marketing

Without marketing the only people who know you are the people who already know you.

So many artists tell me they don’t like the word ‘Marketing’ (or the word ‘selling’ for that matter). But if you want to grow your audience, then marketing is essential.

But it’s not that bad. Here is the thing…
You are more than likely already marketing.

Marketing is the umbrella of all of the activities that are undertaken to raise awareness of products (like your art pieces), services (like classes and workshops), events (like exhibitions) in order to gain and retain customers to achieve sales, or some other defined objective. Promotion is a subset of marketing.

These terms are often used interchangeably by artists, so I am just going to use the term marketing here.

Marketing is a communication strategy designed to create a positive awareness i.e. let people know you and your work exist. Because if they don’t know, how can they see it, experience it, enjoy it, tell others about it or buy it?  I would be sad to deprive people of the pleasure of your work 🙁

That website you have? That is marketing.
Your social media account? Yep, marketing.
Your posts or emails about an exhibition you are in? Yep, that too is marketing.

Many artists spend a lot of time and effort on their marketing but without a clear plan or concrete strategy, it can become frustrating with ad-hoc results, or even no results.

The good news is, if you create a simple marketing plan you can see more results for less time and less effort.

All you need to create a marketing strategy or plan is to:

1 Know what you are offering or selling

2 Know who your audience is

3 Know how and where to best communicate with your audience – what marketing channels will you use. Click here to download my free marketing channels guide

4 Create interesting and relevant content that links what you are offering to what your audience wants, and

5 Share that content at the optimal time (How do you know when the optional time is? When it makes sense – e.g. you wouldn’t send an invitation to an exhibition opening after the exhibition is closed or one hour before the opening).

When you know those things and you set out a plan, your marketing can take you as little as a few hours a month. So let’s get on to the plan…

Map Out the Plan

To map out a plan grab yourself a planner, a piece of paper, an online organiser – whatever works for you. and then plot in your specific planned events – exhibitions, online launches, new collections being released, workshops being run – whatever it is that you do, and when they are happening.

These are the events you will create your marketing around and in the gaps between events is when your maintenance marketing will do.

You now have the beginnings of a plan and it’s time to look at the content.

Content

A good place to start wiht your content is to look at the marketing you have done so far. 

What have you done before that’s worked quite well whether it’s offline or online?

Look at which pieces of content got good responses and engagement. 

What marketing, where and when has worked for you?

Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

(See below for some tools that can help you with your content)

Your plan doesn’t need to be complicated or hard – it’s best if it’s not and frankly you can scribble it on a serviette if you are so inclined. 

You don’t need to be a marketing expert and you don’t need to be marketing on every channel.

You just want an intentional plan aligned with your activities and audience and one that is manageable that you are likely to stick with.

Good luck!
Amanda

 

P. S. Some tools that can help you with your marketing and content creation include:

Canva for creating Flyers postcards social media posts, invitations etc

For in phone editing of images I like Snapseed but there are plenty of others you can use like VSCO

To spellcheck and make sure I don’t have typos in newsletters and flyers I use Grammarly

For desktop editing and creation I use a combination of Photoshop and Canva depending on what specifically I am doing.

For social media planning and posting I like to use Planoly

For creating a schedule or a planner you can use calendar pages or paper sheets gridded up or you can use something like Trello or Google Sheets or Excel to create a planner. 

If you’re ready to work on your marketing, here are some options for you:

Start with the standalone Your Target Audience online course

Join The Artists Business Lounge Success System, where we cover Your Target Audience, Growing Your Mailing List, Marketing for Artists, Websites, Instagram and so much more over a full 12 months – Doors to join The Success System Program are only open a few times a year.

Work with me one-on-one to develop your marketing strategy and tactical plan. Book a complimentary ‘Let’s Chat’ call