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.
How can you get full mileage out of a social media campaign? What are some ways you can start teaching art to a specific demographic? Eric Rhoads answers in this Art Marketing Minute.
Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 70 >
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer:
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads:
In the art marketing minute I try to answer your questions you can email yours to me [email protected] And I always love having your questions. As a matter of fact, that’s where I get my content. Here’s a question from Linda Finnstad of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who says she has a series of sassy Angel drawings and has started a campaign where she posts an image a day on social media going for 365 days, 10 days into the project. She said she’s getting great feedback as well as sales on Amazon. So our question is, how do I get full mileage out of this campaign? Well, I think first you have First off, you have to Oh, she said, I would hate to look back and realize I missed a fabulous opportunity. Linda, it’s a good question. The first thing I always do is I try to define my goals. You know, what is? what is success to you? What do you want that to look like? Because it might be you know, maybe it’s about selling paintings, but maybe it’s about publicity, maybe it’s about branding, maybe it’s about something else. So try to define what is your 80% goal, what’s the one thing that if 80% of it happens, you’ve accomplished a goal, always start there with everything you do. I also would say that you really started a little prematurely in this in the sense that your planning should be done before you ever start. Because there are things you could do in your planning that will give you a better start, try to get your planning done in advance before you launch your program. But in this case, you can’t do that. So there’s a giant PR opportunity. First off, I would write a press release something as simple as that, write a press release about it, attach them images and put it on the internet through PR wire PR web, there are several services, you’re going to have to pay, you know, 50, probably 150 200 bucks, you’re gonna have to pay more if you show an image. But it’ll show up in Google search that way. And also, when you show up in Google search, you know, people will discover it by accident. And so you want to have your website and all that stuff in there. The other thing to do is to post it as a story on LinkedIn, because every story, unlike Facebook, and Instagram, and other social media, if you put a story on Instagram, it also shows up in search. And so oftentimes, you can find that story. And of course, that’ll link to you. I would also hand picked some dream stories that you want, for instance. So this is the kind of thing that people magazine would like. So I’d go on LinkedIn and get some names of some editors of People Magazine, I find you know, as many as you can find eight or 10 or 12 of them and send them all a personalized email with some photos and photos of you with the paintings and let them know that you have a high resolution images as well. And I would hire a professional because, you know, as an editor, we’re always looking for content. I have a friend who used to work at People Magazine. And you know, sometimes they would have dry spells where they just couldn’t come up with stories and they need filler. And they would grab filler, you know, somebody sends in a press release, and it’s got some great images, they don’t have time to send out a photographer. So they just grab that story, use the images. And so you want some fun images and some different images, I think that would be helpful. You want high res available to them. And so they know that because in printing if they have to print it up, and then of course, if you get a story, then you can tell everybody, you’ve got a story. And that kind of gets the momentum going one time, I went to a seminar and this lady said, you know, write your own press release, write your own story and send it off to magazines. And sometimes they’ll publish it. And I was on an airplane coming back from that seminar. So I wrote a story specifically for a magazine about myself. And I got home and I sent it in and they ended up running it and it was in a national magazine, and it was hardly changed at all. And they used my picture and everything else. So that was pretty cool. So you can do that too. I would send releases to 50 of your top dream story places you know People magazine or, or whatever magazine you think and of course these days it’s it’s about websites, it’s about magazines. The other thing you want to do is look for influencers right? So like there are Instagram influencers. And you could go to an Instagram and find somebody who’s got a million people or maybe Instagram or who does something on angels and say to them listen, I would love for you to do something on my thing and in exchange I’ll give you one of the drawings and next thing you know they put it up there for you and boom you know you’ve gotten seen by the potential of a million people however many so the other thing is I’d look for a chance to get a celebrity sale. Now influencers are a great way because then you can set Well, this influencer that influencer has my work. But what about a celebrity? You know, is there a celebrity that might have a fitting story about a guardian angel, you know, select, you know, Google the term celebrity, and guardian angel and see what comes up, maybe you’ll find a celebrity that has a guardian angel story. And then you say, Hey, I loved your story, I’m going to send you my painting, or my drawing, and then send it to them, get them to snap a picture and say, do you mind if I tell everybody about it, they want publicity. Everybody wants publicity, if you’re in celebrity world, and then you now have something else to talk about. So PR is a great way to go. Social media is great, but it’s limited to your presence. And so you’ve got to find ways to get others who have more presence to leverage you to get it, get it shared. Also, keeping something alive for a year is tough, you know, you want to ask yourself, is a year really appropriate? Or do I just really want what do I really want to accomplish? Can I accomplished that goal and, you know, in three months, so I would develop a plan and see if you can just jam it hard for three months, and then you know, maybe a year later, you can, you can get some more publicity. I also would say, try your local newspaper. Nobody thinks about local newspapers anymore. But there are demographics that read them, they’ll go to art gallery shows, and the best part about a local newspapers, they can get picked up and syndicated by other newspapers who are looking for content. I once had a story in 200 newspapers, because the Associated Press wrote a story about my book. And it they syndicated and I ended up in the LA Times, and the New York Times, and Chicago Tribune and a bunch of others. So that was pretty cool. So the other thing, ask yourself, who’s your target demo demographic? Who was it women, men? What age? What do they spend their time doing? You know, if they’re into gardening, then you know, figure out how to get a gardening publication to do a story how to do it, do a drawing of an angel in a garden and come up with a concept. The idea is to think outside of the I hate that term outside of the box, but interview your buyers, to the people who have bought something from you on Amazon, talk to them and find out what was it that appealed? And what is their story? And what does it mean to them, and maybe that’ll give you ideas, and you can learn things you had not anticipated. And maybe that’ll be helpful. Anyway, that’s, I hope that was helpful.
Linda Andrews from Concord, North Carolina says I would love to share my love of art and landscape painting with young people. What are some ways I can start teaching classes or workshops to this demographic? Well, I think it would be very welcome. Of course, COVID is going to be in the way right now. But it’ll be over one day. So I love I’ve got a goal of teaching a million people to paint and I’m really far along in that goal. But I, you know, I’ve got to hit that million. And then once I hit that million, I want to go to 2 million and 5 million and 10 million and so on. I love the idea of teaching people to paint because it gives them something more in their life, you know, people can be bored, I would first go to Plein Air Force calm. It’s website I put together. There’s a lot of ideas on there on how to speak to groups. I had high school assemblies. To make it easy. We have a documentary you can share. So the idea was that some people are not good speakers, but they could go to a school and say, Hey, I’m Eric. I’m a plein air painter. What does plein air painting Meanwhile, it’s about getting outdoors to paint, you know, and some of you don’t want to be an athlete. And some of you don’t want to be a musician. But some of you want to do something creative. And something that has a really fun potential career with it. Or maybe just a fun potential hobby. Well, plein air painting is getting outdoors, and painting what you see. And when you paint outdoors, you know, give them all the reasons you know, you’re, you’re meeting a lot of people you’re talking to people, you’re painting better color and shape and form and things like that. But then play the documentary, which goes about 20, 30 minutes. And then at the end of that documentary, you can say, hey, what questions do you have? So it makes it really easy to get them engaged. And then you could say, Well, listen, I’m I’m going to supply all the materials and I got a group setting up for plein air painting, and I have some, this is all free. But if you want to sign up for some lessons that’s available to you too, and and you’ll get you know, you’ll get two or three people and you might get 30 people you just never know. And I just start contacting the offices of all the different high schools and maybe even the middle schools and you know, get out there and talk to them and talk to the art teachers. They love somebody to come in and fill their day so they don’t have to teach sometimes, you know, and and get the kids excited, you know, so you can go in and talk to classes. They will welcome it. I would call the Laguna plein air painters association called call Rosemary Swimm. They’re asked for ideas. They bring in busloads of kids from the inner city and they teach them to paint. They have painters painting with them, they have materials, and they make it simple, and it’s really very successful so they can give you some clues. I would also consider right now maybe offering some zoom classes and invite students in for free, maybe, you know, call an art teacher and try it. Get some experience first and you know, just see what works. It’s going to be fine, you’re going to be great. You might want to come up with an incentive or something that makes it really fun for kids and do something to make it cool. Anyway, I think this is a great question. I think it helps. I hope that you can make that happen. I think all of us should be doing that. We should get everybody in every town doing this and we would change the world. Right? Well, anyway, that is this week’s art marketing minute.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving 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.
In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.
In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares advice on using social media for marketing versus paying for advertising, and tips on branding consistency.
Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 53 >
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads
In the marketing minute, I answer your art marketing questions and the way to submit them is just email me [email protected] there is no stupid question. That’s how we learn right? Okay, here’s a question here. This is a stupid ques- No, I’m just kidding. This is a question from Amy in Chicago. Amy is going to hate me she’s never going to write in again. Anyway, she says isn’t social media marketing enough? Why would I ever pay for advertising? Well, I’m not suggesting you should pay for advertising. You have to figure out all of us have to figure out what our strategy is and what our tactics are and what you’re trying to accomplish what you’re, do you want to sell art Do you want to brand yourself to want to get invited to events, what is the purpose of your marketing? And then that will determine what you need to do. We have these misperceptions about social media there are a lot of people think, well, all I got to do is put my stuff on social media and my stuff will sell. It’s kind of like saying, does anybody remember phone books? It’s kind of like saying, well, I just put my name in the phone book, and people will call me Well, the phone books filled with lots of people. It’s like having a website. Oh, I just got to put up a website and everybody will discover me. No, that’s not true. I mean, some might buy an accidental search. But the reality is that they’re going to discover websites when you promote them. And, and so the same is true with other things. Now, if you’re promoting on social media, and you’re doing it properly, and it works for you, and you’re making money and you’re getting your goals accomplished, then that’s all you need, quite frankly, why would you pay for advertising? Why would anybody Why do 10s of thousands of businesses advertise? It’s because they get a return on their investment. They’re trying to reach people. They don’t have, we have this belief that everybody on social media is getting our posts and the reality is on Facebook, only two to 3% ever see any post that you do that means if you had 5000 followers, which is their Max, only two to 3% will ever see that post. And sometimes it’s the same people all the time because there’s these algorithms that they use. And so as a result, you want to be aware that you’re not necessarily reaching people. Now, there’s a lot of strategies. I teach in art marketing Bootcamp, at the conventions about how to penetrate that how to make that work for you. But the reality is, you also need to make sure you got the right people following you and you’ve got to have the right messaging. So if you’re going after collectors, for instance, or people who are buying art, you got to get go after people who you know are going to be the kind of people that you want, and so you got to fill up your followers with that. You can’t be talking to artists, other artists and talking about Artists stuff that other artists are interested in you got to be talking to things that other collectors are interested in. So you got to change your tactics and most of us have our Facebook pages or Instagram pages filled with our friends and as a result we’re not necessarily getting the right kind of followers and that’s why it typically doesn’t work for people it might work for you and that’s great if it does but advertising is about reaching people you’re not reaching and the ability to target to reach people that you that are in a particular category you know, like if I if you want to target people who are known art buyers or known art collectors, then you go to places where you know they are you know, like my magazines plein air magazine, fine art connoisseur, etc. So I pay for advertising I spent a lot of money on advertising I can’t even say how much it’s a lot but I it works for me and I get a return and so the more I spend the more return I typically get. And it takes time it builds up over time but then it just keeps return. As long as I feed it, so that’s why I do it.
All right. Next question comes from John in San Francisco, who asks, How important is it to have consistency in the way that you market your brand? Do you have any tips for being consistent and branding? John, good question. Thank you. Well, think about your favorite brands think about any brand. What are the biggest? It used to be? I don’t know if it still is, but the biggest most well known brand in the world was McDonald’s. What if they started using green arches? Or what if Apple started using yellow on their logo instead of black or silver, whatever they use? These are little things that matter. People are creatures of habit, they want to be comfortable, they get to know you. It’s like a friend that you know, you recognize, right? I remember some actress can’t remember who it was had plastic surgery. And it’s like, I didn’t recognize her anymore. And so it was very uncomfortable for me and I’ve never gotten used to it. So I think the idea is that you create a look a consistent look and you want to stick with it. You want to be careful Though a lot of artists are using their signatures as their logo, and that’s okay, but you don’t want us to use signatures alone because the ad needs to have or the logo needs to have the name under it. Because people can’t usually read signatures unless it’s very, very easily readable and even that I would not assume they can read it, you know. So it just doesn’t hurt to make sure you do that. But you want to look for things like consistency, color, theme, consistency, same look, same type everything on your business cards, website, you know, everything you do your brochures, everything you want, that comfort of consistency. Also, you just want to make sure that you’re reinforcing your brand constantly. You’ve got to, we all think that everybody knows who we are, you run one ad and you think everybody knows who you are. That’s not true. You have to build it up over time. It takes time and time and time again, I always talk about repetition is the key to everything. You’ve got to have repetition to the same audiences. People don’t even read respond to things until they’ve seen you seven times in a short amount of period of time. So you got to figure out how do I solve that problem? It’s about repetition. All right. Anyway, that’s, that’s my tips on art marketing today.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of 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.
Artists and craftspeople should consider the value of building an e-mail list. When you can e-mail people, you have your own medium that allows you to contact them as much or as little as you wish. (Once they have opted in.)
E-mail is an excellent way to grow your business, sell more paintings, and deepen your customer relationships.
Not sure HOW to build an e-mail list? In this article I’ll share lots of ideas and methods that can work for you. Keep reading, and I’ll make it simple to understand and do.
Why, exactly, should you consider building an e-mail list?
Well, if you were suddenly stripped of all your Facebook, Instagram, and social media accounts, what would you do? What if all the websites and advertising vehicles, like art magazines, disappeared? What then?
Though this is unlikely to happen, we’ve seen artists make a simple mistake (like posting a nude painting) and have their Facebook accounts cancelled. All it takes sometimes is one complaint, and you’ve lost years of accumulated followers. Starting from scratch and getting those followers back may not be possible.
Therefore I believe your e-mail list is so valuable that you should guard it with your life. Make sure it’s never shared and never lost. And, of course, your list must be treated with respect. Your e-mail list may be the most important thing in your marketing arsenal.
But, just like a website that is out of date and not managed can hurt you, so can a weak or outdated list. You need to make sure you stay on top of your e-mail marketing list.
And just like you don’t want a bunch of non-buying tire-kickers visiting your studio and wasting your time, you don’t want people on your e-mail list who will not become potential customers. So you need to attract the RIGHT kind of people who will become valuable customers and be willing to avoid all others. And you need a strategy, following my ABG (Always Be Gathering [e-mails]) method.
Of course, you must nurture your e-mail list, not just do basic maintenance. If they are ignored, you will be ignored.
Where do you start to build an e-mail list?
In the simplest possible terms (no, it’s not complicated), you want to reach people who are a fit, often called your “target prospects.” These are people you know love art, people who have bought art from you or others you know, or people who have expressed interest in your art.
Caution: You’ll make a lot of enemies (and be breaking the law) if you just start adding people to your e-mail list without their permission. People have to opt in (give you their permission to e-mail them). If you start sending to people without their permission, you will make them mad, and they might report you by hitting the dreaded “spam” button. This could result in your e-mail service provider NOT delivering any more of your e-mails, and could result in big companies like Google not delivering them either. It could take years to solve that problem.
Getting a Fast Start
Walk before you run. That means get some experience driving before you hop into a Ferrari. Things can go at high speed and you don’t want to crash. So start by getting some experience, and keep it simple.
Start by enabling a tool on your website that allows you to collect names. You can have a button offering something of value, like a newsletter or e-book, so people can click it and put in their information. You’ll have to build a form.
Caution: The longer the form, the lower the response. Your main goal is to get nothing more than an e-mail address and a first name. Anything more than that will lower response rates; people don’t like to hand out information. (There are tools to gather more information at a later point.)
Once you have your web form up and running, there needs to be a button that opts people in to your list (and you’ll also need a privacy policy explaining how their e-mail will be used).
Once you’ve been collecting names of buyers and potential buyers for a while, you can drop them an e-mail and ask if you can add them to your e-mail list (please explain the benefits). If they say yes, you can add them or provide a link so they can add themselves.
Of course, you can use your social media to announce your e-book or newsletter and invite people to come to your new website to sign up.
If you advertise, invite people to visit your site for their free gift, e-book, newsletter, etc. Put it in every ad forever. ABG.
A speedy way to advertise to get people onto a list is to make it the focus of your ad two or three times in a row (offer a benefit!). And you can run ads on social that are designed to offer a benefit for a visit (“Visit my website for my free e-book”). You can do this with print, web, or banners, or with campaigns on Google or social media.
If you have something specific to offer, you can promote and advertise a webinar on that topic and get people to sign up (which also opts them into your list). Then present the webinar, and possibly ask for an order for something else you offer — for example, signing up for a workshop. Make the webinar a sample.
Your Free Offer
Note: If it’s all about you, they won’t care. (Sorry, truth hurts). If it’s of benefit to them, they will care. Your free offer, free gift, e-book, etc., should benefit the reader. Will they give their e-mail for something valuable in return? Absolutely.
In the direct marketing world, these are called “lead magnets.” They can be books, planners, guides, white papers, reports, checklists, materials lists, color lists, etc. Come up with something people want.
Note, we as artists tend to forget there are two worlds … the world of our friends (other artists) and the world of our customers (art buyers). In some cases BOTH can be customers, such as when we’re selling workshops or training. If that’s the case, have two offers — one per target segment. But remember, the more choices you offer, the lower the response. Maybe start with what matters MOST to you, like potential art buyers.
Don’t Forget to Sell
Put some sell behind your freebie. Make a nice picture and write a small paragraph about the value of the item. You may want to use a pop-up so people see it right away when they visit (if their filter is not engaged to prevent it).
Gifts
Should you offer actual gifts that cost money? That’s up to you. You have to assume that only a small percentage of those receiving a gift will become customers. So if you give out 10 gifts that cost you $1 each, is it worth that much to get one customer? (Absolutely.)
Know Your Data
You need to know how much people spend on your artwork. If you sell one out of 10 visitors who get your free gift, it could be a big win. This is why it’s important to know your audience and your numbers. Track everything.
Get Interviewed
A great tool for getting people to sign up is to do interviews on other people’s platforms (their web shows, podcasts, Zoom teaching) and mention that you have a free offer for those who visit your site. Also mention your social media handles. Then you can link those shows in your social pages, which can bring new listeners and maybe new e-mails.
Make sure your gift or offer is targeted or you’ll get lots of visitors who are not ever going to be customers.
E-mail Signature
Don’t forget to put your offer in your e-mail signature and in your social media profile (“Sign up to get my free e-book on X by clicking on this link”).
You can also offer things like discounts (“Visit my website for 20% off, this week only”). Sharing is important, so in your newsletter or your free e-book, make a request that people share it with others. Offer a link they can send.
And — if you’re able to be tasteful about it — if you see people on social media you want to meet (maybe a collector), send them a private message or a comment, inviting them to get to know you.
Contests
Contests or giveaways are a great way to get leads. You can offer a painting giveaway and require e-mails to enter (let people know they are opting in to your list). Keep in mind that this is harder to use for qualified leads because some will sign up for anything free but will never buy anything from you. Also, know the law. If someone has to pay or buy something to enter, your contest may be considered a lottery (three criteria for creating a lottery: prize, chance, and consideration), and the laws concerning lotteries can be complex.
