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 find the right society or group to fit your style; and if artists should have any direct contact with collectors when working with an art gallery.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 101 >

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 marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions. You can email me, [email protected] with your questions like this one from Dylan, in Homer Alaska, what if it’s getting cold up there yet? Dylan says, I feel like I should network with other artists more? How do I find the right society or the group for me and my style? Well, Dylan, you’re right, you should, that’s a good thing. There’s tremendous value in networking with others, no matter what you’re doing. But it’s fun, it’s nice to know others around you, it’s nice to know that they have the same challenges you have, they may paint differently than you do. But that’s okay, because you’re going to learn something from everybody you meet. And they will stimulate your ideas, they’ll give you critiques and instruction. And it’s just nice to be part of something bigger part of a community. Now, I’m not very active in the local community here in Austin, Texas. I know a lot of people here, but I just don’t have a lot of time because I travel so much. But I do have my own Paint group on Wednesday nights when I’m in town. And everybody comes over to the studio. And it’s my chance for local networking. And it’s great because I hear things that are going on, I feel like a part of the community. And then if I’m struggling with something, I could say, what would you do here with this, with this year, usually I bring a model into the studio. So it’s my form of networking. So I learned a lot from them. And I kind of created that myself. So in Homer, Alaska, if you can’t find anybody, and I’m sure there’s lots of artists there. But if you can’t start digging around, start your own thing, go to the local art supply place, if there is one, I assure there is and post something on a bulletin board, maybe you look for something on Google or meetup or something, you’re gonna find them. People tell me all the time that they didn’t know other painters were around their area, and then they found them that connect to go painting together. I have a lot of fun. So if you haven’t got one, just start your own. That’s what it goes gets to do.

The next question is from Paul in Los Angeles. Paul talks, Paul says, I’ve heard many people say that the artist should never have contact with collectors, because that’s the galleries job. Is that true? Well, the galleries job is to help you your job is to help them. Is it true? Well, I’ll probably get some arrows through my head for answering this one. But it depends on who you ask. Right? Some gallery people will tell you absolutely. We want artists engaged. Others will tell you no, they don’t. It depends on the individual gallery owners and they have their reasons. And usually the reason is because they’ve been burned with some kind of a problem in the past. And artists doing something inappropriate, saying something inappropriate going around them, etc. But let me tell you this, a gallery owner once said to me that she had an opening invited a bunch of artists that were in the show, and instead of mingling well with the collectors, and sometimes that’s why they come to meet the artists. They all got drunk and loud and didn’t engage with other people. And one actually got so loud and so drunk that she was embarrassed and later fired that artists from the gallery. Now, the artist told me about this. And he said, Well, that’s my persona. You know, I’m a creative an artist, he said, but it turned him off and I got fired. Yep, happens. I’ve been to hundreds of art openings. And I’ve seen every imaginable horror story of inappropriate behavior. Somebody saying telling a dirty joke to a mixed crowd and, somebody who’s about to buy a painting and gets disgusted and turns away. I watched an artist come on to a beautiful woman. It turned out to be a collectors wife. Not a good idea, really bad stuff. So it’s no wonder they want them to stay away in some cases. Once an artist told her I heard about had the guts to undermine a gallery the artist told the collector that he met at the gallery opening that he’d give him a better price if the painting had not sold by the end of the week. Well, how foolish was that? The guy probably would have bought it but instead, he decided to wait nobody else bought it. He contacted the guy or the artist context of the guy tried to sell it the guy was ethical and said, I’m going to call the gallery owner and gallery owner fire the artist. You just can’t do stuff like that. gallery owners need to see you as a partner to help them sell, to create create publicity to make people feel good about your work and the work in the gallery. My gallery held a reception for me recently sold two paintings during the reception. They weren’t my paintings either, but I had pointed out to a collector a couple of paintings that I really like loved, and they bought those. How cool is that? You know, may I hope another artists would do that for me someday, your gallery can tell you how they want you to be, how they want you to act, what they want you to wear, how they want you to behave, you have to decide if you want to participate in that. And if not, you should probably stay away. Now, some artists are really good at interacting with collectors. They know how to be engaging and appropriate how to be tasteful, others are not good at it. Jon Stewart said that he was good at buttering people up right. So some galleries keep artists far away because they hurt sales. The key is knowing having an open dialogue and being trustworthy having a discussion with a gallery. Be a trusted partner, you’re not there to party. You’re there in a professional capacity to help them sell, be professional. 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. 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 explains what type of paintings you might want to include the next time you enter a work for an art show; and how to beat the odds when you launch an online advertising campaign to sell your art.

ALSO: On January 10, 2025, Eric Rhoads is hosting our first-ever Art Business Mastery Day — a one-day live workshop to cut through the confusion and help you:
✅ Learn what’s working right now to sell art successfully
✅ Get answers to your most pressing questions about marketing, pricing, and more
✅ Know exactly what next steps make sense for your specific goals.
Get the details to RSVP here!

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 100>

Click here to listen to this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast!

