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.
Selling art effectively means managing your time and also means placing a value on it.
Managing your time also means placing a value on it. I set aside time for silence and space. Do not assume that packing as many shows into a year is the right use of time.
With art and business, know what you want and set goals.
Visualize what it is you are seeking and what you expect out of your creative business. Artists all to often enter this business environment without knowing what they want or what is possible. When you are sitting alone in your studio and you’re wondering why you’re not having any success, have you ever asked yourself how much you’re willing to sacrifice for that success? Success often requires hard work and sacrifice. The degree to which you’re willing to go will be entirely up to you. Think carefully about what you really want to accomplish and set some goals to help you get there. If, for example, you want to have four exhibitions a year, start planning for them. Make the necessary connections. Have a target and set your goals.
Too few artists think of themselves as businesspersons. But art and good business go hand-in-hand: by practicing the art of good business, we sustain a lifetime as a practicing – and prospering – artist.
I’ve often wondered what arts marketing is selling, exactly. I’ve come to the conclusion that when we engage in arts marketing, we as artists are trading in transcendent experiences and altered mindsets, rather than mere objects.
Art is the business of sharing worldview, but it’s also the business of artist sales in the face of stiff competition. No business would attempt to compete without a strategy, and without a business-minded plan, both artist sales and the impact of your art suffer.
Promoting art is about promoting yourself, not in a crass, “see how wonderful I am” way, but in a way that promotes your vision, the core of what makes you…well, you. It takes courage, promoting art and putting yourself out there for public inspection, but so does creating art that tells your private truth.
For some artists, creative arts marketing is a sort of accidental pursuit, a byproduct of the real work of making art. But in my case, an accident helped me see byproducts as art and brought a new dimension to my creative arts marketing at the same time.
Art marketing doesn’t have to be a one-way communication from artist to audience, yet another “buy now” in a world flooded with them. Instead, the best art marketing is a give-and-take sharing of ideas, motivations, and passions.
Some artists believe that their ambitions, particularly when it comes to marketing in the arts, are best served by moving to a large city. If that’s what inspires you, great. But for those of us who prefer a quieter, maybe even idyllic setting, technology and easy travel make global marketing in the arts possible from anywhere.
An arts marketing plan – especially when you work it yourself – benefits from the same sense of balance you’d bring to any creative composition. Equal parts personal and public, creating and selling, inhaling beauty and then exhaling it make for an arts marketing plan that tips the scales in an artist’s favour.
With arts marketing, a common question asked of me has been did I market my art work as “environmental” in the beginning?
A primary form of my art and marketing is to spend a significant amount of time giving lectures about my work.
For creative types, art and marketing go together about as well as oil and water. But really, marketing can be an art in its own right, a performing art that amplifies the message you whisper through your physical creations.
Promoting art isn’t so much about the art itself as the issue or feeling the art speaks to. So what drives you to create art? For me, it’s often oneness with humanity and ecological concerns. For you it may be different, but whatever gets you going is the key to exciting audiences and successfully promoting your art.
John Dahlsen is a leader in his field of Environmental art. He has developed a number of products, which include books, e-books, CDs, DVDs, subscriber based newsletters and seminars, which can help give vital assistance with the more pressing questions artists are currently facing with today’s unpredictable economy.
I intend to assist with understanding in these areas, by posting these thoughts about the current crisis, most probably experienced by many artists and those involved with the arts.
