Marketing Basics for Artists and Exhibition Organisers: How to get your art noticed!

​How to communicate about art, artists and artistic practice
​on paper, online and in person
to art collectors, galleries and the public
THE ART IS NOT ENOUGH!

For people to hear about you and your art somebody has to be communicating about YOU and YOUR ART.
  • That's the way art gets noticed.
  • That's the way people find out about artists.
  • That's the way artwork gets seen
  • That's the way paintings get sold
  • That's the way people get to become full-time professional artists - or successful semi-professional artists.
  • This is how you get to be successful!
Without an audience, you have no hope of impacting the world, no matter how important your message - or art
Original quote by Jon Morrow
......the exceptional crisis we are faced with today: we actually have an oversupply of artists fighting over a relatively little demand for high art. There are too many galleries, too many artists and not enough collectors.
Magnus Resch | The Art of Management in Rotunda
Communication is essentially about marketing - but there's lots of different aspects to it. 

CONTENTS: This section deals with separate topics related to marketing and communication. ​

Marketing the Artist
Marketing Exhibitions
Digital Marketing ( marketing activities online)
Below is a brief profile of what each topic includes.
Topics will be expanded over time

Marketing the Artist: Written Statements - on paper and online
​

​Many artists struggle with finding the right words to market themselves.

Below are topics that cover the basics around words and writing for every artist at all stages of development
​ ​
Most have a sub-menu of sections or pages which help to chunk the topic up and make navigation easier.
Picture
Part of my lecture on "Do’s and Don’ts of the Artist Statement & C.V" at The Heatherley School of Art in London

Marketing your Art Exhibitions
​

​If you are an artist, it's not enough to market art - you also need to market the exhibitions that your art is in - before, during and after.

If you are an organiser of open exhibitions, your exhibition will have a bigger impact - and more visitors - and more sales - with good quality marketing.
  • ​How to write a press release - Do you want to know how to write a Press Release for an artist or an exhibition or other art event?
  • Publicity for juried art competitions and open exhibitions - Useful information & checklists: ABOUT marketing and generating publicity for a juried exhibition; FOR all those organising open art competitions and exhibitions
  • The Private View Invitation - a SUMMARY of: why PV Invites fail to be effective; what an effective PV invite looks like; 10 ACTIONS for creating an effective invitation to a Private View; 5 THINGS TO AVOID when sending out invites to a Private View

Digital Marketing Online: Websites and Social Media
​

Digital marketing covers all your efforts to promote your art and paid art activities online
​
How to get you and your art online and visible to the HUGE numbers of people - including art collectors - who use the internet
  • Websites for Artists (part published) - currently covers: Why websites matter; Options for websites; Web design for artists and Writing for the web
  • Image sizes for social media sites - an infographic provides detailed advice about pixel dimensions and file size/type for all those images of your drawings and paintings
  • How to be mobile friendly - It is now absolutely essential to have a mobile-friendly website or blog if you intend people to access it without difficulty.
Picture
From my blog post about "Artists Websites in 2018"
Under development:
  • Blogging for Artists (in development - a site needs to be transferred here)  Will cover links to advice and information relevant to blogging for artists and blogging by artists.
  • Facebook for Artists - in development
  • Twitter for Artists - in development

Regular Art Marketing Tasks
​

STRATEGIC MARKETING
  • ​Periodically review your art business goals - and how you plan to achieve them
  • At least once a year look back at how good you are at 
    • achieving your goals 
    • doing what you said you would do
  • Produce a SWOT analysis at least once a year - or do it with somebody who will help you be self-critical about your
    • strengths
    • weaknesses
    • opportunities 
    • threats
  • Create some "stretch" goals on at least an annual basis - ones which will stop you getting in a rut and producing the "same old same old"
  • Expand the reach of your art marketing - to:
    • new places 
    • new people
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS / MARKETING
  • Increase the number of people seeing your art - and responding to it in a positive way
  • Audience analysis: be aware of:
    • which target audiences you are reaching
    • who are the audiences that never see your work
    • priorities for reaching new people - in new places
  • Check out what your competition is doing
    • what's different this month / quarter / year?
    • what are the implications for how this impacts on your sales?
  • Read about the art business and what's happening / changing
  • Think about how to be greener in your business practices - from a marketing perspective. 
SOCIAL MARKETING
  • Highlight your art on a regular basis on:
    • your website
    • your social media
    • other people's social media
  • ​Make contact with the key people in your art marketing world on a regular basis
  • analyse the available statistics for your social media
    • which is most effective
    • what gets most attention
    • what gets least attention
    • what days / time of day work best for reaching people and getting their attention
TAKE STOCK
  • Know where your art is. Update your records of 
    • art produced - and where you're storing it if not on exhibition
    • art exhibited - and who has it
    • art sold - and where is it is now
  • Maintain a complete record of all exhibitions
  • Talk to art galleries which stock / display your art. Know whether it is on display or gathering dust.
  • Update ALL key marketing tools e.g.
    • your website
    • your social media sites
    • your artist statement 
    • your CV
REFERENCE

Other Forms of Marketing
​

​Marketing - General
I'm currently working on transferring a number of sites to this site
  • Email Newsletter Software - A Guide - to be transferred here
REFERENCE
For a better understanding of marketing in general, try reading 
For those getting started 

Will somebody be writing this about you in future?

A few years back I had a very sweet letter from somebody whose Dad produced very nice watercolour paintings which had been admired in the past by an influential art critic. She wonders why her Dad's name doesn't come up whenever watercolour is discussed and how she can get him better known.

I checked on the Internet and there appears to be no record of the artist on the internet or via galleries.

This is what I wrote back....
" Dear Xxx

Success in art is as much to do with marketing as it has to do with talent and quality of painting. The marketing doesn't have to be done by the artist but it does have to be done. One nice comment does not create a career! There is also no record of this anywhere on the internet.

If people only needed to look at art to buy it then we wouldn't have the vast amount of investment in all the galleries and auction houses etc which exist to sell art. Marketing an artist and selling art is a specialised activity - not always best done by artists

It rather looks to me as if somebody - maybe you - needs to take the marketing side of his artwork in hand. There is nothing on the internet which indicates how this can be seen and/or purchased.

Does your father enter the open competitions exhibitions run by the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour? These are essentially places to get "seen". It's not about selling paintings - it's about marketing your art.

His paintings and sketches are nice - but then so are those by a lot of other painters. What they don't have, which the paintings of other artists have, is a size or a price on them - or indeed any information at all about them.
If they don't link to a place where they are being sold - via email to artist, or gallery or online website - then they won't sell. Silent artists do not tend to become the best known artists.

I'd also suggest your father writes something about himself for his "about me" page on his blog. Who you are and what your art is about actually matter. (see my website How to write an Artist's Statement)

I trust this gives you some food for thought..

your sincerely........"