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 marketing minute I try to answer your questions, your marketing questions, of course, you can email [email protected] with your questions, and tell me your name and where you’re from. This guy didn’t, but we’ll answer his question anyway. It’s a question from Ray Richardson. Ray says, When entering an event for the first time, what type of paintings? Should I include? Landscapes obviously, but what about things like still lifes or pet portraits? Should my work be solely geared toward what attendees expect? Or should I show a wide variety? Since my interest varies? From vehicles to animals to landscapes to still life? Great question Ray. The one thing I think you have to be thinking about is when you’re first branding yourself, and you’re first getting out there, you want to stand for something but don’t stand for everything. You can confuse people by doing showing too much variety. Also, I think the answer lies entirely on the show. Most shows have criteria landscape show typically will want you to show landscapes and nothing else, maybe a figure or a portrait or at least a figure in a in a landscape. But always whatever you do, show your best work, try to get a third party opinion from a pro who can be objective and tell you if something isn’t your best work. Only put your best stuff out there. No matter if it’s a show or it’s online or anywhere else. Editing is important. People don’t understand unfinished paintings unless they’re artists and even then sometimes don’t notice it. They’ll just go Oh, that was awful. So show your best work no matter what. Whether you’re showing in person or online, you only have one chance to make first impression.

Next question, Lisa did this right? She gave her town Lisa Cunningham of Waverly Township, Pennsylvania sounds beautiful. I’m sure it is. Maybe we’ll paint there sometime. Lisa, she asks, I’ve been giving serious thought to launching an aggressive ad campaign, knowing that it will take repeated exposure of my work to yield results. That’s smart. However, I can’t help but think no matter how appealing a work of art might be to a potential collector, it’s still an expectation that they actually see the work in person before making a sale. Galleries in Art Fair satisfy this concept. But as you know, both are very unpredictable and attracting the right buyer. Well, everything’s unpredictable and the right buyer, but you can kind of beat the odds a little bit, Lisa, by going after a concentrated area, you know, concentration is really important. For instance, there are places that have concentrated audiences of people who are known art buyers, and you want people who are known art buyers in the kind of art that you sell. There’s no doubt in my mind that seeing a piece of work in person is best. And I think people need to see artwork, you know, people are seeing a lot of things on Instagram or Facebook, and they’ve never been to a museum and they’re judging it based on what they see. And when they see it in person, it just kind of brings tears to your eyes sometimes. So I think that, you know that would be best. And we all ought to do our best to get people out to see original art, but that’s a sign of the times. And you have to get attention and sell in every way possible. And it’s very common always has been for collectors and others to buy from an image, whether it’s a web image, which is more recent, or a Facebook or Instagram image. You know, galleries have done this forever. You know, they’ve done it from photographs, even they used to send catalogs before the web, and some of them still send catalogs. It’s a very, very normal thing collectors and buyers are very used to it. Photos of paintings have been used. As a matter of fact, I was looking through some old magazines from the 1800s art magazines. They were advertising paintings with etchings, not even photographs. So you know it’s been going on, it’s just not possible for everybody to see it in person. And usually the gallery if they mail it out, and the person doesn’t really fall in love with it, they’ll they’ll take it back, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about. Now let’s address your other question about ad campaigns. Well, I really you kind of had it down, Lisa. But I need to disclose first that I own some magazines that sell ads, but I’ll try to be objective anyway. I learned this a long time ago and I learned it the wrong way because I used to think that you could buy an ad an ad a single ad in a magazine that had a big audience and it would sell something it’s just simply not usually true. It’s usually true for an event or something specific time like that, but not necessarily for selling paintings and building a brand first you have to have repeated exposure. You have to assume that you are unknown and have to become known now you may be known in your town or your region, but you may not be known everywhere. Does Matter of fact, we, we did a thing with a very famous artist. One time we launched one video, we assumed this artist was known worldwide. But in reality, he was only known around New York where he lived. So we had to build a lot of repetition and build his brand before the video would sell. So the other thing is that there are a lot of artists who were once known who have stopped advertising. I know, people who advertised 10 years ago who stopped advertising. And we assume that everything is attrition with 10% of any audience in a single year, in in a bad economy at more might be more than 10%. So for instance, if somebody advertised 10 years ago, assumes everybody knows who they are 100% of the people have never heard of them. So that’s something that they have to be thinking about. So the the best way to overcome all of these issues is to relentlessly repeat, if you’re unknown, or you want to get known. This applies to everything, whether it’s a magazine, email, social media, or otherwise, one of anything typically doesn’t work. Sometimes, you know, carpenters can’t hammer a nail with one slam, usually, maybe have a big muscle, but it takes repetition. advertisings like the law of physics, for instance, imagine a battering ram on a castle door, a giant tree with a big weight and force can break that door down with just a few taps. But the smaller the tree, the more taps it takes, you have to repeat and repeat and repeat because you have to create attention, then get interest, then desire, then purchase. And by the way, if somebody doesn’t happen to like the one particular painting, you got to build your brand so that they know who you are. And then maybe one day, they’ll like one of the paintings, so many of my you know, some people might not buy for years, but that presence over years, builds your brand. I’ve got lots of stories, I’ll tell you some time anyway, the average person needs to see something seven times before they buy it, that means see it. Now, if they don’t see everyone that runs, that’s not going to do you any good. And of course, the average person isn’t going to buy every painting they see. Not even every painting they like. So it depends on how often and it also depends on a certain amount of luck, right? So you lose momentum. If you just do it once, wait a few months and then do it again. You gain momentum. If you do it, for instance, three times in a single magazine or like what advertiser did for us, it was a new gallery, he wanted to get noticed fast, he wanted to look big and important. So they were like the battering ram. They bought 10 full pages and fine art connoisseur in plein air. They ran them, everybody noticed it got a lot of attention. It worked right away. They got a lot of massive action because of that, because they were a big battering ram. So there are ways to overcome things. But they also stayed visible over time, and stayed on people’s radar for several years so that people would know who they are interesting. Once they got to the point where they felt really confident that everybody knew who they were. They stopped advertising everywhere. Within two years. They were out of business. I don’t know if there’s a correlation. But just saying right, so my best advice. Don’t do ads if you can’t repeat them a lot.

