say something, all right. So the idea is just say when they say I need to Think about it. So well, they’ll tell me about it. And and that’s a tool you can use. And by the way, you keep somebody talking for an hour by that you can say, you know, tell me about it. Tell me more. So they say, you know, let’s say, I need to think about it. You say, tell me about, well, I’m not exactly sure you know where I would hang it on, you can say, hang it, tell me more. And they go, Well, you know, it’s kind of thinking about, should I hang it in the living room or the bedroom and you go, Well, what do you think? Well, I don’t I kind of think it’d be best in the bedroom. Okay, why do you think that? Well, because I’d like to wake up in the morning every morning and look at that, because it’s such a beautiful painting. It’s such a beautiful view. And then you can say beautiful view. Oh, yeah, I love the view. And I would really love to have that. What happens when you do that is that you don’t have to pressure anybody. But what you do is you keep them talking and then you find that you’re able to kind of lead them along so that they take themselves Next thing you know this, like, you know what, I think that is a beautiful view, I think I would like to look at it in my bedroom every morning, and I think I will buy it. That’s one thing. Now, you can also ask them for feedback. You know, tell me more. Tell me more about that. And you’re peeling back the onion. And eventually most people will give you the real truth. And usually the real truth is, I don’t like it or I don’t love it or the price is too high or something like that. Now you can, you can say this one, this one takes a little bit more courage. They say I want to think about it. You can say, you know, forgive me for saying this. But when most people tell me they want to think about it, but they really mean is that they’re not interested but they don’t really want to hurt my feelings. If that’s the case, I’m okay with it. Believe me. I don’t believe in pressure. But the problem is if you tell me what to think about it, and you’re not really interested, I’m probably going to be following up with you. I’m going to call you and you’re going to be hiding out not taking my calls and I’m just gonna keep calling And you’re gonna keep finding messages from me. And you know, I don’t want to really waste your time. And I know you don’t want to waste mine. So if if you’re really not interested in it, just go ahead and tell me that you’re not going to hurt my feelings. And so which is it? Are you simply not interested? Or do you really truly need to think about it? Well, if they say, No, I’m simply not interested. That’s cool. You say, Well, thank you for your honesty, I really appreciate that. And I hope we can do business sometime in the future and then let it go. But if they say, No, no, I truly do need to think about it. And then you can say, Well, what exactly do you need to think about? Maybe I can help you answer some questions, or you can use those moves I told you about before. And then don’t say anything. Just Just be quiet and listen. Now another thing you can do when they say they need some time to think about it, you can say that’s terrific. How much time do you need and when should I follow up with you? Because I don’t want to be a pest. And then they’ll tell you well, you know, you can text me and text me by Thursday, I’ll have an answer. Now, whenever somebody escapes, you’re not going to sell them. Most people who leave Don’t Come back and buy. But then you can try to do some things to keep them coming back or thinking thinking about them. But you could say something like to try to get them into say, you know, what, what could we do today? What if What could we do to make this happen today? Because I know quite frankly, you know, if you walk out the door, the chance of you ever owning my painting, I’d really love to see you own it. You know, you love it, you think it’s cool. So what could we do to make this happen today? And then sometimes they’ll say, Well, I don’t know, you know, maybe if you, you know, knock a few bucks off the price or you do something, you know, maybe they could do that. Or you could you could, you know, try something and if you get a sale, it’s better than not getting a sale. Now, regarding your question about how many times do you follow up most people give up too soon. I have had if I have something important pending, I’ll usually never stop. I will try lots of interesting ways to get their attention. I’ll call them I’ll text him. I’ll email him. I’ll FedEx him. I’ll send him something in the mail, send notes or whatever. Usually, if somebody really doesn’t want to be dogged, then they’re going to eventually step up and say, Listen, I’m really not interested. I just said I was thinking about it. And they’ll tell you the truth, finally. So that’s why you don’t, you know, really want to go through that. But sometimes I have breakthroughs. I follow up with somebody, and they come through, and I ended up selling them something and I won’t chase something, unless it’s really a big sale, I won’t chase something for small amounts of money, because it’s not worth the time. It might be worth the time in your case, because a small amount of money might be a big amount of money to you. But the other thing is never really let somebody leave without giving you something and returned. So you can here’s here’s a move you can make, for instance, say, you know, you’ll, I know you’ll love that painting, and I know you’re probably not likely to buy it. And that’s okay, by the way to say something like that, because that might push them the opposite direction. There’s a whole theory about that. Maybe I’ll talk about that someday. Anyway, you say, listen, can I take a picture of this painting and text it to you? And they say, Sure, you know, and You can say, Well, I’ll tell you well, let me take your picture in front of it. And so you take their picture in front of it, then you say, Okay, give me your text number and you text it to them. Now you have their text. Now they have a reminder. And you can in the text, you can say, by the way, you know, here’s this is the name of the painting, and this is the price etc. Now, there’s another tool. This is oftentimes misused, and I don’t want to see you misuse it. But this tool is called urgency. I never suggest lying or even insinuating something. But if you truly have somebody else who’s interested, you can tell them that now they might not believe you, they might believe this is false urgency. But you know, you might, you might be able to say that, for instance, hey, you know, I know you’re interested in this. I know this sounds like a game but there was a guy in here earlier today and he was kind of interested. He said he might come back quite frankly, I don’t know if he will. But you know, all of a sudden, this kind of creates a little different chemical reaction. They’re like, mmm, maybe I ought to do something about this. If I’m truly serious about some people that has a negative effect. The other thing is if you sense that somebody is going to be interested in something, say that before you get to that point. So, you know, somebody says, Hey, I liked this painting, I said, you could say, well, you know, it seems to be the thing going on today, there was a guy in here earlier, I don’t know if he’s going to come back and get it or not, but he likes it too. So you’re just kind of planting that seed and then all of a sudden, it’s like, you know, it’s like when you walk into a car dealer and you like the purple car, and they say, well, we only got one purple, and we can’t get any more purple for six more months. And by the way, there’s somebody in here looking at this today, all of a sudden, you’re like, maybe I need to get my purple car. I don’t have a purple car. I’m just saying, you know, okay, so anyway, that’s one of the moves you can make.