Set Goals
Oh, and set goals. If you are deliberate and tell yourself you are going to get 10 quality names a month, you will do it. By the end of the year, if you have 120 quality prospects, that beats having a list of 10,000 people who are not prospects.
Happy 2021
If you start now, you can start seeing results soon. Repetition of offers, shows, special events, etc,. can be very effective. Be creative, have fun, and make your e-mails fun to read and entertaining. If not, they won’t get opened (and that’s a story for another day).
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 ways to “do your homework” when it comes to getting your art into a gallery, and tips for making commission sales.
Click Here to Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 48
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
I answer your questions and you can email your questions to me, [email protected]. I’d like to know your first name and where you’re from, and if you want to use the last name, that’s good too. Some of you want to remain anonymous. It’s okay. But I like to have names. Here’s a question from Robert and Boise, Idaho, Sue says I’ve consistently emailed images to many galleries and they’re unhesitatingly reply. That’s a good word on hesitant is that my work is beautiful, lovely, but not interested in the style. What should I do? Well, first off, nobody’s going to tell you if your work is awful, nobody wants to hurt your feelings. And if they don’t like it or they feel it’s not living up to par, never going to tell you that there’s no reason for them to do so. They don’t want to hurt you. And so oftentimes they just say, it’s not a fit. They’re not interested in your style or whatever. Robert, no offense, but you are making the ultimate blunder. Have you not been listening to the podcast? If you’re not been listening to all the discussions about getting into galleries, maybe not. Anyway, I’m not trying to scold you galleries typically do not want random artists submissions. They get literally thousands of them. It’s annoying to them. It takes their time. Most of them are bad, even if they’re good, they just, you know, they’ve got what they want and they’re going to seek what they want. And so don’t necessarily solicit them. That’s the big number one mistake, do not go and visit galleries and ask them to look at your work. Do not send them emails, do not send them packages in the mail. They do not want that. And there are a lot of different issues here, but this is not the way to get into a gallery and you don’t want to annoy them. And of course they probably won’t remember you anyway, because it gets so many. But sending things to them is not their style. So start by doing your homework. Have you looked at their website to see what kind of work do they sell? You know, if you’re sending an abstract gallery, a bunch of realism or vice versa and you don’t fit, you’re wasting their time. So know your gallery before you do that. Furthermore, like I said, solicitation is the mistake. You don’t want to do that. The odds are stacked against you when you do that. So go back and listen to the podcast I did with Jane Bell Meyer. Recently, she talks about very specifically how she selects artists. And she goes after artists who are advertising and promoting themselves and she’s watching them and seeing how they promote themselves, they watch their work and see how it develops. In other words, you’ve already gotta be marketing yourself before you’re going to get pulled in and you’re thinking, well, well, I don’t need a gallery. Then we’ll share you. Do you need, you need all the help you can get. We all do so be patient and learn about marketing. Read my book, read my, watch my videos, watch the YouTube videos I put out there at streamline art video. And just remember that this is a process you want to get invited in. You want to make sure that you look for ways to get invited in. And I’ve got a whole bunch of strategies on that.
The next question comes from Katrina Gorman in San Antonio, Texas. Katrina sent us a couple of questions lately. Thank you, Katrina. This is a commission request question. Our cold calling cold calling by the way means, you know, contacting someone who doesn’t know who you are. They’re not aware of you. They’re not interested. Cold calling, right? Warm calling would be somebody who’s interested in you, but Cole are cold calling and emailing businesses to make them aware of your artwork effective. To let them know you are open for commissioned work or making a letter to send that to them directly. I remember this in art marketing boot camp, but I wasn’t really, I didn’t really see which way would be better to you as well. Katrina. I just did a long video on YouTube. I’ve been doing every day. I’ve been going online at noon on a social media, Facebook live Instagram and YouTube. And I have been doing videos on our marketing. And depending on when you’re listening to this, I might still be doing them, check them out. But I just did one on how to get commissions and it’s on YouTube. I know cause it’s fresh in my mind. I just did it a couple of days ago, but it’s worth finding it at streamline art video on YouTube. The commission marketing is like all marketing. It requires a strategy, a target, a plan and artists who do commissions can make it a very high percentage of their income and make a lot of money on commissions. If you do it right now, all marketing is not a single item, like a single letter or a single email. Usually like all things, it takes repetition. And so you’ve got to have repetition, but first you need to know your customer. Do your research find out about these businesses. If you’re going after businesses, what do they have in their offices or their buildings in their lobbies? What kind of art do they have are, do you think they’re opening up new locations? Look for things that you think will be a fit. So you don’t waste a lot of time on mail or email or otherwise. Also commissions are a really great way to upsell people, to leverage existing customers into more purchases because everybody’s got a special occasion or an event. And you know, you might be doing a house portrait or a portrait of somebody or something for a business. You just never know. But if you’re going to cold call, make sure you eliminate your waste by doing your homework. Find out about commissions also from various city and government associations. They’re doing commissions all the time. But look for the people. You know, the people you have contact with, that’s going to give you your very, very best opportunity for selling commissions.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of 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 advice on how to make your social media posts more interesting than others, and smart ways to get your work into an art gallery.
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads
In the Art Marketing Minute I answer your art marketing questions email them to me, [email protected] By the way, that’s a good place to go for lots of art marketing tips. So here’s a question from Justin in Eclair Wisconsin, who says I’m pretty active on Facebook, especially in artists groups. I also have Twitter and Instagram, which I barely use, but My question is, how do I make my posts more interesting than anyone else’s?
Well, Justin, congratulations. That’s a brilliant question you should be asking yourself, we all should. But first, let me ask you why you care. Now, I know you’re not here to answer. But you could get noticed by yelling fire in a movie theater, which by the way isn’t legal. But getting attention isn’t always what you want. You know, it’s the old thing that you know, you put in a print ad sex now that I’ve got your attention, well let people get turned off by that kind of thing. So first, you need a strategy. What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you want people to pay attention to you? What do you what do you hope to have happen? Do you want them to look at your artwork? Do you want them to know your name? Do you want them to buy art? And if it’s about branding, that’s one thing. But keep in mind that the people you’re talking to is kind of like singing to the choir. Right? Most artists have most of their followers, friends etc. are not necessarily people are going to buy paintings from them, which is a big problem if that’s what you’re trying to do. If it’s not what you’re trying to do, it’s a great, great situation. So know what you’re trying to do. And then make sure you have an audience of the people you need, which is a little tougher. So here’s another way to answer the question, though, or here’s answering your question. First, the most important thing in any communication, any speech, any ad, any email and a subject line, the most important thing in anything, is the first thing out of your mouth. If I walk onto a stage, and I say, Hello, my name is Eric Rhoads. I’ve already lost him. But if I say, today, I’m going to tell you how you can take. I’m going to tell you how you can put $50,000 in your pocket by the end of next week. I’m gonna have everybody’s attention right now. I got to live up to that. I got to tell them the truth. I got to tell them something is get their attention. But you’ve got to have something compelling. So we call that a headline and a headline is used to draw people in. And if you don’t have a headline, they’re not going to get drawn in headlines make up about 80% of the success of an ad of an email of a subject line opening the email. And that is everything. So I have spent years reading books, studying headlines, go into webinars, going to seminars, working with consultants, I have worked with some of the best headline people in the world to learn and grow and teach you and I can I can teach you some of that stuff. Probably at the plein air convention. I could do that. Anyway, you’ve got to grab attention and curiosity, but you got to do it in a in a way that is appropriate is tasteful is ethical. And also you’ve got to get their attention fast. After the headline, what’s the next most important thing? Well, it’s the next most important thing you talk about or say So you draw them in with a headline, then you ask you have a sentence or you ask a question that draws them in further, then you go a little further and a little further and a little further. Now there’s other ways you can do it. Like in my Sunday coffee, I do a little different approach. It’s a much softer approach. But I’m I’m trying to create a much softer approach in that environment. So I don’t do these, these real big time attention getting headlines there. Sometimes I do, but not often. So anyway, great images also make a great difference. You know, people are drawn to really, really good, interesting, compelling images. And of course, what we just learned in the plein air podcast about how the eye is drawn to certain things. That is something that in the Dan Hill podcast, that’s something you’d really like, that will help you.
Okay, this next question comes from Todd who says, You said that reaching out to galleries is a bad idea to make you look desperate.
