Art Marketing Secrets

As an artist and a business owner, one of the first foundations to success and growth is to measure your results. How do you do that?

Go To Article While it’s a good read, it misses the point of the major value of having an online art presence: the tremendous cost and time savings in NOT having to prepare, mail, and track conventional portfolio packages to galleries and dealers which can add up to thousands of dollars and hours every year for an active artist…. Having an online art showcase means that you can just send a letter with an invitation to visit your website…. We estimate that the cost of preparing, mailing, and return shipping of a traditional portfolio is at least $10 – and that doesn’t include the cost of your time to prepare it.

A little inspiration to help with your art marketing!

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

Thomas Carlyle

This is a very important yet often overlooked point: As an artist and a business person, it’s best to avoid using your home phone as your business phone. It can be off-putting to a buyer to see your stunning work beautifully showcased on your website gallery only to call you and hear a voicemail message like: Hello…. Please leave a message for Amy, Jeff, and Twinky after the tone.

First, it helps to understand that there are two quite different market segments for art sales on the internet: High-Value original works, and lower-cost art reproductions. The high-value originals category is one where your collectors will probably want to get to know you and your art before they bring out their wallets…. We have also found that a buyer who has previously purchased an original work from you in person, will sometimes be perfectly happy to place an order and pay online for subsequent purchases of originals.

Throughout history however, the concept of the starving artist has been held out almost as an ideal. The following quotes are good examples: The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for ……..Robert Henri Either a comfortable life and lousy work, or a lousy life and beautiful work ……..Fernand Leger Is there a real truth to the idea of the starving artist or is it simply a romantic illusion? Can we be commercially successful and still hold to the essential truth of being an artist?

Getting a good showcase of your art online will consume plenty of brainpower! It needs to be seen so put on your marketing hat and start attracting traffic. The following techniques will get you started:

More and more galleries are looking to the internet to review the work of emerging and mid-career artists because it is simpler than dealing with large volumes of paper-portfolios. So, what is important in a website? What do arts professionals look for?

Frank Lloyd Wright, popularly known as the greatest American architect, had a useful perspective on achieving success:

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.

E Y E B E A M an atelier styled organization that explores the intersection of arts and sciences has set up a three day program to work with emerging artists, particularly artists exiting graduate programs. Read more about the selection process here. Eyebeam has developed Circuit in response to the need for emerging artists, particularly those exiting graduate-level programs (ie artists who have not shown their work in a professional setting or outside of university) to exhibit work and receive professional critique and exposure to networks within the art and technology community. This three-day intensive program offers a particular group of artists working and experimenting with new tools and practices, the opportunity to: – meet fellow artists working with similar media; – have the experience of exhibiting work at an art and technology center in New York City – receive critique from peers and professional curators, gallerists, artists, academics, writers, theorists, etc. – publicly present work during a public event at Eyebeam to gain feedback from peers, professionals and the public The program will run three times per year, with a maximum of 6 artist participants per Circuit program. Please see the information below regarding the selection process and application timeline. Selected artists will exhibit their work in Eyebeam’s exhibition space for three days, during which time they will take part in a critique organized by Eyebeam’s Education and Curatorial staff, and present and/or perform their projects during a public event at Eyebeam at the end of the three days. Artists interested in applying to take part in Circuit should view this program as a way to publicly prototype work under development (ie thesis projects that are ready for the next level of presentation), and take part in a rare structured critical discourse outside of the academic setting. Eyebeam is interested in projects ranging from moving image, sound and physical computing works, to software, websites, technical prototypes, performances, workshops and other forms of public interventions.