Marketing Best Practices: The Kindergarten Edition
I’ve been interviewing an artist every week, first on Instagram Live, and then on Zoom and posting the recording to YouTube. A theme has been emerging. It turns out marketing by having conversations works for a lot of the artists I talk with who are successfully selling their work.
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.
(BTW-If you aren’t already selling your art and you want to start, download my cheatsheet: Keep Calm & Sell Something.)
A few weeks ago I re-interviewed Terrell Lozada, a professional fine artist. We talked for the second time because she just finished a month-long show at a gallery space in Paris. Yeah. Paris.
How did this happen?
Terrell talked to people.
That’s it. Many arrondissements (those are neighborhoods to us non-Parisians) have their own galleries. Terrell started talking to the people in charge of the gallery spaces, neighborhood by neighborhood. If one person couldn’t help, they sent her (because she asked) to someone else. She found a neighborhood that was interested, and the show was born.
I’m making it sound easy. It’s not.
But it is simple.
All this month I’ve been writing about marketing best practices that I’ve been learning from the artists I’m interviewing on Instagram. Many of them have large social media followings, big email lists and beautiful websites. But the most important part is something else...
What works the best is human contact
Maybe we are more attuned to other people because of COVID. Maybe we want to help each other more than we would if we could resume our normal activities without danger.
Or maybe human contact, human relationships has always been the secret superpower of successful marketing.
Here’s the summary
Marketing by having conversations works. Here are other things to keep in mind: Be Kind. Make Friends. Help Other Artists. And I would add, Be Consistent.
Start there.
If you are a creative and you want to get your work into the world, here are four ways I can help you.
#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.
I’d love to hear your takeaways from this blog. Do you think it would be possible for you to start marketing by having conversations? Perhaps it's a goal to show your work in a gallery. Do you think Terrell's approach would work for you? Let me know in the comments below.