I agree. Being a Canadian trying to gain a foothold in the USA market. How do I go about gaining gallery representation and gaining an audience? If nobody knows me? Well, by the way, Todd is really good painter. So hi, Todd. Here’s what I would tell you. First off, it doesn’t matter if you’re a US citizen or from New Zealand or from Canada. Getting into a gallery is tough no matter how you slice it, and it’s not going to be necessarily a disadvantage for you one way or the other. The number one question I devote most of my time to in art marketing is this gallery question. How do I get in? You see galleries are inundated with artists submissions. So my rule is to Zig when others zag you know, everybody is emailing galleries, they hate that most of them, not all of them. They they’re getting emails. They’re getting up unsolicited packages, sometimes they’re getting unsolicited paintings in the mail, they got to open them up, they got to look at them, they got to put them back. They got to mail them back. They hate that. That’s really annoying. So what can you do that’s different, you know, just showing up to the door with a handful of paintings. That’s annoying. You know, you’re there in the middle of their day. They’re busy, maybe not right now, but normally, and so be different, do something else no one else is doing now I believe the best way is to be introduced in or get somebody to recommend you. But I also think that you want them to follow you and be tracking you without them knowing that you’ve made them do that. Now that’s a very stealth kind of thing. I talk a lot about that in some of my books and videos. But essentially, one of the ways to do that is by leaving intelligent comments on their social media. If they’re posting something, don’t go Hey, look at me, hey, look at me, call me do this with me. You know, just write a nice intelligent comment and it If they see you on there enough, don’t go too much. It’s it’d be the equivalent over over texting somebody, just, you know, being there on occasion and say something smart. And then eventually somebody go, Hmm, this person smart. I wonder who they are. And they click on your thing. And they go, Oh, I think I’ll follow them. Oh, nice artwork. Well, I think I’ll keep track of it. Scott Jones told me one time that he has a dummy email address, and he uses it to keep track of artists and to see what they’re up to. And you know, usually when you first tune in that, you know, they don’t have a good portfolio, they maybe do one out of 10 good paintings. And so you keep an eye on these artists over the three, four or five years to see if they get better, they get consistent and so on. And then if they do, you know, they might be tracking you quietly and secretly. So that’s something. Remember people want to do business with successful people. It’s the old rule of you know, how do I get successful? How do they wanted me to be successful, but how do I get successful and the answer is easier than most realized. galleries You’re drawn to big names, they want the best artists, they want the artists with the big names who are going to sell the most art, the ones who are in the most demand. And the best way to get a big name is to advertise. Now you can spend a lifetime doing shows and getting recognition and and all of that other stuff, getting articles about you. And that’s really important, you should do that. But the problem is that even if you let’s say there were five art magazines, you probably can’t get in all five of them in the same year, because they don’t want to do the same thing everybody else did. And they’re not going to get one story a year. You’re not going to get one story sometimes every two or three years, unless it’s paid for play. And that’s when when magazines are selling their articles, which is a no no as far as I’m concerned. But people do it all the time. Anyway, the idea here is you want to be seen and recognized and so buy ads, and you could buy ads and we have found and research has supported the fact that people think that ad campaigns content in an art magazine is equally as good as article content because they’re there to look at beautiful paintings. And so your ad is getting you seen more and more and more and more, the more you repeat it, the more you’re seeing, the more your name grows, the more that other people start talking about you, the more you get invited into other places. And so advertising is fast, editorial is slow. So I think that this is a really great strategy. I’ve used it my whole life and it’s very effective. And it’s a great way to get noticed a lot and get things done fast. And of course, galleries will be drawn to people who are supporting themselves in advertising because they’re going hey, this, this person believes in themselves. I’m going to watch what they do and plus they’re seeing your work and they’re starting to like your work. Next thing you know you get invited in. Also once you’ve built your brand, you can command higher prices and that just continues to grow, the more your brand grows. Hope this helps. Anyway, that was the art marketing minute.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.
In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how to get your website and social media presence noticed; and how to know when it’s time to find an art dealer (and how to do so).
Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 37
Submit Your Art Marketing Question:
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads
Here is a question from Ginger box. I don’t know where Ginger is from. Ginger says I have no idea how to get people to see my paintings on my website or on Instagram. I see some people with thousands of followers but I have no idea how to reach that many. How can I get my art noticed on my website and Instagram? Well, ginger, I have a saying and the saying is tactics without strategy fall on deaf ears. What that means is that unless you have a clear purpose and maybe you do a clear purpose or clear direction for your messaging Everything will be cloudy and your response rates will go down, you won’t get the followers you want. So I’d like to ask you why now you’re not here to answer the question. But why do you want them to see your paintings? What actions do you want them to take? Are you trying to sell paintings? Are you trying to get them to friend you? Do you want them to join your blog? Do you want them to visit your website so you can capture their email address? Each of those would be a different strategy. And you want to have one clear strategy that you want to accomplish with whatever it is you’re trying to do, whether it’s instagram or facebook or something else, because the strategy you use will be more on track? depending the answer to your question varies depending on the strategy. So if you want to sell paintings, a great strategy would be to get them to come to your website, of course, not just to see paintings, but more importantly, so you can communicate with them about other things that you’re doing. And that’s why you want to get their email address and so you got to get them to give you their email address and you got to create something and incentivize people To get them to come there, we use things like 240 plein air tips, and people come and get those. And that way we have their information so we can contact them and tell them about all the cool stuff we’re doing. All success is based on repetition. And so people need to hear your message seven to 10 times and Whatever method you know, sometimes it’s on Instagram or Facebook, sometimes it’s an email, sometimes it’s something else. But you want to get seven to 10 impressions in a fairly short period of time. And most people will visit a website one time and they’ll never return again. Once they’ve looked around. They’re thinking, well, I’ve seen it they don’t think like well, I’ll go back and see what’s new. You got to kind of get them to do that by other things. So what you can do is once you get them to your website, get their email, then you can ask them if they want to opt in for your newsletter or for something else you’re going to do and if you can get them to provide that or even a mail address that You can send them, a free ebook, you can send them a free book it send them different things. And it’s that repetition that really sells product if that’s what you’re trying to do. Now, my art marketing at a box product does this. It’s very effective. And it really forces repetition. It’s all done for you. It’s all pre written. It’s all scheduled. And so you have something to do every single month. And if you follow the strategy that really works effectively, people tell me they’re doubling and tripling their sales from it. So I think that the idea of repetition is really important. And you’ve got to define first what your specific tactics are. We use an Instagram guy, and, and this Instagram guy tells us certain things we need to do and don’t need to do and one of the things you need to post something every single day, what you post needs to fit within what people are there for. And so, like he said that people’s response rates go down and they unfriend you or unfollow you very fast. If, for instance, you’re a person who posts a historic painting every day, and then you post a picture of your dog, the minute you post, picture your dog, people go away and they go away forever. So you got to be consistent with whatever it is and make sure that you’re talking about that particular thing. If the goal is to get them to the website, focus on images that create curiosity, get them to want to see the whole image by visiting the website that’s a very effective but rarely use strategy I’ve seen used very effectively.
Eric Rhoads
Next question comes from an anonymous person who says…By the way, we don’t make these up. I don’t know who sent this but… says I tend to be overly shy I find myself unable to reach out and make sales. I work full time. And it’s my lifelong dream to be able to make a living as a full time artist, I entered juried shows and Plein Air Convention or competitions, and I’m a member of a couple of prominent art societies. I know I must persist and that it’s my own self holding holding me back. My questions are at what point is it more beneficial to find an art dealer to sell your work rather than going it alone? And how do you know what to look for an art dealer to find a reputable one, so as to not be taken advantage of, well, it’s a, I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff here for you, my friend. And the first thing is, this is kind of like one of those. I don’t know how to describe this. It’s like you, it’s a lot harder to get an art dealer if you’re not famous. And it’s like, how do I get famous if I don’t have an art dealer, it’s kind of one of those endless loop kind of thing, there, there will be come a time in your career that once you’re selling it off and your work is, is selling well that you’re going to want an art dealer. But getting one early on isn’t easy. Now I talk a lot about how to get them in my various products, my videos and so on. But, it’s not easy. Then. Here’s the Another thing I’d like to say, and you’re not gonna like my answer, I’m sorry. And I don’t want to offend anybody. But artists should not typically shift the responsibility their career to somebody else, like a gallery. The reason is that you have no control. And if they fail, you fail. Now, I’m fine with having art galleries. And in some cases, I’m fine with even in exclusivity with an art gallery, if the relationship is fruitful enough, and if you have somebody who is really truly a professional, that’s not likely to be going out of business, but every business no matter how good they are, has fluctuations of good and bad weeks or months or years. And it it’s fluctuations of local economies or national economies or, maybe they’re a Hawaii gallery, and all of a sudden traffic to Hawaii stops for some reason. So if you’ve got mouths to feed, including your own, you want to have control. So the part you don’t want to hear is you’ve got to get beyond your limiting beliefs. You said you You yourself said you know you have them, you’ve got to get stronger. Now think about this, if we have back troubles, we need to fix the problem. So maybe we go to a doctor or a chiropractor or we say, my back problems are persisting because I need to strengthen my core. So you have to develop those muscles in your core, maybe you’re getting a trainer, maybe you go to the gym and you’re working on it. If you’re in business, including selling art, which is a business, then you have to always be developing new muscles, if you’re in business, you have to have an accounting muscle. You have to sit you have a sales, muscle and marketing muscle, shipping muscle, those kinds of things. And so you got to get really good at a lot of things. That doesn’t change who you are, you’re still an artist at heart. And but, for that moment, you’re flexing that muscle or putting on that hat, for that moment, you have to track your, your financial stuff, you got to do that. You can’t expect somebody else to do that. You can get help. You got to have control, you have a weakness, and you’ve got to overcome it. And if it’s about selling because you’re shy, then you have to overcome that shyness. Don’t let yourself off the hook and give yourself an excuse because you’re shy, step up and overcome it. Even if you, you know, it’s gonna be tough. If you think it’s hurting you, you’ve got to overcome it. And I’m not trying to be rude or insensitive, but shyness is based on lacking confidence. And confidence is about getting better control over your state of mind. Now, I can say this because I used to be painfully shy. I couldn’t stand and talk in front of three people. I would look down at my feet, I’d speak quietly, I did not believe any else. Anyone else wanted to hear anything from me. I now I became a radio DJ at the age of 14. How did I do that? Well, I was talking to a microphone in an empty room. But the minute there were other people in the room. I couldn’t do it. And so I had this alter ego, this other persona. And so I was I knew it was in me, but I couldn’t do it in front of other people. And so one day my mentor said, Look, if you want to accomplish your dreams, you’ve got to overcome your shyness, and he recommended Toastmasters. So I joined. And I hated it. I had to stand and speak in front of 30 people every week, and I was horrified. But every week it got easier and easier and easier. And soon I quit. And I was fairly comfortable. And then one day, I had an opportunity and I had to speak in front of a crowd of thousands of people. And I was so petrified, My hands were sweating, and I was wanted to vomit, and I was, didn’t want to come out and it was really scary. But I got out there and I knew my material, because if you know your material, you have confidence. I knew my material. I had rehearsed it, and I pulled it off. And I want to tell you that I do art marketing bootcamp at the Plein Air Convention every year in front of 1000 or more people and I’m up there for three mornings. in a row for an hour and 15 minutes or something, I rehearse that in my room the night before, I want to make sure I’m confident I don’t want to go in there and wing it. A professional never wings that a professional is always on top of things. So you just have to learn how to be professional, how to be prepared for sales and how to understand it takes some training, get beyond all of this, you can do it. Your real issue here is that you’re getting in your own way. And anytime any of us are getting in our own way, we cannot buy that excuse. , if you’re you’ve put on too much weight and you can’t do something because you’re you put on too much weight. You have no one else to rely on, but yourself to solve that problem. If you have a knee problem or a back problem, it’s your responsibility to go resolve that you know you don’t, you’ve got to find somebody to help you with. In this case, you got to find somebody to help you. I wouldn’t want anyone else making decisions for me in my country. In my my career and and controlling my life and my family, because if your gallery goes under, and you have nothing else going on, you’ve got a problem. But if you have galleries, two or three of them, and you also have some other things going on that is done appropriately for the galleries, so they’re not feeling like you’re undercutting them or doing something sneaky behind their back. Then you have a business and everybody needs a business. You don’t ever want your business relying on a single pillar. Being in one gallery is a single pillar. Think of the Parthenon with one pillar holding it up. That pillar goes down, that top part goes down, right? You need multiple pillars, so you got to learn these things, develop your muscles, and you got to trust me on that. Anyway, hope this is helpful.
Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.
In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads shares insights on using social media for marketing (even if you avoid social media), and networking tips for freelance artists.
Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 35 >>>
Submit Your Art Marketing Question:
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads:
In the marketing minute I answer your art marketing questions. All you got to do is email me, [email protected]. Here’s a question from a YouTube listener who said, I’m a fairly successful artist, I make a good living and I refuse to do social media. For me, it’s a giant waste of time and I’d love to hear your thoughts as to whether or not an artist should engage in any social media at all. Well, it’s not an easy answer because it can be a giant time suck and it’s hard to measure the value unless you do it exactly right, which is something very few people know how to do. Now a lot of people are posting a lot of stuff And posting progress shots and posting their paintings. But I’m not sure that a lot of people are selling a lot of paintings from it once in a while somebody gets a Hey, I want to buy that painting. But there are not very many people who are actually selling a lot of art. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because they’re not doing it properly. I think it can be done properly. I would refine your question a little bit more by asking is not doing it hurting your business, you say you have plenty of business. And if that’s the case, it’s probably not hurting it. But just keep in mind, a lot of people built a business and they have momentum, and then it dries up and it stops suddenly, because they’re not keeping their momentum up. That’s why advertising is important to things like that. But social media can be advertising and there is advertising opportunity there. But it’s a whole different game on social media works very well for things where it’s clicking buy this now, and it’s not necessarily an expensive item. So So clearly, Facebook, Instagram, etc, are mainstream and most people are on it. But does it sell art? Well? Is it gonna get you into more galleries? It might I mean, there are gallery owners who watch and they clearly are paying attention to what people are posting to find out what they, what they’re doing whether or not they’re bringing them in. It’s not automatic, of course. But again, there’s a formula. You know, today, it’s kind of like not being in the phonebook and the old days, you know, when people use phone books, if you weren’t in the phone book or the Yellow Pages, they wouldn’t remember you well. Being on the web is more like being a phone book, of course. And I think having a website is absolutely critical too. And it sends a signal if if you’re not doing it well or if you haven’t updated in 30 years, but anyway, a lot of people will randomly learn about you discover you because someone may have clicked on or commented on your Facebook and then they see that and they you know people pick up on it, but Most artists actually don’t have many collectors following them. Some do. Most of the artists have their friends, fellow artists following which is nice, a nice way to be seen nice way to be social. But it’s not necessarily moving the sales needle, although artists do buy paintings and so that can happen. But you have to know how to do it exactly. And I do hear stories about a few people selling consistently, but not very much. There is one thing to know is there’s a false belief about Facebook, and even Instagram. And that is that we think that everything we post is being seen by all of our followers. Well, on Facebook, only 2% of the people on average, will actually get to see what you post and that’s assuming they see it because they’re scrolling through, they might miss it. If you don’t have good creative, you don’t have good graphics. If you’re not saying something interesting. They might buzz right by it. I do that all the time. I’m flipping through just going fast. So just because it’s somebody’s speed doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be seen. So what you want to do is, of course, if you’re working on business, you want to be in a controlled environment, that’s an environment you control yourself or someone that you know. And trust controls a controlled environment, to some extent would be email, except you can’t control it completely because you might end up on a spam list or you might get no open rates, advertising, you know, things like our magazines, our newsletters, like some of the stuff we produce, obviously controlled environment, it’s, it’s gonna get out to the right people. But you have to, no matter what you’re doing, if you’re using it for marketing, there’s three legs on the marketing stool, and I talked about this in my books in my videos, and that is that you’ve got to have great attention getting content or copy. copywriting is very important headlines are very important. And that’s true on social media too. You’ve got to get people’s attention, you got to have a great graphic. Next, you got to have a great audience. And that is An audience who is the audience that you really need to reach. And then of course, you’ve got to have repetition, any message. In order for people to take action on it usually has to be repeated and seen by that individual eight or 10 times, and sometimes over longer periods of time depending on how much time has passed because we lose memory of certain things when we sleep. And so in a short period of time, you want to be seen 789 10 times in a longer period, it might be 30 4050 times depending on if you’re building a brand or you’re trying to sell something in particular, great content, great copy, great audience and repetition without those things, most marketing will fail. The next question comes from Jan Coby. It does not say where Jan is but she says, I used to paint as a greeting card artists for five years for the leading greeting card company now teach art part time and I’m developing a line of card ideas. I would love to free For other card companies, and share my new ideas, but I don’t know how to proceed. I have a list of greeting card companies and art directors all over the US. And I plan to send them five by seven postcards to my best work for consideration. What’s your best advice for me to find freelance work?
Eric Rhoads 1:04:19
Well, Jan, you must be pretty good. I think that the first thing is to take an inventory of what you already have. You have connections at the big greeting card company. And unless you left on bad terms, maybe they would become your best customer. as a freelancer. Have you thought about that if you open that door? Secondly, you’re probably in touch with a lot of other greeting card designers. And they probably worked for other companies too. And they know former designers they know art directors, maybe ask them the question. Can they make introductions? Can they tell you who they know? My guess that they’re probably not a lot of greeting card companies. I might be wrong, but I don’t think there are hundreds of certainly probably Not thousands. And my guess is that they all have designers on staff or they all use freelancers, one or the other, maybe both. So why would they buy your designs? What’s unique about your designs, you need to come up with a compelling reason to get their attention. This is called strategy. Cease mailing postcards is a tactic, what you put on those postcards and what you’re targeting and who you’re talking to and what your messaging is. That’s strategy, cards or tactics. Now, let’s say there are six to 10 companies and six to 10 art directors. Why send a card? Why not just pick up the phone and call each of them and introduce yourself? It’s only six people. So if you get a no, you can probably ask a couple questions and learn about the likelihood that you would succeed with them long term. And if it were me, I’d start my own card company. Then the key is getting distribution and being able to afford to print your cards but You’re up against some big guns. So why not create something unique and different, like an online greeting card company, make it so that they can order online cards through an app and have them auto mail to the people you want with the messages you want. There are some apps out there that do that kind of thing. I don’t know if they have designs like what you provide, but you could certainly work with apps or you could do it yourself. My rule is that self employed is always better than employed. In other words, you’re controlling your destiny more if you have your own business. So think about that. Now, being a freelancer is having your own business. So that’s a good thing. But you’re also relying on other people. If you can rely only on yourself and your great marketing and your great distribution. Think Big and you can control your own world. Now related to your question about postcards, I love postcards. They’re very effective. Now they’re expensive. They’re not as expensive as other types of mail, but you can probably count on you know, 50 or 50 cents or $1, or card, depending on how many people you’re sending to if you’re sending to 1000. You know, it’s going to cost you 1000 or $2,000 for a mailing. And postcards don’t typically work without what we call repetition. And what I do postcard campaigns, I like to hit people over and over and over again in a few weeks period of time, you know, every week every two weeks twice a week, you will grow on them, people will start paying attention, they won’t respond immediately, but eventually a high percentage of them will respond. Anyway, hope this helps. This has been the art marketing minute.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
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 special edition from the PleinAir Podcast, Eric interviews American business executive, conference speaker, and author Jay Abraham on what artists and galleries should be doing right now to stay in business during the pandemic.
Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Special Episode with Jay Abraham >>>
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.
Eric Rhoads 00:00
This is episode number 166. Today is a special edition and emergency edition if you will of the Plein Air podcast.