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 explains how to visualize your success and make it a reality; and how to get past the habit of comparing yourself to other artists.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 99 >

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 marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions from our audience. Well, that’s you right? Email your questions to me [email protected], where you can message me text me whatever you want to do. I write them down that I use them in here. Here’s a question from Dwayne in New York. I don’t know his last name, but Dwayne, thank you. Dwayne says, I’ve heard you mentioned visualizing your success. Can you speak more to that? I’m not really sure what that means or how to start? Well, Duane, it’s really nothing new. Certainly not new. It’s been going on for a long time. Let’s start with the basic premise. What is in your head controls? Everything you know, Is your stomach ever turned into knots from worrier stress? Well, that’s coming from your head, you know, you’re worrying, right? The premise is that you want to control what’s in your head, you want to control your thinking, you want to control the negative thoughts and push them out. And you also want to get the positive thoughts and the things that you believe could be happening in there and think about him a lot. So that’s why it’s a good idea to set goals, it’s a good idea to read those goals on a regular basis, and to believe that you can do it. So you have to believe something before it can happen. And I think you need to dream it or at least think about it a lot to manifest it. Now, most people think that’s kind of a silly idea. And quite frankly, I used to think so too. But when you think about it, most of the things that we have made happen one way or the other have been because we’ve been thinking about it. And you know, by the way, a lot of the bad things that we sit and ruminate about end up happening. Why does that happen? I’ll tell you a story. 30 years ago, maybe longer than that I was exposed to this concept. And somebody said, create a poster with pictures of what you want, you know, things you want houses and cars, but also pictures that stand for things you want, like family or love. It’s called a visualization board. The idea is to look at it every day and imagine yourself doing it. Well. I thought it was crazy. Hocus Pocus, woowoo stuff. But I thought, well, what the heck, everybody’s telling me it works. I’ll try it. And I really wanted a Porsche. Yep. But I couldn’t afford one. I didn’t have the money, I had no way to get the money. I had a small, relatively struggling business. And so I cut out a Porsche. I didn’t do the whole board. But I cut out a Porsche. And I stuck it on the mirror in the bathroom. So I’d see it morning and night. And before long, I was kind of imagining myself in it, you know, you want to you want these things to be vivid, you know, what color is it? What’s it like on the interior, you know, that kind of thing. And so, I finally told myself, you know, maybe the way to get it is I could sell my business. And I kind of wanted to do that in a way and I would reward myself if I got a certain price for my business. So anyway, I had no prospects sighs matter of fact, I wasn’t even considering it before that. But a year later, after looking at that picture every day, I sold my business, I put money in the bank, and I bought that exact Porsche. I mean, it was the same color, the same model, everything that I had looked at, and interesting. It kind of came to me. In other words, you know, I was kind of looking but all of a sudden, this guy contacted me said, I hear you’re looking for a Porsche. I’ve got one. I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for or not. And he sends me a picture. It’s like that’s it. So I went over, drove over ended up buying it. It was a used one. I didn’t buy a new one. But it was pretty cool. And anyway, it’s something that I had visualized. So I’ve kind of learned that. That’s a cool thing to do. I visualized the plein air convention, I visualized plein air magazine, I people told me it wasn’t possible. But I just kind of pushed that out of my head got the negatives out and said, You know what it is past possible I visualize this big growing plein air movement that’s happening. And so there’s so many things that can be impacted. It’s like it sets the tone and makes you work towards it something that you kind of are doing without realizing it, because you start believing and maybe in the beginning, you don’t believe it. But you start looking at that picture, you start thinking about these things. Next thing you know, you’re starting to believe it. So for the last year, for instance, I’ve been imagining myself going to China on a painting trip, and imagining that maybe somebody would pay my way. Wouldn’t that be cool? Well, that’s not even I guess about a year. And I get a call today from this guy. And he says, We want to bring you to China. I thought how cool is that? So when I’m driving to a meeting, I imagine exactly how the conversation is going to go how things will work out positively. And it usually happens. And I even imagined myself getting a national TV show and I bought into it so big I could totally imagine myself doing it and get it Got a major network? And within two weeks, I accidentally kid you not met this man. I said, What do you do for a living? He says, Well, I, you know, I’m a guy with this network. I can’t tell you which one yet. But anyway, I said, Well, I’ve got this idea for a show. And I told him, the idea is, let’s have a meeting on Monday. And then the meeting happened with his executives. And guess what I got, I got a deal. So that’s how this stuff works. And I really strongly believe it works. It just sounds so illogical. And I don’t understand it, I have no idea. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, and, you know, the brain waves or spiritual or otherwise, but it’s a pretty cool thing. So if you visualize bad things they happen to so I try to push bad out of my head, you know, we all have negative thoughts. And I’ll tell myself, you know, it’s not like me to think that and I’ll just push it away. So anyway, that’s what visualization means.

