To sell art successfully, an artist or craftsperson needs to:

• find the collectors who like and can afford their work
  
  
• using publicity, promotion, email, events and by selling art online
  
  
• get them in front of your artwork for a conversation that leads to a sale and
  
  
• get the job done in the most efficient, affordable way possible

The first step is...

1. Rethink Your Art Business

“a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”

Abraham Maslow

In good times or bad, most artists will create art whether they get paid for it or not. It’s an important part of who they are and what they do. Even so, most artists would prefer to create art AND make a decent living. The question is, “What can an artist do to make this happen?” “Are there ways to connect with collectors who will value and acquire your art over time?” In a word, yes. This report will help the artist, designer and craftsman do just that.

Let’s start by simplifying the problem. Most artists struggle to balance their desire to create with the need to find someone to buy their creations. Suppose you are a painter. Your passion is landscapes and you would like to spend all your available time in the field or studio painting them. However, you need money to support yourself. In the best of all possible worlds, you would complete a painting, make a phone call and someone would pick up the painting and hand you a check. A very few artists can actually do this.

I want you to spend the least possible amount of time and effort on marketing with the maximum result. So, I took the shortest route between creation and purchase and reduced it to the four activities you have to manage for success. Then, I wrote this report to give you the tools.

ONE: Find wealthy collectors of artwork like yours

Collectors continue to buy art in slow times. Art collecting is a passion that doesn’t end. People still want beauty around them. They may change their buying patterns but dedicated collectors still have the means as well as the desire to buy. They simply adjust how much they spend and where they spend it. Wealthy collectors also tend to turn to trusted sources for new acquisitions. First, we’ll look at how to establish a key collectors circle using an art buyers profile and a database. Then, we’ll see how you can use local resources and research to expand your collector’s circle. This is Chapter 2.

TWO: Get your artwork in front of these collectors and start conversations

In one way or another, the sale of your artwork involves a conversation between you and the collector. Could be face to face, could be through a website or email. In conversation, the two of you weave a magic spell that confirms your vision and skill and the collector’s connoisseurship, then seals the value of the artwork. Making these conversations happen is the key to success. They do not happen by chance. They happen as you take control of your art business, then simplify, focus and delegate to get the job done. The payoff is the money and time you need to create art. More in Chapter 2.

THREE: Build relationships that make your art easy to acquire

For a collector to buy your work, he or she must see your art, get a hit from it and imagine it in his life. You build a connection to the artist when you provide the words and stories that support his feelings and desires. With your stories and art experiences, you can build a relationship that makes acquiring your artwork natural and easy. Chapter 3 expands on both these themes.

FOUR: Use only the most effective marketing tools: publicity, a website, direct mail, email, studio events

Make Yourself Newsworthy – get attention and media coverage using public relations: build media lists, write releases, assemble media kits (Chapter 4)

Go Online To Serve Collectors – build or supervise the design of an effective website to attract and serve your collector’s circle and sell your art while increasing traffic from prospects, the media and the community (Chapter 5)

Keep In Touch With E-mail And Newsletters – create interest and prompt actions from collectors with an email and online newsletter program using personalized content (Chapter 6)

Attract Collectors To You With Direct Mail – produce promotional materials including a monthly print newsletter and effective postcard and other mailers (Chapter 7)

Draw Collectors To Your Studio – inspire collectors and cement relationships by organizing and producing a studio event (Chapter 8)

Make Your Art Easy To Acquire – establish the value and price of your work and shape productive conversations with collectors (Chapter 9)

That’s all there is to it. ALL? I know, it looks a little overwhelming. But, you can do it. The rest of this chapter offers ways to rethink your art business using the tools of top business consultants. You can simplify and focus your business by doing what works and only that. Using the 80/20 rule, you can sort out what is paying off for you and what is wasting your time. Finally, there is an Appendix of nine useful marketing tools that provide more guidance and supporting material ready for your immediate use. They are listed at the end of this chapter. To get started now....

Take Charge Of Your Art Business

Changing times call for changing your point of view, your strategy and your actions. Start by thinking like business professionals think in planning and directing your efforts. Be as creative in your business thinking as in your art. The whole point of your rethink is to strip out waste motion and concentrate on what gets results. There are three practices that will get you there.

First – Simplify
I made several choices in this report. I am aware that there are many ways for an artist to sell art. For example:

• directly through juried outdoor art shows and art fairs

• indirectly through galleries, juried shows, art consultants, interior designers and architects

• online through Etsy, eBay, Craigslist, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, blogs

• by teaching, lecturing and demonstrations

• by book and DVD sales plus licensing

You may be using one or more of these ways to sell your art successfully. It makes sense to continue to do what is working. However, try looking at the amount of time, money and attention each of your marketing activities requires compared to its payoff. Then, try to concentrate on the ones with the biggest return for the effort and let the less productive efforts go.