Announcer 00:21
This is the plein air podcast with Eric Rhoads, publisher and founder of plein air magazine. In the Plein Air podcast we cover the world of outdoor painting called plein air. The French coined the term, which means open air or outdoors. The French pronounce it plenn air. Others say plein air, no matter how you say it. There is a huge movement of artists around the world who are going outdoors to paint. And this show is about that movement. Now, here’s your host, author, publisher and painter, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads 00:59
Thank you Jim Kipping, and welcome to the plein air podcast. I’m Eric and I’m sure like me, you’re stuck at home in quarantine. I hope you’re okay. I’ve been working on all kinds of things I could do to help everybody through this. I’ve been doing Facebook live every day and I’ve been doing art instruction videos daily at three o’clock on Facebook Live from the streamline art video page. And we’ve been helping galleries with some profiles to keep them visible, you know, helping our advertisers etc. Anything we can do. We’re sending out some free copies of the magazine to extra people, just all kinds of things to try and help. Today is a departure from the normal plein air podcast. And it’s not about plein air at all. Not really. In reality, it’s about helping artists, plein air shows and galleries. we want to help you survive during this sudden economic downturn. Hopefully this will end soon. So today I’ve got an interview for you with the best marketing mind in the world. His name is Jay Abraham gets 100 k a day For his consulting and he’s a friend of mine he did the foreword to my book, make more money selling your art. And I called Jay and I said, let’s do a video together for the artists. And so I’ve already done a video of Senator…but if you’ve not seen it, you need to hear it. And you need to hear it a couple times anyway because every time I hear it, I hear new things in it. And this will help you try to get through this difficult time because you are running a business, whether you like it or not, if you’re an artist and you are selling your art, you’re running a business. So we’ll get to that in a minute. I should mention that due to coronavirus to the plein air convention has been moved to August the 11th through 14th. In Santa Fe we’re not doing Denver this year. We can’t because we couldn’t get a date. So the 11th through 14 of August and summer it’s the first time we’re doing a summertime convention which means all the school teachers who haven’t been able to come are going to get to come and a lot of people haven’t been able to because of kids that can come make a vacation out of it. And it happens to be peak time. happens to be Indian summer is going on not Indian summer What am I talking about Indian market is going on right when we finished the convention that’s the biggest weekend of the Year in Santa Fe draws lots of people so it’s good time to paint good time to be there good time to see a little extra. And of course Kevin MacPherson has agreed to do the pre convention workshop because the previous one could not make it so that’s really great news. Also, I should tell you the plein air salon which usually gives away it’s awarded the convention has been extended, the competition will continue to go on we’re going to do monthly judging for more monthly prizes and then we will do three more chances to win before the convention and three more competitions if you will. So $15,000 cash is on the line for you are 23 grand in total prizes. And the cover of plein air magazine is stories in the newsletter and so on. So enter before April 30. For the next plein air salon, we have extended it and we will award it at the convention. Anyway, I should also remind you that if you want these daily videos of art instruction, go to streamline art video on Facebook, streamline art video, just follow it and then they will come through automatically when we go live and we’re going to keep doing them as long as we can do them during the quarantine as long as the internet holds up, as long as we’re here. Anyway, let’s get right to this special edition of marketing advice for a crisis like this with Jay Abraham. I’m pleased today to have a really very important guy on the line Jay Abraham who is the hundred thousand dollar a day marketing consultant. He has built many, many businesses and helped billions of dollars worth of businesses help them grow. He’s an author of many books, and I asked Jay, to come on and talk to you about what you might want to do as an artist or as an art gallery. In this moment when we’re all a little questioning about coronavirus, and staying home and What should we do with our businesses? And is the economy going to crash? Jay has lived through four economic disasters and looks at this as opportunity. Jay, welcome.
Jay Abraham 05:10
Thank you, Eric. I’m pleased to be here.
Eric Rhoads 05:13
So Jay, we’re going to try to keep this at about 20 or 30 minutes. And the idea here is what if I’m an artist or I’m an art gallery, and everything has come to a screeching halt? What is the first thing you think I should be doing?
Jay Abraham 05:30
I think you should be strategically recognizing that this is arguably one of the greatest opportunities you will ever have to gain attentive mindshare in a very unusual way. It’s not dissimilar to the fact that art galleries do well in environments where people are stuck in in a captive place for a long time and keep repetitively visiting and and, and getting connected and bonded to the art. I think today, Eric, you’ve got people who are most of their day and lives have been frenetic and basically coming and going and they give a very meager amount of attention to anything and now they’re homebound and yeah, they’re working from home but nobody can say on the phone or on their computer on their, their device for that kind of a long period. They’re going to spend qualitative time getting getting attached to different things. You’ve got this wonderful, wonderful concept called art. Art inspires Art savs Art electrifies exactly what people need. I think today, artists should advertise. They should should offer to get on the phone spend time sharing with anybody interested, you know, their motivation, their background, you know, methodology media they do and they should use this to own mind share in your magazine, for example, you’ve got great collectors, great art investors, great advocates enthusiasts, I can’t imagine. I know it’s a very horrific time. It’s unprecedented. But art as transcended every, you know, every known period in in history, it’s not going to be abandoned now and people need the inspiration and the connection and you can do lots of things. First thing is make yourself available make yourself known don’t stop. Make sure that the beauty majesty, the allurement, that the therapeutic aspects of your art is even more evident and make yourself available to connect with people. I don’t know if that answers a little bit more portrayed.
Eric Rhoads 08:15
You know, I want to probe that just a little bit. That was very good. The The question is gonna be, you know, I’m afraid of the future. I don’t know what the future brings, you know, I, I just need to stop doing what I’m doing. And yet there’s, there’s a sense of momentum that’s lost if they stop. There’s also a sense of opportunity loss. So you and I were talking earlier about this, but just for the benefit of everybody. In the Great Depression, there was a dominant cereal by the name of post which had like a 90% market share. And there was a startup that literally started right at the beginning of the Great Depression. And it was Kellogg’s and they had no market share, and post in their infinite wisdom said, We’re rich, we’re successful. We’re not going to advertise. We’re just going to get through this period of time. Meanwhile, Kellogg took everything they had, and even stuff they probably couldn’t afford. And they put it towards marketing and advertising themselves. And post ignored them and said, You know, we’re big, they’re never going to hurt us. And then, at the end of the Great Depression, Kellogg had the lion’s share of the market, and they’ve never lost it since then. Can you talk about the importance of branding, even if people may or may not be buying at this time the importance of using this as an opportunity to establish their brand?
Jay Abraham 09:44
Well, absolutely. First of all, again, what I said earlier, is, is true. in normal times, you get someone thumbing through and they’re so frenetic. Now, we’re, we’re consciously trying to Focus on various items, issues, activities that are going to give us solace and we are actually forcing ourselves to pay more attention. If you can use this access period, to elevate and preempt yourself against the maddening crowd, you can own that crowd. Certainly when you get back in, you know, into normality or normalcy, but you know, all estimates are even if it’s horrific, it’s going to be, you know, a few months, maybe longer, but if it’s a few months, and during that time, you can establish yourself as a dominant force. You can make yourself more elevated, more, more preemptive more connected, what that means to you when everything shakes out, is very powerful. Honestly, with all sincerity you win and your counterparts will play havoc trying to catch up number one. Number two is, you know it for the modest cost. I don’t know what it costs to advertise in your, in your media, but geez for that modest cause, the ability to own the mind of the market that you’ve already identified, you know, they are serious buyers of art. You know, they are literally people who own art. And you know that there are people who appreciate the intangibles that art represents. And the majority of them I don’t really think are, are going to be totally devoid of the capacity to buy art. They might differ. Maybe an artist will make some arrangements on terms but the point is, you’ve never had that I call us a perfect storm at Yes, it’s crisis. And yes, it’s horrific, but you also have deep, focused attention, and you have the chance to get them to re attend over and over again, not unlike they would. I don’t want to use a cruise ship because it’s got some bad connotations. But a cruise ship sells so much art because they visited they leave they visited they leave, it captivates, they’re in a mindset of opening up their sensory abilities. This is more evident right now than anybody can possibly exist. And I would say if I were an artist, I probably and I’m not saying this to patronize you, Eric, I would double up I might try to negotiate a rate for two ads with you but I double up because I want to make my art so powerfully and positively aunty that I knew that I was going to own the you know the responsiveness of your marketplace which you’ve You’ve kept it you’ve cultivated and you’ve, you’ve you’ve acquired and you’ve organized and you’ve attracted it very expensive. I know what you had to go through to build your, your readership and I know that readership is is Primo great, I would want to abandon it. I want to own it. That’s just the truth.
Eric Rhoads 13:20
During during the 2004 2008 recession, I called an art dealer buddy of mine in New York, and I said, you know what’s happening because I knew he sold expensive art and he dealt with a lot of the people who, who read our magazine, because we have we have over 300 billionaires that read it. And I said, are they have they stopped buying because I was hearing you know, everybody’s gonna stop buying. He said, No, they haven’t stopped buying, he said, but instead of buying $200,000 paintings two or three at a time, they’re buying $50,000 paintings two or three at a time, he said so they’ve reduced but the ones thing that I think a lot of us forget is that people with money, still have money.
Jay Abraham 14:08
You’re right. Well, also you made a point that I was trying to make and I was struggling for a word. Yeah. You can’t get the right word. You have curated your readership. And I don’t think people understand you’re allowing an artist the chance to go in with every human being that we know of, except for a few exceptions in in the United States, certainly, and most of the world are homebound. They are sitting, they have time. They want to escape the complexities of their business. They want therapeutic, you know, you know, a refreshing alternative. You have a chance to connect with them and bond with them now. Is to goodness not trying to capitalize on that the sadness of the times but this is genuinely a situation where adversity is truly opportunity, you’re not going to get that attention, you’re not going to get that attention you’re not going to get that that that fulfillment of sensory need at the depth and the dimension that you can get right now other than if they were locked, you know, for three days in your studio or in your or in your art gallery and you aren’t gonna be able to do that. So this is opportunity honest to goodness strategic opportunity here.
Eric Rhoads 15:41
Yeah, you know, and you’re not necessarily going to reach those people with your social media because unless they’re following you, you know, we all have social media followers, but we we sometimes forget that they’re our friends not necessarily our customers or that every every Facebook post we make only gets sent to 3% To the people who’s watching it. And so and then those people might miss it. I want to tell you a story. And get your comments on this. In 2008, there was an art gallery, I won’t use its name, it’s still in business. It started up when the recession started. And I since had a discussion with the owner of that gallery, who has since sold it. And I said, What were you thinking starting up in 2008? He says, Look, I was a business consultant. I spent my life understanding recessions and I understood the opportunities that I knew the biggest and the best, the biggest galleries would say, we’re hurting. We’re going to cut our marketing budget. And he said, so I started up at that time, he said, seven or eight big galleries stopped advertising entirely. Others reduced the size of their ads. He said, I knew that once they were out of sight, they were out of mind. And once they did that, if I was visible, then I would be able to take those customers he said, so even though they’re all doing less business, you know, I got the 10%, who would would have been buying from this guy and 10% from this lady. And he said, we actually made a lot of money during the recession. And then when it was all over, we had all these collectors, they were in our pocket. And we became huge as a result of it.
