Arts marketing has come a long way from the days of personally lugging around an overstuffed portfolio. Today, thanks to the Web arts marketing means interactive online galleries, virtual shopping carts, and one-to-many outreach, even while you’re busy creating more art – or having a nap.
Arts marketing today
Websites are a cornerstone of arts marketing. Artists need to have Internet presence, and the best way to do this is by having a website, or at the very least a blog. When you approach a gallery director, you can lead them to your site for a snapshot of your work. You can also incorporate “shopping cart” software to sell work directly off your site. I recommend keeping your site very simple, using a white background to accentuate the artwork you’re showing. Make certain your site is easily navigable.
I also run seminars where I teach people simple and effective ways to assemble web pages. An artist friend recently contacted me and shared her frustration with her web designer, who was not answering her calls. She wanted to update and finally launch her website. She didn’t know what to do. I sent a quick e-mail to her that explained how to make these changes in a very simple step-by-step manner. A few days later she sent me an e-mail with a link to her updated website that she set up under my guidance. She took control of her site.
When you create new work, you should be able to easily add images to your website, and by adding a shopping cart to your site you can sell your works without having to use a middleman. This is not such a difficult process to do. With the simple instructions that you can receive in my seminars, a lot of the guesswork is removed from the equation.