Now, the next question comes from Carol, from the Gulf shore of Alabama, with a banjo on her knee. I’m sorry, Carol had to do it. She says, when I see the work of amazing artists, I feel like I’ll never be that good. How does one get past the inevitable comparisons we make to other artists? Carol, stop it. Stop comparing yourselves to others, not just in your artwork, but in everything, focus on yourself, being the best you can be? Well, you were I ever be as good as John Singer Sargent, the great master. I mean, how many really great masters are there really, you know, we’re probably not going to be that good. I mean, he had something special that most of us don’t have. I don’t want to be the negative thinker about that. But I also am, am being practical. He was a rarity. But we can still be great painters, or good painters, and maybe one day great, great painters. So you might be comparing yourself to someone who’s been painting for 50 years and has lots of experience. But who started out just like you struggling, you don’t know. You don’t know what they went through their struggles, their frustrations, who was teaching them the 1000s of hours they put in, you just don’t want to compare, you don’t necessarily want to go through what they went through. My dad once told me, son, somebody’s always got a bigger boat. In other words, no matter how good, how successful, how rich, how famous, how talented, there’s always somebody who has done more, you simply can’t get caught up in the comparison game. All you can do is study, work hard, put in the time, believe in yourself, get great mentors, and be happy with your progress. And a great way to do that is to look in reverse. What I mean by that is, look how far you’ve come. Look at what you’re doing today, compared to what you were doing five years ago, or 10 years ago. You know, sometimes I think, well, I really wish I had a better house or a better car. And then I kind of look back and I say, wow, look at what I’ve got compared to what I had 20 3040 years ago. I mean, I had nothing. I lived in a crummy little apartment little tiny. What do they call that studio apartment. I just did not dig it at all. And I thought I’ll never get out of there. And now I you know, I live in a nice house. And you know, it’s not a big giant mansion or anything like that. But I look back and I go, wow, this is a big improvement. So don’t compare yourself to others. It just doesn’t do any good. Get that out of your head. Stop playing that game. Be grateful for where you are and what you’ve got, and just continue to work hard.

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 explains what you can do now to prepare for a successful new year; guidelines for selling art during the holidays; and if it’s worth it for artists to have a LinkedIn account.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 98 >

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:

While in the marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions, email them to me, [email protected]. That’s a new email address. That way they go straight to the art marketing questions. Before I get to questions, a quick thought the majority of us go into the year without a plan. And if we make plans, we tend to make them after the year starts. It’s like New Year’s comes, it’s like, oops, I better do something. My 2020 plans have been done for months. I work on them in July. And you still have some time. And I think you really want to take time with your plans. Don’t just whip whip them together in 10 seconds. You know, take a day take a couple of days. really be thoughtful. I take five days to work on my plans. Yep, 555 days, and I bring all my folks in and we talk about things together. So now’s the time to lay out your plan for the year. What are your goals, pick no more than three goals for the year. three big goals, big, big goals, right, and then prioritize them which one is most important, which is second most important, and so on. Then you build a plan to accomplish each goal we use what are called KPIs key performance indicators. These are the steps towards a goal the things you need to accomplish to accomplish a goal. So every goal has multiple steps. And sometimes those steps might be 50 things that you have to do throughout the course of a year. And then sometimes those steps have steps that you have to get to. So what would be an example of Step four, let’s say your goal is to sell $50,000 worth of paintings that means KPI would be you have to say okay, well, I have to sell so many paintings a month. That means I have to sell so many paintings a week. That means I have to sell so many paintings a day. If you’re focused on those numbers all the time, and you just pay attention to him. It’s like Well, I haven’t sold a painting today, I better get on the phone and see what I can do. I know that sounds oversimplified, but the idea is that you take everything and break it out into many steps. So your goals have many steps. If you accomplish three big goals for the year, you’re you’re doing a pretty good job. And and I don’t always accomplish three goals. But I always try to accomplish the number one goal. And everything I do in my business and in my life related to that goal is to drive that goal home. And so other things. So the reason that’s important because you get all these distractions, and you can say to yourself, well, am I paying attention to my goal? Or am I doing something that has nothing to do with my goals? Sometimes you have things you have to do, like you know, you have to feed the kids. So anyway, that’s one way to think about this.

Now, here’s a question from Nick, in Tybee Island, Georgia who says, with the holidays coming up, I’m considering a seasonal sale. Are there any guidelines for selling art at a discount for the holidays? Thank you, Nick. First, why are you instantly assuming you need to offer a discount? This is not a good practice. discounts are usually held for times when things are tough and not selling the holidays. Are when people are spending money. Yes, they do like discounts, there’s no question about it. But they’re not necessarily looking for discounts all the time, especially something like a luxury item, like a painting discounts or something we do in our heads. They’re not necessarily required in retail, of course, they create the perception of discounts. If you walk into, let’s say the limited, they always have, you know, normal price $100 today’s price $50 50% off, but that’s actually their normal price. So I suppose you can do that. But you know, rather than doing a sale just to a show, you know, I go to open Studios here in Austin all the time. And I don’t see anybody discounting work. I mean, there’s a demand for work and that type of thing. So don’t worry about the price right now. worry about getting people in the door. The more people in the door, the more demand you create on your product, and price is less of an issue. The key point is to get him into the studio early. Get the word out, do a mailing duty mailing, tell all your friends hold him tell him several times. You know, don’t just tell him once, hold a reception at your studio or at your house, invite everybody and then have somebody there to act as your salesperson so that you can simply twinkle to the crowd tell them the stories of the paintings, just merge meld with them and and just spend time with them. Stories sell paintings. I teach that in my art marketing Bootcamp, I think the number one video anyway, it’s kind of late to be planning it but you can still pull it off for this year. We’re all desperate for last minute ideas, especially fluent people. Who need last minute ideas? So get moving on this fast.