Jay Abraham 17:22
Yeah. And Eric, I was thinking because, you know, given the window, and I don’t know what your deadlines are, but they could do some really inventive things. Since everybody now is doing and I was on the phone with some of the people today they’re doing amazing things with video conferencing, you could you could change your ad to invite him to, you know, watch you create or discuss and talk to the artist, you could do things that they would never have the time, the motivation, the need, and the The desire to do in normal times I mean this is such an opportunity to bond and get penetrating and, and pre emptive access if you use the same creativity that you use to forge your, your, you know your media, your your canvas, your your metals, whatever the things that you’re creating and you use it to forge the connection you’re going to make with these collectors that exist within that very well and very hard one curated readership that you’ve, you’ve concentrated for them. Yeah, I really do mean this. It’s in the scope of the rest of their, their artistic life, and they are artistic entrepreneurs after realizes if they create for any reason other than to retain it in their own house. Then they are an artist. Partner an entrepreneur has to be you’re either strategic or you’re reactive. You’re going to be reactive you might as well get out of the field if you’re going to be strategic. capitalize, you know, it’s it’s the the Latin, carp ADM, you have to seize the moment. And it’s a very strategic it’s not. It’s not pie in the sky, if you think about it pragmatically, logically intelligently. You have these very well capable people who can spend their money, who own art, who will continue to own art and these are people that will own art Do they have no place to put it? They might have walls galore, they have collections they rotate. They have art, they put in different places they’ll buy art donated, landed, they’ll leave it in their basement, they’ll leave it in evolved in a in a storage. So utilize this opportunity to bond and connect and use your artists Creativity and channel it more into your entrepreneurial, creative.
Eric Rhoads 20:05
So the same things apply to art galleries, right?
Jay Abraham 20:08
Absolutely. Absolutely. This is their chance to connect at a deeper level. I mean, you know, right now I can’t remember what they calling him. But there are all these parties going on online which are, you know, they’re much more serious. What? Yeah, I mean, I think that galleries can do some wonderful things, including what I just said. You can do, you can do shows you can go into there, the artist studio, you can have the artist basically create you could, you can, you can do three dimensional, if it’s, if it’s, you know, if it’s in metal, if it’s not, if it’s not a canvas, you can do so many things. And the truth of the matter as you said, that you maybe maybe a true collector is going to To reduce the amount they spend per piece, but they’re not going to reduce and in fact, and probably will happen. Most of these people are pretty astute buyers. So they might be astute negotiators. But if they start collecting artists that they weren’t before, even if they try to negotiate a bit with you, when they start collecting you, it’ll have more emotional connection because of what’s going on now to them than if they bought it during normal times. And that theoretically, but but logically, we’ll have them more compelled to want to buy more from you. It’s just logic.
Eric Rhoads 21:43
One foot in the door once you get them as a collector
Jay Abraham 21:45
Yeah and better now because it’s going to have much more meaning to them. I think because of the, the associative time and emotional need they have for therapeutic fulfillment.
Eric Rhoads 21:58
You know, when when I was referring to That other gallery several of the galleries that stopped advertising during the recession actually went out of business. And most of the ones that did not stop stayed in business they had they struggled to stay in business. I’m but talk to me about that aspect if you if you if you just say, Hey, I’ll wait and see what happens what what kind of a rescue putting your business in?
Jay Abraham 22:24
Well, I mean, I was watching at one of the shows on one of the stock market channels today and they were talking about how if, if certain businesses stop restarting is a nightmare. It’s like there’s certain engines you can’t motors you can’t stop. There’s certain vehicles. I don’t mean vehicles like cars, but there’s other things like that. Stop them and start them again is onerous. It’s extraordinarily hard both in in regaining momentum and velocity in resources necessary to create All the positive pressure that’s going to need to start the movement again. It’s just really I mean, again, you have to realize that the world will not totally add, it’s going to come back it may have to be like that. But people will buy art. People who have the resources will continue to buy they may buy differently but if you are there for them and you are top of mind, and you are allowing yourself to connect in deeper and more more inventive ways now than you normally could, in the busy inattentive times that have been the norm up until a few weeks ago and will be the norm again, in a few months this window is, is rare and the cost of of of optimal mining, capitalizing harnessing and dominating right now for two or three months. I mean, I don’t know what I don’t need to know what a page or two pages in your magazine cause I’m just saying I would think that that would be the best strategic investment Art Gallery could make for the rest of their, their viable life because this can be the propellant that can get you more, more indelibly embedded in awareness, your artists more established in the mind your chance to connect them at more, in more ways. I would use this inventively. I would use this creatively I would use this in ways that nobody else does, I might add, my ads be different than just pictorial, but I would really capitalize on this access window and this concentration of attention window and this emotional need to be fulfilled window in ways that I don’t think everyone in the gallery businesses recognizing,
Eric Rhoads 25:06
you know, you and I talked about this, I think we were in Miami together, you were doing a consulting session with us. And you said something about, oftentimes there’s a spark that happens, a business can be in business for 20 or 30 years and going along, and you know, just going through their everyday thing. And then there’s one thing, one event that occurs, that is like a spark that just sets off the rocket and they go highly you and I talked about that in the context of me doing a PBS show. And the idea that this might be that moment where it could be their Spark.
Jay Abraham 25:46
Yeah, absolutely. If you think about it, when everyone else is retreating when everyone else is paralyzed. You have the opportunity to literally take care Not just market share, but but basically, Top of Mind awareness out of, you know, out of the market, you have a chance to take people who normally would probably and I’m not a a psychologist or a neuroscientist, but they probably would spend this much of their time normally focused on art. Now, you have a chance for them to spend not only this amount of time, but back and back and forth and over and over again. And if you are inventive, and it’s not just a single picture, but you say, Hey, we’re doing every day a different, a different show. And you can do shows that you connect now to somebody and somebody, whatever their studio is or their house, you could visit collectors, you can do so many really cool things that will engage even deeper and then that engagement, it’ll do two things. it’ll, it’ll, it’ll establish artists, but it will all also distinguish you in very, very, very unique ways in the mind of that collector because you’re doing stuff that’s interesting, it’s entertaining, it’s enjoyable, it’s stimulating. It’s fascinating. It’s dimensional, and it’s therapeutic.
Eric Rhoads 27:23
Well, Jay, thank you so much. I know all the artists and galleries watching this are are going to get a lot out of it. And I I know that you’re busy, everybody’s calling you for consulting at this time and, and I just want to thank you for spending the time with us today.
Jay Abraham 27:36
I really want to acknowledge I think what you’ve created is such a vital value that will give them direct access. It’s a greatest right this moment, the greatest life you know, lifeblood you, you as a gallery owner can give to A collector that needs you right now they actually need you for for their own, their own great, you know peace of mind take advantage of that. You could mean there’s never been where there’s a one party thought in our lives. We are rewarded in our lives for the amount of problems we solve, and the amount of opportunities we make possible for others. Everyone today is in enormous strife. We are suffering if you can help relieve and and temporarily stop that suffering and turn suffering into joy. And that joy is dimensionally something beyond what your competitors even seek to do and you’re introducing them to experiences and opportunities and and creations That can really transform their mindset their lives. They’re mean it this is just a wonderful opportunity if people grasp it. That’s all I want to say.
Eric Rhoads 29:11
Thank you, Jay.
Jay Abraham 29:13
You’re welcome Eric.
Eric Rhoads 29:14
Well, I hope you found this helpful. Take action. Don’t wait. Thanks again to Jay Abraham for letting me do this and give you some information. A reminder to schedule yourself at the rescheduled plein air convention in August in Santa Fe. You don’t want to miss it. This is the first summertime that we’ve done it usually do it in spring. Come while you can in summertime. And then also make sure you enter the extended plein air salon art competition at pleinairsalon.com. If you’ve not seen my blog, where I talk about life and art and philosophy, it’s called Sunday coffee. And you can find it and subscribe for free at coffeewithEric.com up to about a quarter million readers. I can’t believe that people keep forwarding it to people. I love this. Thank you so much. I really as well. It’s fun doing this, I’m sorry, the circumstances are such that we have to talk about survival. We’re going to get through this. We’ll get through it together. Remember what Jay says, and that is this will have an end. And things probably will get better when the end comes. And so hang in there, be strong, stay secluded. Don’t talk to anybody. Don’t shake hands, get a lot of painting done. And watch for me on Facebook Live and I’ll do things for you. You can follow me on Facebook, Eric Rhoads or on Instagram. And I’d love for you to do that. Now I don’t have Public Accounts on either of them. So I have a limit. But you can still follow even if even though I don’t have a public account, I don’t do a public account because I want to see what the people are doing that are friends with me. So anyway, I’m Eric Rhoads, publisher and founder of plein air magazine. Remember, it’s a big world out there. Don’t shake hands with it, but go paint. I’ll see you bye bye
Announcer 31:08
This has been the plein air podcast with Plein Air magazine’s Eric Rhoads. You can help spread the word about plein air painting by sharing this podcast with your friends. And you can leave a review or subscribe on iTunes. So it comes to you every week. And you can even reach Eric by email Eric at plein air magazine calm. Be sure to pick up our free ebook 240 plein air painting tips by some of America’s top painters. It’s free at pleinairtips.com. Tune in next week for more great interviews. Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
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, you’ll learn if you might want to consider using a different name, and how to make the most of Instagram.
Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 7
Submit Your Art Marketing Question:
What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute: DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.
