By Wendy Dessler, Guest Blogger - Creating art is a personal experience, which can make it a challenge when you have to sell it. While this is true, there are a large number of artists who want to earn a living from their creative endeavors. There is nothing wrong with that and making art your full-time job is a good strategy.

However, building a business based on any kind of art is not easy or quick. You have to learn how to create an effective art marketing strategy. Instapainting suggests patience when you start marketing your art as you have to allow enough time to build a following to generate a livable income.

You can also use the tips here to help you achieve your art selling goals faster.

1. Create a Schedule

If you are like most artists, you have a process. You follow this process to create the best art possible. If you don’t have a schedule for creating art, you need to set aside time each day (if possible) and at a minimum each week. Creating your art on a regular basis is a good idea.

You will also want to outline time for working on marketing efforts, and create boundaries between this time, and your creative time. Use efficiency strategies like time blocking and the Pomodoro technique to commit to getting things done.

2. Understand Your Art

If you already have a set schedule for making your art, take some time to hone your skills. Be willing to learn new skills and find new ways to improve your art, too. The more you create, the more you will discover the type of art that you like creating the most.

By knowing your favorite style and subject for art, you can effectively market it. After all, if you want other people to love what you create, you have to love it first. You have to remain passionate about what you are creating and willing to commit long hours and hard work to your projects before you see any success.

This is all easier to do when you enjoy what you are making. When you have a passion for what you create, this is going to translate to collectors and buyers, too.

3. Stay Consistent

It takes time to build an engaged audience who takes an active interest in your work. For many artists, the slow build up can be discouraging and make them feel as though social media is a waste of time.

What you should understand is that social media (or any type of marketing, for that matter) is not a magical tool that is going to help you generate sales immediately. Marketing, regardless if you are doing it through social media or another method requires persistent, sustained effort to find success.

Remember, marketing is considered a numbers game. You have to expose your work to as many possible buyers, repeatedly, during the course of not only days or weeks, but also months and years.

4. Find Your Target Market

While this step is a bit more difficult, it is still important. You need to figure out who would be interested in buying the type of art you create.

One of the easiest ways for you to do this is by imagining that all possible collectors and clients are represented by a series of concentric circles. People who are like you are in the middle. For example, if you like drawing realistic pictures of animals, then people who like realistic art and animals are going to be the focal point of your target market.

However, you don’t have to limit yourself to only those people, but they are the best place to begin. The next circle are people who share some (but not all) of your interests. For example, they like animals but not realistic art, or the other way around. You need to market your art to them, as well, even though they are not considered your “core market.”

You can continue adding layers, but remember, the further out someone is from your core market, the less likely they will be to purchase your art.

5. Begin Selling Locally

You need to begin your efforts to market and sell your art locally. This is where people who know you are. Take the time to find and make satisfied customers in your local area. Rather than waiting to have your online marketing strategy sorted out to start building awareness, partake in a few local events to get your name out there. By doing this, you will start to generate interest and word-of-mouth marketing that will benefit your overall marketing efforts. By doing this, you should be able to sell more than only online marketing efforts are going to provide.

Sell Your Art with These Tips

If you are looking for tips and tricks for marketing your art, this list should help you get started. Remember, persistence and patience are your keys to success.

Wendy Dessler is a super-connector who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.

By Guest Blogger, Anders Cederholm – In recent years, crowdfunding has become possible, thanks to websites which allow different businesses to raise money. Artboost is the new digital and social media version of fundraising for artists and art collectors.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a fundraising concept where a community helps projects and new ideas to come to life. Having a successful crowdfunding campaign provides businesses with needed cash, but it also creates a base of customers who feel that they have a stake in that business’s success. If it wasn’t for the community supporting that project, it probably would not succeed.

Art and Crowdfunding

Anders Cederholm, Co-Founder of Artboost explains, “One of the main problems for exposing great art is that the art world has been traditionally difficult to enter.  In order to have success as an artist, an artist usually needs to have a name and in order to build that name, the artist needs to have exposure”

Anders continues his thoughts, “Nowadays artists have the ability to be crowdfunded online (In the past, this was a market that has previously been permeated by digital startups). This business model enables upcoming artists to get their feet in the art world with no curating principles, here all creative individuals are welcome”.   

Artists Don’t Waste Time on Marketing

Cederholm explains, “Many artists do not know how to promote themselves and their art, and because of this they have difficulty getting the needed exposure”. With the help of platforms such as Artboost Crowdfunding artists now have the ability to focus on what they are best at, and that is creating their art.

Artists Can Earn More than the Original Art Piece

Art crowdfunding has helped international artists get more exposure, and it has enabled them to focus on what creates the most value for them. Having a crowdfunding campaign enables artists to earn a profit on an art piece even though the original art piece has already been sold.

By allowing the artists to create limited edition prints of their original art piece, they can earn up to 10 times more, and best of all - the artist doesn’t have to do anything!

Limited Editions Have Sold Out in 36 Hours

Artist, Natmir Lura, says, “I have had great exposure on my artwork through Artboost Crowdfunding. In fact, one time, one of my prints was sold out in 36 hours.”

A crowdfunding campaign runs for approximately 20 days. The art piece is printed in 30 limited editions, only if the campaign succeeds. For the campaign to be successful, the artist needs 15 pre-orders, or in other words 15 individual fundraisers.  At this point-in-time, Artboost will then produce, sell and ship the prints to the customers, on behalf of the artist.

About Artboost:

Artboost is an online platform for artists and art-buyers. With the Artboost Crowdfunding Space and the Artboost Marketplace buyers can discover upcoming artists and buy unique and limited art – based on the buyer’s budget.

Collectors can buy artworks directly from the artist through the marketplace or an artist can get the needed support for their first crowdfunded piece of art in the Artboost Crowdfunding Space.

Are you an artist yourself, and do you want to apply for an Artboost Crowdfunding campaign? Or do you want to know more about the concept? Read more here. artboost.com/crowdfunding.