Next question is from Dean in Fort Worth, Texas who says, I know that Instagram and Facebook are popular social media sites for artists. But do you think it’s good to have a presence on LinkedIn as well? Or is that just for corporate networking? Well think think of it this way, Dean. First off, you have to be everywhere. If you’re on social media, you’ve got to be on social media, where your customers are, where are your customers? Well, you might be surprised they might be on LinkedIn, I there are big networking groups on LinkedIn for art collectors, their gallery networks on LinkedIn, there’s a lot of things that you can do to penetrate that world and be seen in there. So LinkedIn, I think, is a valuable resource. But my rule is, if I can’t do a good job, I don’t do it at all. You know, I do, I do a good job on Facebook, I do a good job on Instagram, I don’t do a very good job on on Twitter. And I don’t do a very good job on LinkedIn. I posted something there the other time, I think, for the first time ever, and it’s because I only have so much time and only so many resources. So pick the one that’s going to be best for you. Now, there’s this common misperception, and everybody just continually tells themselves This is the way to do things. And that misperception is that everybody who’s on your friend list is going to see every post the reality is only about 2% that are going to see it. So don’t expect them to see it. Also keep in mind, your friends are usually your friends, your acquaintances, and so there are people who are not necessarily your customers, so focus on customers.

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.

How do you find the right buyer and price your art without regrets? Is acrylic comparable to oil when it comes to selling a painting? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the 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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 97 >

Click here to listen to this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast!

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 marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions and you can email those to me, [email protected]. There’s a question from crafts art camp. They say how do you find the right buyer? And how do you price work without feeling regretful? Well, there’s two very different questions. First, everyone tends to get hung up on big audiences. But big isn’t necessarily what you want or need to find the right buyer. You need someone who has a concentrated audience of buyers, meaning art buyers, in your case, people who love art, people who have a history of buying art, for instance, my magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur has over 300 billionaires who read it. And that’s, of course, just scratching the surface. And these are people who happen to love art happen to buy the kind of art that you do. And of course, they’re obsessive about art like we are. So finding the right place to advertise is really critical. That’s essentially how you solve that problem finding the right buyer. Okay. Now, the other question. I’m not so sure exactly how to answer that other question. You said in terms of pricing without feeling regretful, not sure what that means, regretful that you didn’t charge enough regretful that it was not more affordable for others. What does regretful mean. So I’m kind of going to take a guess at it. I have a theory, a stored painting makes no money. Unless it’s something I really want to keep for my personal collection, I’d rather get something out of it than letting it sit. A painting might help me pay for art materials or something else. So there are times to let it sit. For instance, if you’re building a body of work for a gallery show, you want to let it sit so that you can build up that gallery show, but paintings need homes, most artists tend to underprice their works and, and price themselves out of business. In other words, if you’re selling it for too little, you’re probably not getting what you need out of it. Because your expenses are probably higher than you know they’re starting out high isn’t always an option, either with a strong brand. Now, the bigger the brand, the bigger the value in the eyes of the collector, then you can get higher prices, like Scott Christianson can command about any price he wants. So can Clyde ASPA big because they are in high demand. And they get great awards and these big shows. And so I think that’s where we ultimately want to be. But that takes some time. It takes exceptional painting. And it takes extensive marketing and branding, you have to become a well known brand. Now, there’s a lot of different ways we can do that. But that’s what it really takes. And then you command big prices. But even those people probably got started out selling at lower prices when they were unknown. And their work wasn’t as sophisticated. So you’ve got to be thinking about, you know, get their first idea, build it up. You can’t necessarily start with high prices, it doesn’t usually work. You got to kind of ramp yourself up create demand, the more demand the higher the price, etc. It’s called demand pricing.

The next question is from Stacey Best, who says I painted acrylics, specifically Open Acrylics. They have built-in drying retardants. And is this a problem and becoming a professional? I observed that most workshops are for oil paints, does this exclude acrylic paint artists? No, no, no, Stacy, I know the product. It’s a very good product, I’ve used it, it behaves very much like oil paint. And it’s good for travel. Because you don’t need turpentine. Water Based oils also do the same thing except they’re not acrylic. So you have a choice. But you don’t have to have Terps that way, right. So there are a ton of very rich, very successful painters who use acrylics. A great painting is a great painting. There are tons of oil painters, but there are also tons of Acrylic Painters in the demos that you’ve seen maybe unstaged at the convention or maybe in the videos, you know paint operates acrylic paint operates pretty much the same way as oil paint, not exactly the same, especially something like Open Acrylics, which paints more like oils than traditional acrylics, but the techniques you see on video or on stage are pretty close to identical. I would say now I’ve used all these products myself, and so I have a feel for it, but don’t get hung up on that. I think a great painting you know there are great artists out there who are using acrylics or squash or Open Acrylics or a lot of different materials, watercolors Of course, some people say watercolors don’t sell as Well, but you know what, there are some artists out there commanding giant prices for their watercolors. So it has a lot to do with the quality of the painting, plus the brand of the artist which we just talked about, and that helps get those prices so just do great paintings and don’t get too hung up on it. You know. Now also you can talk to your gallery, some galleries might be hung up on it, and they might say I’d rather you do oils but I think if they see great paintings that are going to sell, they’re going to say welcome to my gallery. I hope these marketing ideas are 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 artist 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.

Why do galleries keep up to 50% of the sales? Is there one single focus you can have to sell your art? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the 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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 96 >

Click here to listen to this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast!