Announcer 0:02
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads 0:23
Thank you Jim Kipping. And thank you for joining us today. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. Well, here’s a question from Joan Barnum. Now, I normally don’t use last names, and I don’t know where Joan is from but in this case, it’s relevant because she says thanks so much for your podcast and for the marketing minute. I tune in every week and I’ve learned so much value from both. I’ve been learning what I can about selling my art and I’ve been trying to establish some kind of online presence, but I discovered recently However, that there is a well known watercolor artist out there whose name is very similar to mine. She’s Joanna Barnum. And I’m Joan Barnum. I wonder if it will make it difficult for people to find me online. And if I should consider changing the name, under which I do business, reverting to my maiden name, for instance, I’m just in the beginning stages of the process. And so I’m going to make this sort of move now would be the time.
Well, I couldn’t agree more. It’s a great question. It happens more than you think I can think of several. What comes to mind is Scott Pryor. And then there’s Scott W. Pryor. Both artists, there’s Charles white, and there’s Charles H. White, both artists. And Heck, there’s even another Eric Rhoads. Who was, well, an adult film star. That wasn’t me thankfully. Yikes anyway, he’s dead. I might not be after I mentioned that. Anyway, if you already established the name and then you discover somebody else’s got the name or then you got a little bit of a problem. And you if you’re starting out though this is a good time to avoid confusion and brand yourself under a name where there’ll be no confusion. Now I grew up in radio and we used to do stage names all the time, and you might want to invent a name that sends a signal of confidence to your buyer. Some people pick names that are about their brand, you know, like if you’re a spy, you could be Roger danger. Or you know, remember Jonny Quest. He was an adventure in the cartoons, Richie Rich. But seriously, go out there and come up with a name that really works for you. Now, I wouldn’t call yourself Monet, though there are people out there who’ve done it. There’s an actress whose name is Monet. I wonder if it’s real. I doubt it. But anyway, come up with something distinctive. Stage names are pretty common and there are a lot of artists actually who you Stage names it and if your maiden name works, it’s great. But if it’s hard to say, or it’s hard to spell or hard to read, like if your maiden name is Roberto, it’s, you might want to do something easier. Like I have this friend who’s a radio person and her name was Rabinowitz. And you know, how do you spell it? So she changed it to Robin’s. And you might do something like that. Or you could just be distinctive by saying, you know, your middle initial. The other thing you’ve got to your advantage is that you want a name that’s memorable and you have a name that’s memorable. Right? Who is memorable PT Barnum is memorable. Why not be L. Barnum or PT Barnum or some variation on that or there may be you play off of that, you know, Linda Barnum, like you know, like PT Barnum, the greatest show on earth, you know, you can have some fun with that. So give it some thought. Anyway, it’s a good time. Remember, you are a brand we invent names for brands. And why not do it for artists brands now I think authentic and real is best. But in a case like yours, where there’s going to be confusion, and the names are close, you might want to consider distinguishing yourself with a different first name at least. And don’t forget, there is some gold in that name Barnum, because you want something that people remember because everyday names like Jones and Smith and so on are not very memorable. But if you say you introduce yourself or your website says, Hey, you know, it’s Linda Barnum, like PT Barnum, and then they’re trying to remember who you are, they’re going to remember that.
Here’s the next question from Adam. In Los Angeles, Adam says, I’ve noticed everybody’s moved over to Instagram from Facebook. How can I get a lot of followers so I can sell more art?
And Adam? Well, you’re asking the wrong question, not to embarrass you. But the question should be How can I sell more art, Instagram as a tactic? Just like a magazine ad, or an Email as a tactic. You want to start with a strategy. How are you going to differentiate? Who is going to be your audience? What is the avatar of your audience? The Avatar is like, Who’s the average person who buys your art? And what do they like? Explain and understand that avatar, you know, like, we know the avatar of the people who come to the planner convention, and there’s a lot of the similar type of people, so we tend to talk to them. So think about that, because you want to think about who you’re trying to sell art to. Now, most people on Instagram and Facebook are misusing it. And they’re really talking about themselves a lot. And they’re not really talking about the business aspects. And so you want to think about that, and I’m going to do something very special with plein air convention this year. I’m going to do a morning on Instagram in my art marketing boot camp. And that’ll be worth the price of admission alone, believe me, so I went to the world’s top experts. I got their tips. I’m going to explain them Plus, I’m going to share some of my own. And there’s not enough time here because I’m going to spend about an hour just on that. And probably an hour isn’t enough. But the bottom line with Instagram is it’s about engaging people. It’s about commenting, often smart commenting, and those kinds of things engagement and commenting will help people follow you also liking other people, but there’s a whole lot more to it a lot of strategy behind it. So I didn’t mean to be snide by saying it’s around question, but you want to be thinking about multiple pillars. You don’t want all of your business relying on one thing like Facebook has lost 60 million people recently. So what if your business was based on Facebook? You know, would it affect you? It might so if your business is affected by Instagram at one time, and then you have to reinvent yourself another time, you should be doing multiple pillars Anyway, you should be having a lot of different variations on the way that you You, you market yourself? 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 and to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
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, you’ll learn keys to selling art on Facebook on Instagram and how to get exposure through your local media outlets.
Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 3
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 art marketing. com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.
Eric Rhoads 0:23
Thank you, Jim kipping. And thank you for joining us today. I am here. My goal is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists. So let’s get right to today’s questions. So here’s a question from Cindy P. of Phoenix, Arizona. Cindy says, What’s the key to selling artwork on Instagram? or Facebook?
Well, that’s a big one. Well, first, I think it’s important to understand that we all think that we have an instant market if we have a big number of followers, let’s say got 5000 followers, and we think that every time we do a post, everybody’s gonna see everything we do. It’s not true Facebook owns Instagram, Instagram and Facebook are the same company. And they’re trying to force people to buy ads for exposure. So the algorithm that they use is only pushing out 2% of what you push out to your followers. That means very small number of your followers ever see what you post and it seems to be the same ones over and over and over again, the ones that interact with you the most, don’t assume people are seeing it. Secondly, though, we hear all these great stories about selling paintings. As we examine some of these stories, some are true. Others have other linkage to other things that have gone on that just happened to be kind of implemented through Instagram or Facebook, though there are people who are selling on Facebook, Instagram, the ones who sell well tend to have huge numbers, hundred 200,000 followers. There are exceptions to that but yet large numbers that increase your odds. I’ll be doing a lot on Instagram and Facebook at the Art marketing bootcamp sessions with the planner convention but a couple of things to think about First off, don’t try to sell to turn off people are there For content, so for every time you ask for something, you need 10 times you’re not doing any asking, you’re just doing content, so 10 to one ratio. So positive post lots and lots of content, spread it out. Not all at the same time I was on Instagram or Facebook or something the other day and it’s like 10 things in a row from the same guy. It’s like I defended him, I just didn’t want to see all that. So spread it out. Spread it out throughout the day, different people look at different times. And so you want to make sure that you spread it out. Secondly, repeat content. Just because it’s been out there one time doesn’t mean you can’t repeat it. You can look for a different way to say it. But the same people aren’t always seeing it so it’s good time to repeat things. Secondly, comment often commenting and interacting with people builds your feed exposure, look for ways to comment on other people’s posts. If you look smart people will wonder who you are and they’ll visit your page. And if they find good content, they will friend you and stays good way to build but also the interactive is really good for your algorithm. So they’re looking for people who are interactive. If somebody’s commenting a lot, now you have to be careful about click bait. Gotta be careful about saying, you know, click here if you think this or whatever, because they’re looking for people who do that and you will get penalized. Next, keep in mind that birds of a feather tend to flock together. Most artists follow other artists, it’s probably rare for a collector to follow you. It does happen, of course, but we’re learning that artists are buying lots of art, so that’s okay, too. So when you put it out there look for subtle ways of saying it’s available, like, you know, thinking of sending this to my gallery, if it doesn’t sell here, the next 24 hours, they’re going to get the drift. You don’t have to say, if you’re interested by here, you want to be creative about this stuff.
Here’s another question from Larry K. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He says I’m constantly seeing stories about other artists and local media. How do I get some of that action? Well, Larry’s squeaky wheel gets the grease, most of those people that get stories didn’t just have happened to randomly get discovered. They made phone calls, they put out press releases, they were talking to people. You want to assume that frequency is important at all marketing. One time doesn’t get you anything one time advertising one time on of Instagram posts one time on anything doesn’t help. You want frequency repetition, repetition, repetition. So call editors, meet them over the phone, tell them your story. Send pre written stories because editors get into binds Oh no, they’ve got a story they got to put in tomorrow in the end, the thing fell through, send them lots of photographs and things that are going to get their interest.
So pre written stories can help because if they’re in a bind, you can hire a PR firm, but that’s expensive, but that’s just what they do. They just call people. They get to know people and they know them and they call them and say here’s a tip. I’ve got this thing about this artist. You could do that but it’s going to cost you a lot of money and that’s okay. That’s what they do and they’re good at it sometimes and sometimes Not, but it’s really just about getting to know people. Now the other thing is, don’t tell us this I have, I can’t tell you how many times I get this into such a frustrating thing. They’ll send them a note and they’ll say, you know, here’s I’d like you to do a story on me. And by the way, I was just featured in this magazine, this magazine, this magazine. Well, the last thing I want to do is put something in that everybody else has done, I try to be unique. I don’t want to be putting things in that everybody else has done. So when you tell me that, I don’t want to hear it. So if it has happened, first off, if you’ve just been in five other magazines, I do a story about you and I find out about it. It’s not going to make me happy, but I’m going to feel burned. But if you’ve got something unique, you know, pick out somebody and say hey, I want you to do a story on this. I’d like you to consider this be nice about it and say you know you’ve got the exclusive on this. I’m not going to give it to anybody else. If you pick it up and then that gives you an opportunity to go up here. Here’s something unique and interesting.
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 and to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email Eric@art marketing.com. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com Thanks for listening.
Remember to Submit Your Question: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.
