Art Marketing Matters and How to Make It Work for You

There are so many valuable ways art marketing matters.

— Barney Davey

One can strongly argue that art marketing matters because, without it, your art or photography can be fantastic, but if nobody sees it, you’re not going to sell it. It is so true that out of sight equals out of mind and lost opportunity.

Make Your Luck

Some of your best prospects to buy your art will encounter other artworks before yours. And although they would have liked your work better and bought it, they found another artist’s work they appreciated and bought it without knowing your work existed.

Marketing creates ways to promote your art and influence the right people. So if your message reached them first, you had a chance to make a sale. And that is a perfect example of why art marketing matters. It puts you in the game with options. There are many levels in the art business, but you are at zero without marketing.

Gaining Art Marketing Knowledge Is Empowering.   

If you are unsure how to market your art, I suggest reading this post, Art Marketing | The Ultimate Guide for Visual Artists, to ramp up your overall art marketing knowledge. Understanding how art marketing directly impacts art sales is crucial to developing a strategy you can use in your art business. 

It’s essential to know that art marketing promotes your art, builds a brand, and makes your art discoverable. Having a recognizable brand helps to boost awareness of your art and is instrumental to building a successful art business. The more your art is seen, the more of it you will sell.

Successful Art Businesses Have Unique Art Marketing Strategies.

A successful marketing strategy is critical to selling art in quantities to meet your needs. For example, you might want to turn your art business into a full-time career or enjoy your day job and its many benefits, but you also love making and selling art on a schedule that matches your lifestyle. The artists’ strategies in these examples will differ significantly from each other.

Succeeding as a full-time artist requires following an organized marketing plan that produces reliable results. And a part-time artist can cobble together a few strategies that are more hit and miss but still efficient enough to get work sold sporadically. Getting what you need from your art business relates to how willing and capable you are to do what is necessary to sell your work at your desired pace.  

The Problem with Formulaic Art Marketing Strategies.  

Every artist has their own particular set of goals and needs, so it makes sense that they also need a unique strategy to get their work to market. Even among artists who share similar traits, you’ll find the specifics of their art business are unique to them.

The lack of uniqueness is the problem with art marketing formulas. They work in theory but have many failure points in practical applications. Regarding paint-by-numbers art marketing, the best outcomes happen when artists can incorporate most of their art marketing training. My experience on both sides is most don’t finish training because although the outcome was desirable, the path to get there was not.

Marketing Art Is Singularly Challenging.

Art is hard to market and sell as a consumer product compared to other ways people spend their money. Only a tiny percentage of the population buys original art. Buyers must be interested in owning original art; they also must have the discretionary income to afford it. And that’s because…

You can’t make a living selling expensive artwork to people who can only pay with revolving credit.

Additionally, most buyers who do not collect as a passion only buy original art a few times in their lives. A further complication is the price reaches a point that trips the unspoken level of requiring partner or spousal approval to make the purchase. And the purchase also requires an agreement on where to display the artwork.

Making Art Marketing Work for You.

You can learn how to improve your art marketing from blogs, books, and courses. I’ve written six art marketing books and produced numerous workshops and courses, including my AMTP masterpiece. In addition to writing this weekly Art Marketing News blog since 2005, I’ve found… 

Artists always do marketing their way.

It’s never by the book and always creative and often spontaneous. That’s what I mean about making marketing work for you. After all, it’s only a collection of tools, ideas, and execution for you to use to get your wish for your art business.

How Most Artists Market Their Work.

Instead of using traditional and digital marketing to market art, artists rely on themselves and their networks. They will have a website, email program, and social media accounts, and they will use them together to sell their work. They also will try a little of this and that but never need or want to use advanced art marketing strategies and tools. 

They have come to realize, sometimes subconsciously but just as poignant, that even though they could have more success than they currently enjoy, they aren’t willing or can’t stick with a complex marketing plan. It’s not in their DNA, and they are not alone. It’s a significant time commitment and a lot of hard work… Need I say more.

Most of us live a life of relative comfort. We could have more if that were what we truly wanted. Still, we avoid taking on the expense, effort, and energy necessary to turn a theoretical art marketing scenario into a booming art business success. While it’s possible, it’s not without consequences. I often say, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” 

Give Yourself a Gift. 

Arguably, the best gift an artist can give themselves is self-awareness. With it, you can objectively evaluate where you are and where you could go. Use those insights to help decide what you want from your art business and how to plan to get it.  

When you clearly understand what will make you happy and is realistically possible, you can focus on achieving those goals. Doing so will allow you to forgo worrying about what others are saying, doing, or accomplishing in their lives.

I believe that balancing your creative work and art business in ways that meet your needs as a creator and business owner is how to live your best life as an artist. And I believe you can live that dream. It’s my mission to help you with the AMTP (Art Marketing Toolkit Project.) I invite you to check it out.

PS.

If the advice in this post is helpful to you, please consider it my gift to you. If you think other artists would appreciate reading this post, the share buttons below are a convenient option that comes with my gratitude for using them.