Self-Representing Artists
How
To Develop a Marketing Mindset For Representing Your Art
© by Carl
(CAKUart); all rights reserved
If you are
one of the many self-representing artists showcasing your work for the first time, keep one
thing in mind; you are doing what a lot of people only dream of
doing.
Does that
make you better than an artist who took the gallery
representation route?
Certainly
not.
But you have
taken a big step nonetheless. That required confidence. It may
have taken quite a few conversations with yourself to build up
the courage to get your work out there. But you did it.
However,
there are many self-representing artists who may not be getting
the results that they'd like. So assuming you produce art that
connects with your audience; the problem could well be that you
don't have the right marketing mindset and planning in place.
Marketing Is
Everything
Marketing should equate to at least 40 to 50% of your overall
activity as a self-representing artist.
Some
self-representing artists dedicate even more time than that.
When you
consider all the avenues available to promote and sell your
work, it may at first glimpse seem exhausting. But the idea is
to create a plan to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Having a
blueprint plan of attack will help to maintain focus and avoid
you "trying" something new because you caught wind of
a hot new way to promote and sell your work.
I am not
trying to discourage you from trying something new. By all
means, go ahead and try it, when and only after you have carried
out all the tasks in your initial plan. If your plan does not
work, then try something new.
Let's
say you live in an area that doesn’t really cater for outdoor
shows and art festivals. So you decide that promoting your work
on the Internet would be the best alternative for the time
being.
The best
advice I can give you is to create a plan and opt to use just a
few avenues for marketing your work. The reason being is, if you
spread yourself too wide and try to do too much, you will simply
lose time (time that could be better spent creating your art)
and most all it will eat at your confidence.
Try to focus
on capturing a small audience to begin with. That doesn't
necessarily mean that you only want a handful of people looking
at your art online. Quite the opposite, ideally you want a lot
of people looking at your work, but you do not want to focus on
trying to generate loads of traffic. Building traffic
independently takes time, so be patient.
What you need
to focus on is creating your network. There are so many
self-representing artists who are trying to gain too much ground
instead of simply focusing on building a network of fans,
friends and collectors.
So these are
some factors that you may want to consider as part of your marketing
plan:
- Who
is your customer? Who is going to buy your art? This may
seem a like silly question at first, but knowing who you are
going to sell to before you do will help you greatly with
the next point I am about to make…
- What
is your marketing message? If you know who your customer or
collector is then it will help to mould your overall
marketing message; to what tone you use, how you describe
your work, how you connect with your audience, how you go
about contacting your audience and keeping them updated, and
how you add value to their lives.
- Where
is your customer and how do you go about bringing their
attention to your work? Consider the many avenues available to
seek out your art buyer. Social media is off course a big
platform these days (you tube/ facebook/ twitter etc) so
pick just a few and become good at communicating to people
through these channels. Avoid signing up for every social
media platform available – it will exhaust you and you
will lose heart. Pick a couple you are comfortable with. I'd
suggest 3 at the max to begin with.
Some things
self-representing artists should avoid using as part of their
marketing plan:
- Tactics.
Tactics are simply a tacky way of bringing attention your
art in order to make a sale. You can't create a solid
strategy using "tactics", so don't use them. Use
interaction and good communication. Perhaps your blog is
going to be the center for communication. Use it well.
Contribute to it often.
- Not
listening. Factor into your marketing plan some dedicated
time to communicate, respond and discuss matters with your
audience. If they feel like you are not listening, they will
lose interest. Everybody wants to feel significant, so spend
some time with your fans, get to know who they are and try
to meet their needs. Most important of all, thank people for
their feedback, it will mean a lot to them.
Use some
careful planning when putting your marketing blueprint together.
It doesn't have to be overly detailed and stringent. Keep it
simple to begin with, but stick to it and you'll soon begin to
build your own reputation as a self-representing artist.
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