by Rebecca Sciullo | Aug 19, 2020 | Learning
What Can You Learn from The Office about Selling Your Art
I’ve been re-watching episodes of The Office this summer. Like many people, it’s one of my all-time favorite tv shows. Last week I caught “Business School”, an episode which contains one of my favorite scenes. In fact, according to An Oral History of the Office podcast, I wasn’t surprised to hear that this is a fan-favorite scene. Watch the video below where Michael comes to Pam’s art show and brings her to tears.
“This is our office and we sell paper!”
People purchase art that makes a connection with them.
Is it surprising that a typical office building illustration could be a precious piece of art for someone? In this case, Michael’s ego had just taken a beating after hearing from business school students that the paper business may no longer be relevant. The illustration of “the office” meant a lot to him. Art is a unique commodity. It doesn’t follow traditional economic rules of selling. People will purchase art that they never intended to own if it strikes the right chord with them.
I have some personal anecdotal evidence in helping my artist father, Robert Yonke, sell his art. At a bluegrass music trade show, I saw a woman moved to tears who purchased a painting of turkeys that we had displayed to fill a space in his booth. It was not a likely sale at that particular event. But, It reminded her of the turkeys on the farm where she grew up as a child. In a similar situation, I saw another customer get very emotional over a painting of a barge that he ended up purchasing. It reminded him of the barge that his father worked on.
People purchase art that is authentic.
It means that you understand or connect with what you are creating yourself. Notice how Michael recognizes his window, his car, and Pam’s car.
Create what you want.
This doesn’t mean that you have to create art to please all people. If you’re going to sell it, though, you have to figure out how to present and get your art in front of the audiences that might best connect with it.
A final word. Don’t forget to price your art! Don’t be surprised when someone decides to purchase your work. Be prepared!
Get in front of people who connect with your work.
Would you like to learn more about how to get in front of audiences that love your work? Sign up for the Create! Sell! newsletter where I will be announcing some exciting webinars and workshops starting this fall
by Rebecca Sciullo | Aug 10, 2020 | Artist Websites, Blogging
Make a lemon drop martini!
Seriously, we’ve all had a bunch of lemons dropped into our laps, haven’t we?
The important thing, though, is what you are making with those lemons.
Many artists are feeling the pain of canceled exhibitions, festivals and other opportunities due to Covid-19. One disappointment for me was the cancellation of the annual studio tour that my father participates in every year. It is always his best selling weekend of the year. While he moves a decent amount of work online, the studio tour is where the larger pieces sell. Missing this opportunity makes a significant impact on his business.
Here’s What We Are Doing
With the absence of the Studio Tour, we’ve made adjustments and improvements to his website and added a few other features to his marketing mix. I couldn’t allow the annual event to go by without doing something and came up with the following ideas:
Created a “Virtual Tour” page on his website, inviting people to view some specialized galleries that we organized – one which included new and featured work and one with a collection of art offered at a special “virtual tour” discount through August.
Made his first “artist talk” video. Using video has been daunting to me, but with the help of a tech-savvy nephew, we pulled it off. I think our first attempt was pretty good, and we plan on making more.
Sent a personalized direct mail piece to a targeted audience of people we identified who could be in the market for original artwork. It’s a trade secret…but if you hire me or take one of my upcoming courses, I’ll share how I found them.
Outcomes and takeaways
Thanks to his blog, mailing list, and client base, sales have been decent during the pandemic. The Virtual Tour recently launched, so I’ll have to report back on how the sales went. At the very least, it has forced me to get creative about putting new content out on his blog, and we made it over the video hurdle.
It’s a Process
Remember, if you’re looking to start something new in your business, it’s a process. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep moving forward little bit every day, and eventually, you will see results.
Would you like to share a story of how you’re making lemons out of lemonade? Please share with becky@artisan-advantage.com.
Photo by Myfanwy Owen on Unsplash
by Rebecca Sciullo | Aug 5, 2020 | Learning
Artists learn from other artists. You learn from them when you take workshops, attend artist talks, and invite them to demo before your art club. When it comes to blogging and building a web presence for your art business, you can learn from them as well.