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 marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions and you of course can email me anytime [email protected]. Here’s a question from Darlene Wilson, who asks, is it worth to have your artwork sit in a gallery for long periods of time? And what should you get in return for the 40 to 50% they get from your sales, I have seen my friend spend a lot of money shipping and hanging shows and galleries even being asked to provide all the beverages and appetizers as well as their contact list, etc. Where is the line? Well, I gotta tell you, Darlene, a natural thing for people to do is to assume that these people are getting 50% for doing nothing. And I suppose there are probably some galleries out there that are doing nothing, but most of them are doing something and they’re doing a lot. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Now, quite frankly, I know an artist who’s given up 75%. And he’s just bust in the doors open, he’s selling so much. And he’s happy to give up a large amount of money because he’s making so much money on gallery sales. If things sit and they’re not selling, maybe you want to have a discussion with the gallery, why is that? Are they showing your work? Are they getting positive reaction to it? Is it something that you should refresh, send them something new. Once in a while, I’ll pull something out of the gallery, and I’ll repaint it or touch it up or change something in it. Because I have fresh eyes after it’s been sitting a while and then maybe send it off to another gallery. The galleries really have a hard time nobody really understands the plight of the galleries. First off, it’s tougher than ever to make a living at a gallery. Sometimes I know galleries that are paying 25 and $50,000 a month rent in their locations, that means I got to sell a lot of paintings, you know 25 or $50,000 paintings or half that you know something like that for a break even plus they’ve got lights, you know, lights in galleries, the electric bills are massive, because of all the lighting. And they have marketing and advertising list building working clients, the cost of events, salespeople, commissions, cocktail parties, advertising, you know, you name it, they work hard for their money, do not ignore that fact. And a lot of people I know make a lot of money from art galleries, and some of them don’t some of MYRIN and some of them don’t. But you know, you got to work with your galleries, it’s a two way street, they need your help, and you need their help. And so I think that’s worthwhile. Now, of course, you can survive without galleries. But then you got to take on marketing yourself, the idea of having a gallery is that they’re selling for you when you sleep. And they’re selling for you when you’re painting. And your inventory could sit there a while everybody has hot and cold spells, you know, economies in different markets are good or bad. Or sometimes things change. You know, you might spend weeks or months or even longer periods of time I’ve had with my gallery have had hot and cold spells, you know, they’ll call me one time, that’s like three times in a row and in a month are like selling tons of paintings and all of a sudden, you know, they sit for a long time, and I don’t sell any for a while it just, it kind of depends. But they need to hear from you. They need you. They don’t need to hear from you complaining or whining or, you know, beating him up, you just want to kind of let them know what’s going on. They need to know your stories, send them an update of other shows that you’re doing or the things that you’re doing. So they have something to talk about, keep fresh in their mind, got to remind them a friend of mine sends chocolates to the gallery. Every time a salesperson sells something, he sends chocolates to reward that salesperson guess who he is going to promote next, or he or she is going to promote next right? So if it sits sits in your studio and sold, what’s the difference? If it’s sitting in the gallery, it’s being seen probably unless it’s in the back room. And by the way, I went into one of my galleries last summer and my painting was not out it was sitting in the back room and I asked why and he said it’s not very good. I decided not to put it up. I said I wish you told me you know I will take it back and fix it. But instead of just sat there and he didn’t tell me because he’s got so much other stuff on his mind. Good idea to rotate things in and out if they’re not selling. But anyway, sometimes a frame can make all the difference in the world too. But if you want to keep 100% I get that but doing that you’re taking on all the responsibility of marketing and is that the best thing you can do now I teach marketing I have helped a lot of artists, but it’s a lot of work you need to spend 20% of your time minimum and probably a little bit more if you want to really be successful and a good galleries worth their weight in gold. Seriously.

Here’s one from Bob in San Ramon If you could only do one thing to sell your art, what would it be? Well, Bob, if I think anyone should, I don’t think anyone should do one thing. You see, imagine the Parthenon, right, the building in Athens with columns on it’s got that triangle on top and the columns. Imagine, all the columns are gone except for one column in the middle. And it’s holding that big, heavy marble thing up. So now imagine a car slams into it, that column comes crashing down, the Parthenon comes crashing down. That’s what we call a single point of failure. And single point of failure is a flawed marketing strategy. If you want to succeed, you need massive action. That means you need lots of columns, you need all the columns all the way around the building, do as many as you possibly can multiple ways to reach people to touch people. If I had to start out with one thing, it would be list building, finding a list, creating a list of people who are truly interested in my paintings, and finding a way to stay in touch with them on a regular basis. Now, if you don’t have any money, you can do it by email, or you can do maybe a little with direct mail, that stuff works extremely well, but don’t live or die on a single point of failure. You need to do lots of things to market work, which is why it’s nice to have galleries working for you, that get the time it saves you. The other thing is, you know, artists these days are so distracted. You know, the thing that you’ve got to ask yourself is what’s the best and most effective use of your time. And the best and most effective use of your time as an artist is getting better as an artist and painting and doing as much painting. And all these people who are so busy doing other things that they’re not getting time to paint. I had an artist tell me recently that she was not painting anymore, because she was doing so many workshops, she never had time to paint. Another artist told me that he actually came to us and said, I want you to do my videos for me because I don’t want to take customer service emails and calls and be running to the FedEx and UPS people all the time. Because I should be painting. And so you know, think about the things that are distracting you and actually what is the best use of your time? Well, the best use of your time is painting. The second best use of your time is figuring out how to make your business fly, which is communicating with your galleries or if you don’t have galleries focusing on your marketing.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artist 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.

Should you separate your marketing/website for multiple artistic endeavors? How can you get your website in front of more people? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the 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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 95 >

Click here to listen to this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast!