Now, here’s the next question. And that’s from Paige in St. Louis. Paige, who says I’m an artist, I know nothing about marketing. Where do I start? Where do I learn? What do I do? Paige? I love St. Louis. I love the old train station. That’s now hotel I can’t think of the name of it. And of course, there’s a great Blues Club downtown near the arch. Anyway. Love St. Louis, you should know Paige that you’re not alone. Most artists have no idea where to start, and most don’t even want to do marketing. But before I tell you where to start, I want to reiterate that marketing is the difference between having gas in a car or not having any gas, the more gas you have, the longer you can go. And you don’t like to go to the gas station. I don’t either. I hate pumping gas, I hate the inconvenience, I’d rather not have to stop. But it’s a fact of life, I know I have to stop at the gas station and put gas in the car. And if I don’t, I’m gonna run out of gas and then I got a problem. So just like that you’ve got to adopt a must do attitude about marketing. In other words, I’m going to put gas in my car every week, and I’m going to start learning and learning how to do it and I’m going to adjust to it. So remember that marketing is not a single event or a one time thing. It’s something that you will have to adopt for the rest of your life as long as you’re trying to sell artwork or whatever you’re trying to sell. It’s a fact of life. As an artist, so those of us who choose to develop muscles and marketing will thrive and those who don’t typically will not the idea of if you build it, they will come. It’s just not true. You know, just because you’re a great painter or a great sculptor, or great, whatever. Just know that you’re not necessarily going to get discovered. I mean, sometimes people do, but it’s rare. So, where to begin? Well, first off, there’s a ton of information in the market, lots of people including me, offering books, courses, videos, etc. They’re probably all pretty good. Most people who teach this stuff are probably pretty good. My stuff is based on real life and building businesses. There’s no theory in what I do. So mine is as tested. I can’t tell you about the others. But this is a little self serving, but for 25 bucks, you can get my book, it’s called make more money selling your art and it’s a good foundation for you know, for learning marketing. It’s a good start. Most people wrongly start with what I call tactics, things like ads, things like flying wires, you know, social media stuff, etc. But to be effective, you can’t start with tactics, you have to start with strategy. In order to get strategy, you got to define your goals and to get your goals, you got to think about your dreams from that your strategy comes and then you know you once you have your strategy, you got to ask yourself, you know, who am I going after? Who’s my target? What’s their age group? How do I talk to them? What do they need to hear what’s important to them? What buttons do they need pushed from that? Then you can focus on the tactics and the tactics might be do I buy this ad? Do I do this flyer? Do I do a postcard? Do I do a website you know, all of those kinds of things. It’s all very overwhelming. You know, my best advice is to take Friday’s or one day a week, any day a week, Mondays would probably be a good day too. But take one day a week and say you know what, for the full day, every week, no matter what I’m going to work on my marketing one day out of 520 percent right. Don’t count the weekends. Work on your marketing might be reading it. My be watching a video it might be working on your website might be taking a course it might be working on social media. But if you devote one day to marketing and you don’t avoid it ever you will start to develop muscles and it’s like going to the gym you know you don’t you don’t get any action early but before you know it you got these big old honkin muscles on your arms. Maybe you don’t. Anyway, you may not love it, but I don’t love going to the gym but I do it because it’s good for me. Right? And that’s what you got to think about. So Friday marketing is a really great idea. Second thing is dream your dreams Dream Big Dreams determine your goals, but each goal has to have clarity and exactness. For instance, if you can’t just say I want to get rich. And by the way, it’s not always about money, right? But you can’t just say I want to get rich. You might say well, I want to make $100,000 to me that’s rich. Or you might say $10,000 you might say whatever your number is, you’ve got to have something that’s measurable so you can see how you’re doing you know, so you break Get into steps you reverse it. So let’s say you want to make $100,000 you say how much is that a month? How much is that a week? How many paintings Do I have to sell to make that? How many paintings Do I have to make to be able to sell that many? How do I market that? How much do I have to spend on marketing? every dollar that you spend on marketing is more likely to make you money than to cost you money, but most people think of it as a cost. I think of it as a necessity and I spend a huge amount of money in marketing every year and it just pays off. Now sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I mess it up. Sometimes it doesn’t work. You know, there you’re gonna have to learn and experiment. But do one thing, pick one thing and read my book, pick one thing and don’t try to do 10 things. Just pick one project and work on that and work on it towards hitting your goals. Do it just keep learning from it, make adjustments. Everything you do is going to help it might be slower, but don’t be in a hurry. Just take your time. Don’t spend a lot of money in the beginning. Just Ultimately, take some time and learn and do something. It’s better to do something than to get locked up about, you know, there are 10 things I could do, what should I do? You can’t do all 10 things right away. You have to develop your muscles and so do one thing and just do one thing really, really well. Ultimately, we learn by doing read a lot if it’s painful, go to seminars or events. I teach art marketing at my conferences, plein air convention, figurative art convention, and so on. So, in sometimes I consult people or do marketing talks or podcast recordings at my events. So, you know, pick something and learn it and do it well. Anyway, I hope this has been helpful for you.

