The Artists Business Lounge
Art Business Coaching for Visual Artists
💲You're Art Isn't Selling: Now What?💲
If your art isn’t selling, it can be easy to assume it’s because it’s not priced ‘correctly’ or because it isn’t good enough. But we all see artwork that’s not great and sells well and art that’s high priced and also sells well. So what’s missing? And more importantly, what can you do about it?
Well as with any business, there are various reasons sales may not be happening and some of them are very simple. In this blog post, I am going to cover a couple of the most frequent issues why artists don’t make sales, and share a number of levers that any businesses (including artists) can explore when sales aren’t happening.
❓❓Two Important Questions to Begin❓❓
The first question is…
1️⃣Are you Actively Helping People to Buy?
What is the easiest way to get more sales? Tell people what you are selling!
You aren’t getting sales, not because the work is no good, or your audience is broke.
It is most often because….
You have only talked about it once this week. Or not at all. Or perhaps you talked about it in such vague terms nobody realised you were selling.
Your audience is not uninterested in what you have to offer – they just haven’t seen it yet.
Keep talking about it and reminding everyone you have something they want.
So the very first thing to check is Am I making it easy for people to buy my art?
Now if that has you feeling all squeamish.
Go back over your recent newsletters, social posts and other marketing and see if you have clearly shared what you have, how it benefits your audience and how to get it.
Pay attention to the frequency.
Can you share your message with more clarity more frequently?
This will have a far bigger impact than offering discounts and reducing your prices ever will.
The second question is…
2️⃣What IS working?
Rather than focusing only on what isn’t working, check to see what is working for you.
Explore when, where and how your sales happen.
Are there channels that work better for you than others, people who refer your art to others?
Identify the what and then think about why these things are working for you. Seek to understand this better.
Once you understand that you can build on what’s already working – do more of it, take it to the next level, expand it by one more step etc.
Then – do more of what’s working and monitor it.
These two questions alone can start to shift things. So they are a great place to start. There may be other reasons your work isn’t selling so read on for more suggestions.
Sales come about as a result of all sorts of actions, so understanding your business and where your particular gaps are is crucial to getting more sales.
Here are some other areas to help you diagnose the problem if your art isn't selling, along with suggested actions.
Market Research:
- Do you know who your Target Audience Is? Review your target market and customer personas. Are they accurately defined?
- Analyse changes in market trends and consumer preferences that might affect how you offer your art or related services. Once upon a time nobody bought art online, and now online art sales continue to increase – consumer behaviour changes, so if you’ve been doing the same thing the same way for a long time, it may be time to shift.
Customer Feedback Product or Service Quality:
- Seek feedback from existing and potential customers through surveys, interviews, or online reviews. You can use Polls in social stories, but also more personalised and targeted emails and surveys (GoogleForms are free to use)
- Pay attention to common complaints or suggestions for improvement of how you deliver your art or related services
- Use feedback to identify areas where your art or related services fall short of customer expectations. These may not have to do with your art – for example, are descriptions inaccurate, is your photography misrepresenting colours, are you showing in situ images with your work scaled incorrectly giving a misleading impression? Do you wrap and pack it poorly, is your delivery timeframe unclear and too long?
- Assess the quality – is it meeting expectations for your market?
- Marketing and Promotion:
- Examine your marketing efforts. Are you reaching your target audience effectively?
- Review your marketing channels, messaging, and branding for consistency.
- Experiment with different marketing tactics to see what gets you the best results – these will be tactics that resonate with your audience.
Sales and Distribution Channels:
- Evaluate your sales and distribution channels – galleries, online selling etc. Are these channels reaching the right customers? Do people know you have art available via those channels?
- Consider expanding or diversifying how and where you make your art or related services available. Refresh stock by rotating between different galleries and moving unsold work off different online platforms to add newly available work.
Customer Acquisition and Retention:
- They are the formal business terms for gaining new buyers and keeping them as buyers. How do you find your customers>? How do they find you? Assess your customer acquisition strategies (do you even have one?).
Are you targeting the right demographics to get suitable ‘leads’? - Find ways to keep existing customers engaged.
- Encourage referrals and loyalty through special offers and rewards.
- They are the formal business terms for gaining new buyers and keeping them as buyers. How do you find your customers>? How do they find you? Assess your customer acquisition strategies (do you even have one?).
Website and Online Presence:
- Ensure your website is user-friendly, mobile-responsive, and optimized for search engines (SEO).
- Use web analytics to identify where users drop off or encounter issues during the purchasing process.
- If you sell through your website, make it abundantly clear and easy. If you only sell through physical galleries, make that abundantly clear. How to buy your art should never be a mystery.
- Leverage online advertising and social media marketing to increase visibility.
Pricing Analysis:
Consider whether bundling, introducing additional revenue streams (price points), price adjustments (up or down), or short-term discounts, could make your offering more attractive. Identify the price points that sell best and where you may have a gap that is an opportunity (make sure any new pricing is aligned to your market position – if you are a higher-end artist with a gallery career, selling phone covers with your art may not make a lot of sense).
Financial Analysis:
- Review your financial statements, including income, expenses, and profit margins.
- Identify areas where cost-cutting may be necessary.
- Ensure that your pricing strategy covers all costs and allows for a reasonable profit margin. (Your pricing needs to be more about you and your art than what you imagine some anonymous person may be willing to pay.)
Rebranding or Repositioning:
- If necessary, consider rebranding or repositioning to better align with market demands. In other words, if you want to be premium, and you aren’t presenting as premium revisit your branding. If you want to be cheerful, and accessible mid-market, make sure your brand reflects that.
No matter which of the many available options there are for positioning you, be sure that this is aligned with who you are, what you sell, how you want to be perceived and your pricing. - Highlight unique selling points or features that differentiate your offering.
- If necessary, consider rebranding or repositioning to better align with market demands. In other words, if you want to be premium, and you aren’t presenting as premium revisit your branding. If you want to be cheerful, and accessible mid-market, make sure your brand reflects that.
Seek Expert Advice:
- Consult with industry experts, business advisors, or mentors for valuable insights and recommendations.
- Consider professional services for specialised help.
Conclusion
As you can see, fixing the ‘no sales’ issues isn’t one single thing. The suggestions above aren’t telling you everything that you must fix right now if you want sales. An art business (like any other business) has multiple levers you can pull at different times.
Sometimes you only need to make one small tweak in one area.
Sometimes you need to make a small change, then another and a bigger one… all journeys are different.
Diagnosing and solving sales issues may require ongoing adjustments. Keep monitoring the impact of your changes and be prepared to adapt your strategies as needed to revive sales and grow your art business.
PS I’m running a free Five Steps to Selling Your Art online class on Monday 30th September 10 am AEST – if you are reading this before then, why not join us? The link to register is HERE
Want Support in One of These Areas?
Here are a few suggestions.
Want to learn more about Marketing for Artists? Join the 30 Days of Marketing Content – Artist Marketing Course
Not sure who your Target Audience is? Take the course Your Target Audience.
Want to kick-start some sales? Join the Sales Challenge Course
Join the Success System Program to get access to all of these and so much more.