Being an artist is different from marketing your work- or it used to be. In today’s fast paced multi media fast twitch marketing world, the artist is forced to evolve. Learning how to do this, or where to begin can be overwhelming for the striving artist. Following, find a few basic tips and suggestions to help you get started.
The first question you need to ask yourself is: what is my goal?
Do I want to sell to friends and family, or do I want to broaden my audience and see where my work can take me. Once you have decided what you want to do with your art, you need to get a grasp on who your audience is.
We are going to get into some great detail as for the where, who, when and how…but for today, let’s address the first two.
What is my goal? Goal: Friends and family. Okay, first course of action here is to decide on pricing and take pictures of your work. You will probably market your work to friends and family via email (attaching your pictures to the email), facebook or on your own blog page. You can create a link they can visit like google’s Picasa Web Album. You could have an open house and serve appetizers and wine, display your works in a room of your home and invite all your peeps to come take a peek (tell them to bring their wallets!)
Goal: Expanding your market to a more broad audience. Fortunately, there are a lot of options that won’t cost you much (if anything) while you are in the learning curve of marketing and sales. Let’s take a look at a few of the basics today, and get more into the details in a later blog.
Craigslist: Craigslist is a free and very popular way to list a variety of items you want to sell. It’s very user friendly, and time sensitive. If you list your items on Craigslist, make sure that a word is in your listing title that would be searchable (such as art or handmade), as the listings pile on top of one another…your listing will be sent down to the ‘bottom of the list’ and you want people to be able to find it. Make sure you add a picture to each listing, most people do not even look at a listing with no picture attached.
E-bay: Ebay has been around for a long time. They have awesome rules and regulations to protect both the buyer and the seller. You are charged a minimal listing fee, you will need to set up a paypal account for the most safe and efficient way to receive and sent payments. Make sure pictures are good quality, and that you do add a picture to each listing.
Etsy: Etsy is my new favorite site for all things handmade and vintage. The site is super easy to use, and the listing fees are minimal. They take a percentage (small) of your sale, and they offer inexpensive marketing showcases to get you in front of larger audiences. Again, you need good pictures, have given some thought to your overall image, and take paypal.
These are the first 3 I am recommending to you today to get you started. I can market and list your items for you for a small fee to help you get started if you don’t have the time or the desire for the ‘know how’.
See you soon with more marketing 101 tips and trends…
Kerry