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 marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions which of course you can email to me, [email protected]. This is a question from Kara. Head del Lago HD a l Gao hit a Lago. I’m sorry, Kara, I’m sorry, botched her name. She asked for those of us who work in multiple mediums should we separate our marketing? For instance, should a sculptor and a painter have two different websites? One for each? Well, Kara? I think it’s an interesting, interesting question. And I think it depends entirely on where you are in your career. If you’re known and established in one area, or both areas, I think you can get away with it. Artists are creative, they try to use different mediums Sargent did watercolor and oil. George Carlson was a great sculptor, and then decided to move to painting. Richard McKinley, a brilliant pastels is also a brilliant oil painter, Cynthia Rosen a palette knife oil painter, also just recently started doing watercolor for travel, there really are no rules and you of course can do anything you want. The issue comes down to are you confusing the audience? I’m a big fan in marketing, a single focus when you’re branding and marketing, you know, so if you were to walk, walk up to somebody or awaken in their sleep and say, you know, what kind of a painter is Cynthia Rosen? The instant answer is, well, she’s an oil palette, knife painter. And so you want them to know what you are, you could argue there’s room for saying there’s that you’re lots of things. And that’s okay. But if you don’t want to confuse people, you might want to wait till you’re really selling well and very established, and then maybe kind of start talking about the other things you do doesn’t mean you can’t do them. And I would not do separate websites, show who you are, whatever it is. And you know, what matters most is that you’re showing great artwork and showing that you’re, you’re competent, and hopefully a great artist, and get known for something. And you know, consumers easily get confused. They’re not paying very close attention anyway. So there’s not a right or wrong, but I do think you could do in your sales a touch if you confuse consumers. So I hope that helps.

Next question comes from Cindy Lund, who says, I have a website, how do I get in front of other people? Well, I think that’s a good question, Cindy. I heard from a person recently who said, Now that I have a website, I’m surprised that you know, the phone has been ringing off the wall with people buying my art. Well, it’s just not the case, just having a website is kind of like having your name in the phonebook. It’s not going to do anything unless people are coming to it. They’re coming to it because they’re looking for you just like the phone book, or unless they stumble on to you by accident. Now that can happen are lots of ways to drive traffic. The first is organic search, meaning you show up in a search for another item, let’s say somebody does searches the term watercolor painting, and you show up on the you know, at the top of the water coloring, watercolor painting search, which is probably unlikely unless you’re really really, really getting a lot of hits, used to be easy to manipulate what they call SEO, which is search engine optimization. And it’s less easy today. Google now knows all the tricks and prevents them. But I’d suggest maybe you blog weekly on your site, make sure that lots of keywords are in it keywords being things that people would be searching for, like the term oil painting, or painting of children or whatever it is you do. And then if enough people read your blog, you’re going to show up more in search because if people are clicking on your website, Google’s going to note that so I would write your blog email link to your list your newsletter list or whatever, and hope that they click on it. And you should be building a list anyway, we’ve talked about that in the past and you should be putting your blog on social media so people can click there and clicks from different computers will signal Google to help it show your stuff more they tend to reward success. driving people to your website isn’t enough though what you do once you get them there is a bigger question. And if you want to you want them to buy or to look or to take some particular action, then you need to optimize for that and that’s another subject for another time I talked about it in my book a little bit. Also, advertising is the most common way to drive people to a website. Remember that you want qualified art buying customers you know if you’ve got a lot of people who love art, but they don’t buy art that’s not going to do you any good. Since plein air magazine, the readers buy lots of art even the artists buy lots of art but you got the people who follow the circuit go to go to the plein air events the collectors, you know they’re buying art and they love plein air paintings and so that’s a good place to advertise and get them to come to your website. Or you know, my magazine, fine art kind of sir. Same kind of thing. You’ve got all these qualified art collectors. Even things like fine art today plein air today, realism today, American watercolor, the things that are going to reach the people who are going to buy are going to make a big difference, but you want audiences that are proven buyers. Because if you just grab audiences in general that’s just not help enough. You want things that are you want to reach people were going to buy.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artist 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.

Should you invest in high-quality frames for your paintings? Is it that important to understand copywriting? Eric Rhoads answers in this episode of the 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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 93 >

Click here to listen to this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast!

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 marketing minute I try to answer your questions. Of course you can always email me [email protected]. Tell me your name and town please. Here is one from Frasier Lee in Williamsburg, Virginia. Frasier says, What are you going to talk about framing? I struggle with spending money on frames. Does it really make a difference in selling paintings? Frasier, I think you already know the answer to that you wouldn’t be asking the question. But I don’t mean to belittle you not saying that. But Frasier, I’m going to be in your town in Williamsburg, Virginia. This fall we’re having our figurative art convention and Expo there. Maybe you should drop by. There’s going to be some great framers there too. By the way, the answer to your question is yes, of course it makes a difference. If you’re paying a lot of money for a painting, and you live in a high end home, you don’t want a cheap frame staring out at you and chances are you won’t even buy it if it’s in a cheap frame. Your house is filled with quality furniture, quality draperies, you don’t want something cheap looking on your walls. Now, there are cheap looking frames, and there are cheap frames that look good. You just got to find them. There are some great looking low price frames out there. And I got to tell you the story I think I’ve told this story before but there’s a gallery in the south that had a painting that sat in the gallery for a year the gallery director said I was getting ready to send it back to the artists but i thought you know what, I think it’s the frame. So he took it to his framing guy a guy who charges like 15 $100 for a frame put it in this beautiful elegant frame, put it back on the wall and tripled the price it sold the first week it was the frame framing makes a difference now you may or may not want to spend 15 $100 or 20 $500 on frames but I know people who do it and it pays because remember frames are kind of like cars you know cars are the frames of our lives and if you’re in a fluent person and you’re driving a Mercedes or a Porsche or Bentley or a Rolls or something those are the frames of your self esteem and same with your house and your front door and that big house and you’re you know you got a lot of expensive paintings in there you don’t want them in cheap frames so think about that framing is about self esteem but you’re working good frames.