Taking time to look at other artists’ web strategies and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses can give you ideas on how you can improve your efforts.
Learning and Inspiration from other Artists
You aren’t looking to copy them. Instead, you are looking for inspiration and ideas that might work for you as well. Using someone else’s work to motivate yourself and come up with new ideas is useful if you work towards unique ideas. It is a great way to evolve towards something that is uniquely yours. But stealing content — text, images, artwork, taglines, and so on — is not appropriate.
Areas to consider when you are visiting the blogs and websites of other artists.
Content
What kind of information are they sharing with their audience? Could you share information along a similar line with your audience?
What kind of voice are they using to speak to their fans? Could this help you to develop yours?
What makes you want to take a closer look?
Do they connect to any other interesting sites that are relevant to their work?
Are they using videos? If so, do the videos give you any new ideas of how you could present your work?
Blogging
How often are they posting?
How are categories and tags used, organized, and displayed?
Do they post series that include several articles or pieces?
Are they posting things other than images of their work, such as reviews of websites, books, or podcasts?
Learn and Make it Yours
Take what you’ve learned and use it to beef up your blog and website — all the while focusing on creative work that is uniquely yours.
by Rebecca Sciullo | Jun 17, 2020 | Artist Blogging 101
In preparation for a new series of blog posts that will feature exceptional artist blogs, I’ve been reviewing many websites. One thing that I’ve noticed is that artists often use small font sizes on their blogs.
Don’t Overlook Typography on Your Artist Blog
To make your site easier to read, ensuring that your visitors stay and read your posts, make sure you are using a font size of 14 or larger.
Also, keep it simple with one or two font styles.
How to Change Your Font
Most templates will come with default font styles and sizes. You should have the ability to change them.
If you’re using self-hosted WordPress, you can change your font size under your dashboard’s Appearance section. Below are links to tutorials on how to change the font in other common web platforms.
Change your font in WordPress.com
Change your font style in Squarespace
Change your font style in Wix
Change your font in Weebly.
Show Off Your Blog
Do you have a blog that you would like to show off on Artisan Advantage? Send me a link to your site at becky@artisan-advantage.com, and I will consider it for a featured review.
Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash
by Rebecca Sciullo | Jun 15, 2020 | Artist Websites, Blogging
Did the pandemic catch you off guard? It sure got me! I think it did most of us in many areas of life. In business, some were prepared better than others to weather the storm. While most of my business is online, I was still not adequately prepared to pivot everything to an online model.
Art Sales During a Pandemic? Yes!
For my artist father’s business, however, we were prepared. He enjoyed consistent sales during the pandemic and he sold several pieces of original art while people were under stay at home orders. Many people were redecorating and shopping online while stuck at home – artists who were in a position to get in front of people online benefited from this trend. As you may have read in my prior posts, the crux of his marketing efforts stems from his blogging system. Thankfully, this system did its job during this time.
Get Serious about Putting Your Art Business Online
If you’re serious about selling your work, you should have a heightened sense of urgency to beef up your online presence. Being “online” is not a silver bullet for success. You still have to do the work.
My recommendation is to set up your artist blog to be the focal point of your marketing efforts.
In addition to setting up your artist blog, here are three other immediate actions that you can take to beef up your web presence.
Make Sure Your Website is Up To Date
What do people find if they look for you online? Will they find up to date information or a neglected website with blog posts dating back to 2012? If you currently have a website, then make sure that all of your information is up to date, including the best way to contact you and pricing.
Start an Email Newsletter.
Get in the habit of sending an email newsletter at least once a month to your fans and followers.
Get Active on Social Media.
Promote the same message and theme as your blog with the ultimate goal of driving people back to your site. Start with one channel and stick with it.
This post isn’t to make you feel bad, because it’s never too late to start! It’s a reminder and encouragement not to put off working on your online presence any longer. Artists can no longer afford to ignore this area of their business.
For more information on blogging for your artist business and other marketing ideas, please subscribe to my newsletter. For help with your artist blog, read more about my Artist Blogging Services.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
