Three Helpful Tips How To Market Your Art
So you’ve taken the recent WordPress Boot camp class at Art Nest and have used (or are using) that knowledge to set up your website to showcase your artwork. Now you want to be able to attract a following so that your work will be seen by more than family and friends. At this point, you may feel overwhelmed because you’re not a marketing guru. Don’t panic, you can still successfully market yourself with these three following tips.
Find Your Target Audience
Your target audience is the set of demographics who will most be interested in your products and who are willing to help you to monetize your artwork. This is a very important step and if you neglect to find out who your target audience is, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment. Use social networks to help you to conduct research. Look at your genre or type of artwork and look at the people who are following, liking, sharing and engaging in these posts. This will give you a very good idea of who will like your work.
Engage with Your Audience
Social media is great for engaging with your audience. Always take the time to answer comments, direct messages and emails in a timely manner. When you post your products on social media, tell your audience the story behind that product/artwork. Let them feel as if they're a part of the process somehow - customers love that. However, it’s also important to engage with your audience outside of social media. Look out for, and maybe even create, opportunities for speaking engagements, a show and tell workshop, and just about any other event where you can showcase your work. Visit your local art galleries and consider having a showing at said galleries. We provided a few tips on How to Get Your Art In A Gallery. This will help to cement your presence in the art world with your target audience.
Maintain Relationships
A one-time (or a couple of times) engaging experience with your audience is not enough when it comes to marketing your art work. All relationships require constant, consistent contact. You may do this by having your visitors to your website subscribe to a newsletter. Newsletters will inform your audience (and potential customers) of all the up to date happenings with your business/brand/art. Random giveaways also help your audience to feel that they’re appreciated and can help you further spread the word about your product. Everyone loves receiving free gifts! You may also want to choose a select few clienteles from your email list – those who may have expressed interest in a particular artwork or who have purchased a particular artwork from you before – to keep in touch with when you are creating/have created something similar. This can act as a VIP list, which always makes customers feel extra special. Whatever method you choose, just make sure to maintain and nurture those relationships as you don’t to be “out of sight out of mind” for your customers.
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Although seemingly simple, the previous three tips will help you to get your brand known to the people that matter the most. As with anything that involves entrepreneurship, you have to be willing to put in the work. However, the rewards can be great, especially when you’ve built a good reputation, monetize your artwork and have return customers!
Do you find the above tips useful? What other tips can you think of for marketing your art work? Please share so that we may all learn from each other.