Okay, here’s a question from Tom Powell in Utah. Tom says I’ve heard you talk about headlines and copywriting. I do copyright all my work, but I’m not sure what you mean by headlines. Well, Tom, two things. There’s two kinds of copywriting, copywriting, as you’re thinking it is copywriting your work for legal copyright. That’s one kind of copywriting. What I’m talking about is copy writing, writing, copy, copy, meaning text to help you sell copy usually means selling copy, copy is selling text. So for instance, there might be a headline and a copy or text in an ad for a website. Words really matter. They’ve done all kinds of tests about this, showing a product in an ad is usually not enough. You need a headline to stop them that says, you know, stop moisture in your house today. If somebody’s got that problem, they’re going to stop and look at that. So people who do advertising and people who do what’s called direct marketing, where their email marketing or where they’re sending things in the mail, they study this, and I’ve read dozens of books, I’ve attended lots of seminars, I bought lots of courses to learn how to write. I’m still learning every day, but every word matters, and you got to get attention. That’s why I think words and headlines and copy are so important in your ads in your emails, your newsletters, whatever you’re writing about, you need to make sure that you’ve got good copy. Now this may or may not be for you. But let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re sending your email newsletter and in the subject line. One Version says my latest newsletter, another subject line says how to make your art collection worth more money. Which one are you going to open if you’re an art collector, you’re going to open the second one because you want to know how to make your art collection worth more money. And plus, you know every artist that send something out, there’s they’re sending something out. It’s about me, right? Here’s my latest newsletter. Well, who cares about your latest newsletter? Tell me so Something that’s in the newsletter that’s going to benefit me that I really want to read about. I don’t know, if I want to read about you, you’re assuming I want to read about you. So chances are, the second headline is going to get more opens, because it’s about the reader. It’s about benefit to the reader. So always be thinking about that. Headlines matter in a lot of places, subject lines, if they don’t open the email, they’re not going to read the email. If they don’t read the top line, they’re not going to read the second line. If they don’t read the second line, they’re not going to read the third line. So crafting your messaging very carefully, really matters. This is all proven science, and things without good words don’t get great response. I mean, even the Bible in the beginning, right.

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.

Can the back of your painting be a marketing tool? Should you really sell your paintings? Eric Rhoads answers in this 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. 

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 92 >

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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:
This is a question that came across the transom in my art marketing in a box. It’s a private group. It’s a product that we have. And it basically helps people market gets all this stuff kind of done for him. And people are having a lot of success with it. But we have this anonymous group and we trade questions and stuff. And I’m always answering questions there. So I’m not going to say the name on this one. But this person said, Eric, you once mentioned that the back of your painting is a valuable marketing tool. Can you explain this? Well, what I mean by that is, the back of your painting is a great opportunity because somebody is buying your painting. And so what’s on the back really matters. First, your back of your painting needs to look highly professional, I think I like to see a brief bio on the painter can’t be too large, especially on small paintings, but a bio. And that a place to learn more about the painter, which is your website, and your contact information. Now your gallery may or may not like this. But if you have a good valid agreement with them, where you say, Look, I’m not going to violate anything, I’m not going to sell direct, they shouldn’t be have a problem with it. I like to put the story in the painting if you have room, and of course your copyright. And then I like to put something else on there like a little message that says to the buyer of this painting, I have a gift for you email me at, you know, Eric at plein air magazine, for instance. And I’ll send you a gift and then you send them some gift cards, they get your address, you get their address, and you send them some gift cards with their painting on it. And it says from the collection of the collectors name, and then it gives them something to brag about gives them some nice coat postcards, they’re going to remember you it’s going to be different than anybody else ever did for him. And there’s also the law of reciprocity, which means they may want to do business with you again in the future because you gave them something nice. So that’s something I like to do on the back of my paintings. And it’s something I don’t always get done, but I try.

Here’s a note from Amanda berry in Columbia city, Indiana. That’s my old stomping grounds. As a matter of fact, my grandmother used to live there. Amanda says, You talk a lot about selling your work, so much so that I feel a little pressured. Oh, I’m sorry. She said I never really planned on selling my work. But now I’m starting to think maybe I should be considering it. Well, Amanda, you don’t have to consider it. The answer to your question is no, no, no, you don’t have to sell your paintings. And no, I talked a lot about marketing because there’s a lot of people who want to sell their paintings. Painting is a hobby is what most painters do. And they don’t have to sell or don’t even need to sell their paintings. And if you’re not needing to, if you don’t make a living off of it, you don’t need to make a living. If you’re not looking for a little extra income, then you don’t need to feel obligated to sell your paintings. Now, last fall a fall color week, I had a couple of painters tell me that they wanted some advice on selling their paintings. And I sat down with them one at a time. I said, Well, why do you want to sell your paintings? I said, Do you want it for the money? No, I’ve got plenty of money. Both of them said that. I said, Do you want it for the recognition? They say yeah, I’d like a little recognition. So I said to him, Well, why do it? Why sell them? If it’s not about the money, why sell them? Why not just enjoy your life as a painter take the pressure off and get your recognition through donations to to charity organizations or gifts to friends or something like that you don’t you know, you don’t have to sell it. Now if you want to be in a plein air event, you know, maybe that’s another way to get some recognition. But again, it’s not necessarily about you have to make a living. So don’t feel pressured. Selling is not necessary, unless it becomes important to 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 artist 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.