You can also simplify in terms of the tools you are using; website, mailings, newsletter, studio event and phone calls. Think about the potential payoff of each activity you are planning to use. Rank them by cost and potential payoff. Put your effort where the best payoff is. Each sales-building project in this report will take time, money and your attention. Each will produce a different result depending on your situation. Be ruthless in culling out the ones that offer the least payoff for your time and money.

Go Direct

The emphasis in this report is on working with and expanding your key collector group because that’s where the payout potential is for most artists. Building your legacy is a worthy effort. Exhibiting in United States and international shows, museums and galleries to increase your local, national and international recognition will do that. But, it can be a slow way to build the sales you want. Again, take the direct route. Identify a circle of key collectors and others like them, then plan your efforts to reach these people. They will build your fame as they build your fortune.

Use Professional Business Tools

I spent several years as a partner in a major New York management consulting firm sorting out the problems and opportunities of Fortune 500 companies. Here’s one of our tools that will prove useful to you, the 80/20 rule. It says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. From another point of views, “80% of your sales will come from 20% of your clients.” Businesses use the rule to sort out the customers that produce the most sales and to focus their marketing efforts on them. They also sort out the customers that produce the least and reduce their marketing efforts to them. In my experience, small accounts are often the biggest pains to service. Losing them frees up time and money.

What happens if you apply the 80/20 rule to your art business? You’ll find that a few patrons are providing most of your income, a few of your marketing activities are producing the bulk of your sales. Does that fit your experience? Suppose you directed most of your effort toward this productive group and weeded out the non-productive, but time consuming, prospects (or even clients) in the less productive group? You’d get more income from less effort. You’d free up time to create art or to expand your marketing efforts. Try using the 80/20 rule as we go along to evaluate your plans and activities.

The rule works in the studio as well. Ideally, an artist would spend 80% of his or her working time producing artwork and 20% building sales. The more good artwork you have, the more you will sell. How do you find yourself spending your time? Would rebalancing your efforts make a difference in your life? In your sales?

Think Payoff

Another way to look at your efforts is the idea of payout potential. Say you have three collectors each of whom has purchased two of your paintings. Which one presents the greatest opportunity right now? Which one should get the most attention? A painter friend claims the answer is the one with the largest blank wall space. How would you sort it out? How could you compare each collector’s payoff potential with the time and cost required to get there.

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To keep this page a reasonable length, the balance of Chapter 1 is omitted. It includes an Art Marketing Checklist of projects to help you think about what will work for you and to guide your planning. You'll find guidance on how to rethink your art business by focussing your efforts and delegating projects to save time and money. And, it includes a description of the 9 marketing tools in the Appendix:

A. 75 Reasons Why People Buy Artwork – the same ones you’ll use to sell your art

B. Art Words – to stimulate imaginative conversations with collectors

C. An Artist’s Website Sales-Ability Test – to design or fine tune your site to serve collectors

D. Web Site Design Guide – detailed guidelines for producing a collector- friendly website

E. Artist’s Marketing Toolkit – a chart of 22 essential marketing tools for artists

F. Forty Media Release Ideas – to grab the attention of editors and drive stories and articles

G. Word Of Mouth Generator – how to manage the most powerful tool
of all

H. Sample Customer Information – forms for a clean, friendly business
relationship

I. Presentation Pointers – how to get your message across while enjoying yourself

Where Do You Fit Into This Picture?

America tends to see its artists as visionaries, rebels, outsiders or eccentrics. These are misleading stereotypes. Artists make things and perform services, just like other workers, and these goods and services have an emotional, inspirational and economic value. Artists play an important role in America’s cultural vitality and economic prosperity. Along with painters and sculptors, we have craftsmen, designers, animators and so on. Almost every product and service that is produced and distributed in this country has been touched by an artist in some way.

Artists play a big role in the economy. Altogether, there are nearly two million professional artists. Of these there are over 200,000 fine artists. They tend to fall into one of three groups:

• working full-time as an artist and making a living from their art.
• working full-time as an artist with a part-time job to augment their income
• working as an artist plus working at full-time job to make a living

However, artists often struggle with underemployment and below-average incomes. Over all, artists make more than the national median income which is $30,100. Fifty-five percent of the artists surveyed said they had worked full-time for a median income of $45,200. A very small group of artists make over $100,000, an estimated 4,000 nationally.

American artists tend to be educated and entrepreneurial, twice as likely to have earned a college degree as other U.S. labor force members but less well paid for their educational level. Artists are also 3.5 times more likely to be self-employed. American artists are creative not just in their art but also in managing their lives. Sound like someone you know?

Most artists are strongly committed to to art as a career and will not change. The challenge for all artists is to increase art sales and open up more time to create art. So there is a lot of competition out there but there is also a lot of opportunity for the artist who is willing to rethink his or her art business.