Marketing Best Practices: Make Friends to Make a Connection
When you sell your art, a big part of that is connecting with your community, the people who want or even need your art. I’ve been interviewing an artist every week, first on Instagram Live, and then on Zoom and posting the recording to YouTube. These interviews have been teaching me and the viewers who tune in more marketing best practices for artists.
We talk about the purpose of their art, pricing, who they want their art to reach, and how they find those people and make relationships with them. The conversation always turns to this process--how they find their people and begin making connections.
Making relationships is a big part of marketing
(BTW-If you aren’t already selling your art and you want to start, download my cheatsheet: Keep Calm & Sell Something).
Marketing is all about finding the people you want to impact with your art and making relationships with them. It’s a lot like the process we began learning before we could talk; the process of making friends.
Jim Pescott, the fine art painter I interviewed last week, says the two actions he takes in his marketing are: Be Kind. Make Friends. He has 5,000 followers on Facebook, which he gathered by interacting with each person who came to his page and left a comment.
You don't have to be on Facebook to market successfully
In fact, you don’t have to use social media at all. You can just start by emailing your friends, family, and people who have bought your work before; give other people a way to opt-in to your email newsletter easily from your website, and start sharing your practice with them. Use an email newsletter app so you can see who opened your newsletters and interact with the ones who do. These are some marketing best practices for artists that you can incorporate into your plan for selling your artwork.
Be kind. Make friends. Sell art.
I’d probably add one more sentence: Be consistent.
Be kind. Make friends. Be consistent. Start there. See what happens with your creative business as a result.
If you’re interested in getting more of your work out into the world, here are four ways I can help you do this.
#1 Read these posts about how to start handling any trauma you’ve experienced in getting your work into the world.
# 2 If you are ready to start selling your art, Download my cheatsheet: Keep Calm & Sell Something. Follow the directions in there, and tell someone else you’re doing it so you can be accountable to them. While you begin working with your trauma, the best antidote to pain is companionship and connection.
#3 If you want to make yourself a day job (which means starting a business), get a copy of my business plan book for creatives, Passion, Plan, Profit, and find someone, or better, three other someones, and go through the book together. The book tells you how to work in a group or in pairs, and you can download the worksheets in the book here. Companionship and connection again.
#4 If you want guidance, book a free 15 minute chat with me here and I’ll get you pointed in the right direction.
Your work matters. Your art matters.
If you do try this simple approach with your marketing, i.e., being kind, making friends, and keeping consistent, I'd like to hear how it goes for you. Let me know in the comments below.