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

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

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 what “unknown” artists should do to work their way up, and how to consider where to advertise your art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 45 >>>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_k0IkNvngk&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.

Eric Rhoads
In the marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions and you can send them in email them to me, [email protected] And I’ll try to answer him on here. Here’s a question from Ron in St. Louis, Missouri, Missouri who says what am I getting from gallery owners is that they are dealing with known artists and someone like myself who’s not gallery promoted or known would never get seen. What should I do? Well, Ron, first off I think the interview that we just listened to probably answers that. I hope you heard the one with Jane Bell Meyer that we just did on the plein air podcast. The reality is that what galleries want is someone who will sell everything about, you know, you want everybody to sell you want and what sells is what is known. So if you can prove to them that you will sell that’s going to give them the confidence to go after you to try someone new. But it doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes they’ll watch you for 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 years, you just never know. And it starts by taking control of your career. You have to build your marketing yourself. You have to build your brand yourself. You have to make yourself visible by entering and winning art competitions like plein air salon, getting into shows and even starting with smaller shows to build up a reputation build up a body of work and market yourself and yes, it’s kind of the old while once I don’t need them anymore. I don’t need them, but you’ll still benefit from having them. So I hope that helps you.

Next question comes from James in Denmark, who’s says you’ve mentioned marketing in your magazines a couple of times and you do so consistently which makes good sets, as you say, go where the money is. I like to say, stand in the river where the money is flowing, maybe my gut feel is that the billionaire’s, amongst your readership? are reading Fine Art connoisseur rather than plein air magazine? Can you enlighten us about which is better for artists to reach collectors? Well, I cannot enlighten you completely. Because James, it kind of depends on your strategy. But first off, let me answer that question directly and then indirectly, fine art kind of serious a high end collector magazine. Yes, I built it out by targeting wealthy billionaire level multi millionaire Upper 1% people, I’ve got lots of them. I got over 300 billionaire readers. I’ve got a lot of really, really wealthy people who have second, third fourth homes they have some of them have jets and helicopters, you know a lot of people who consider themselves buyers or collectors in the type of art that we do. tend to be which is representational. And they are a fluid and they tend to like expensive paintings but you know, sometimes they buy paintings that aren’t expensive. But planner magazine, on the other hand is subscribed to by two different groups people who follow and attend and buy from plein air events. And there are many, many, many people who go around and they follow the artist around and they go to the plein air events and so on. Artists are actually substantial buyers of art these days and we’re discovering that there’s now a blended category of plein air collectors who have become artists. This was discovered originally by plein air Eastern people who had attended year after year after year buying paintings got interested in painting and became painters. yet they’re still buying paintings and there are a lot of affluent people who use plein air painting as a as a hobby as a pastime. You know, it’s big in the baby boomer category. It’s really big and a lot of categories and a lot of professionals. A lot of doctors a lot of professionals who have plenty of money are also artists. So the myth about money starving artists isn’t necessarily true. Now there are starving artists out there, there’s no question. There are some that make their living entirely from art. But there are plenty who have money in the bank money from jobs, money who are employed, and they’re spending money. So we’re finding that planner magazine actually fulfills kind of both of those groups. So it also it’s a different kind of collector. It’s more of the people who like landscapes and who, like plein air landscapes and people who really love to follow the artist around and go to the events and so on. So it kind of depends entirely on your strategy. All right, so you got to think about the strategy. There’s not a, which is better. It kind of boils down to what you’re selling, who’s your ideal customer who’s your target market, these people might be perfect for you or not in these magazines, or maybe there’s something else you should do. But first, you have to do your homework about what you really need to reach who you need to reach who buys your art now what they all have in common. Do your homework. And if you go to YouTube, and search string Online art video I’ve done tons and tons of marketing talks on my daily nude broadcasts and a lot of marketing content is there and you can listen to those and find out a lot about that. But also there’s a lot of blog material at artmarketing.com. Anyway, I hope this has been helpful for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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