Art Marketing

To market your art you must have one thing in mind and that is time set aside to do this as the rest of the time will be focused on you creating your artwork, so to be effective at art marketing you have to split your time equally between your main artistic priorities and marketing your art.

Art promotions and marketing consist of the standard marketing stationery that all businesses usually have regardless of their business niche and the following are very important in marketing stationery...

Business cards- These are perhaps the most important as they can be handed out so easily to the other artists or art folks you meet or any prospective customers who may buy your work. A business card should have your business logo or website name headlined at the top with some contact details and a tag line and that's usually it, but it's your choice really on the design of the card.

Letterheads- Letterheads is really just a name for your logo, it can appear on letters, invoices, flyer's, brochures and any direct mail correspondence that you send out, even emails and it is used to associate a professional business brand with you and will easily be recognizable as yours, in time people will come to associate that logo with you and your business.

Art portfolios - A portfolio is a great indicator of the types of work you create and it also demonstrates the quality of your art to others too and only your best art samples should be used and good copies of the original artworks are recommended. For best results it is recommended that you create a physical portfolio and an online portfolio as this will cover both sides of the marketing coin, where with the physical book you are showing it to people you may meet and the online portfolio is the one were actual customers may find your art by searching, so it's a great promotional tool.

Sticky labels - These are great marketing tools that cost peanuts and what you can do with them is whenever you sell one of your art products is you can stick a label on the back with your website address on it, so that the same customers can keep updated with your new artworks. Of course on the website you would have a lead capture form to capture their name and email and have some sort of email marketing sequence in place that will be useful to them.

With this though it would be best to have two websites or two blogs, one that is focused on building your brand as an artist and one that actually sells your art. It's worth thinking about in terms of spreading yourself out and interlinking between the two sites, although you could create one blog or website and combine the selling and the actual information about yourself all into one, there is no set way, just do what you feel is a right fit for your art business.

Marketing your art is about getting the word out on your products, whether they are photographs, paintings, sculptures, illustrations or whatever the style of art, it needs to be explained as clearly as possible to others that you either meet at art fairs and galleries or be as descriptive as possible online, so that it can reach your intended targeted audience.

Other places to promote your art

Art promotions take many forms and the offline ones should not be ignored, because you can attract local publicity for your art, as well as local interest from art galleries, quality cafes that could display your art or even arts and craft fairs which do take place quite regularly in many countries as I've been to a few myself.

Art galleries are the obvious ones, but bear in mind you could be on a slight waiting list as there will be other artists waiting on getting their art commissioned in the same gallery, but to get a gallery commission you will generally need your art portfolio and if required your CV (Resume) which will have everything that is related to your art, such as past artistic achievements and art you have created.

There is a certain element of fear of rejection with applying to an art gallery, but you never know until you try.

Arts and craft fairs are ideal places to network as you will find many other creative types there that if you play your cards right, might be useful to your marketing and you can be useful to their marketing too which helps all concerned in selling each others art.

I remember the first time I went to a craft fair, I was unprepared for the professional attitude of many who attended, as when you hear the words craft fair you might think oh it's like a yard sale type scenario with some people unfolding wall paper paste tables and placing their art crafts on the table and that's it, but when you actually go to a art/craft fair you realise it's not like that.

Sure there are some who might have a bland looking table with a few of their art products on, but the majority have big well decorated stalls with branded cardboard cut outs that almost sign post their stalls and say "Buy Here Now!!"

I was certainly impressed with attending one craft fair that I have tried to attend that same fair every year without fail. And once you start attending a regular event like that, you get to know people more, regular people like yourself that appear there every year too and you get to know about their arts businesses and art products and before you know it, you have made new friends, but useful contacts that you can network with for years to come.

Community centers or cafes - People gather at these places everyday and these people may become familiar with your artwork and so it's a good idea to have your name next to your art or paintings with a cheeky web address too for good measure. I've not had much experience of this way of promoting, but I know a few artists that have and it has resulted in extra sales and commissions and a gallery exhibition or two.

Online marketing should definitely not be overlooked

To promote online is a vast time consuming process that many artists do opt for, even though it is tediously boring to write and spend hours on back linking your articles and portfolio gallery links. Online marketing is largely free, although there are paid advertising options, many go for the free advertising and search engine optimization.

Blogs and websites are great starting points as it is fairly inexpensive really and of course other promotional activities that you can set up along the way, such as a YouTube account, Facebook account, Hubpages account or Squidoo account, all of these can be interlinked, so long as you focus on creating something of use and not just spam sandwiches.

I like the online marketing aspect of marketing your art,as you can just create sections of your business and link it out in different places and measure the results. Traffic wise you should be looking at your stats for keywords that people use to find your art sites, so that you can tailor future art promotions to more specific keywords on your blog, website or individual web pages.