Artists In Business Need To Be Creative
I have been going through my piles of notebooks and loose studies in an effort to clean up my studio. I know I probably shouldn't have stacks of work on the ground and under the bed and on my desk and well... everywhere, but I can't help myself. I love every idea I have and assume most will be my next best one (once I get the time to work on them).
And it's from this place of loose papers and notebooks that I found a page illustrating an artist sales funnel from 2020 I had drawn up. Let's ignore most of that year and just focus on the following ideas:
When you follow any business guru, they'll tell you to think about the path your customer will take from viewing to converting. In a true business setting, your customer has a problem and need and your product has to be clear cut enough to solve it for them. But this just does not work for art.
Your ideal customer could be anyone for any reason at any time. Art just transcends traditional business paths and exists on its own playing field.
This brings me to my sales funnel, a practical approach for the modern day creative. ✨ The key components are still going to be the same: awareness, connection, and conversion, but the approach will be individualized and up to you.
If anything, it'll just show you how to be more aware of what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Awareness: Where is your audience?
I was on reddit this morning and there was an artist saying they were having trouble connecting and selling their work after everyone said they could totally sell it. I went to their site and the most obvious issue was the way they wrote about their work. Their art was sterilized and referred to as "Our Work" "Our Mission" - if there is one thing I detest the most, it's when Artists try to present themselves as companies. Be an individual. Make your work and acknowledge the solo-ness of your endeavor.
When you present your work to others, be intentional about where you're placing it and why. Knowing your audience as an artist isn't about knowing who your potential customer is, it's about knowing the individual who will connect with your story and share your art.
Be intentional with your audience and your presentation. Don't post to post. Don't engage with a trend if it doesn't make sense with you. Engagement for the sake of engagement does nothing. You want patrons. You want enthusiasts. You want buyers.
Connection: What is working?
You must craft the meaning, tell the story, and present your ideas to your audience in the right arena. Soft art music will never connect if it interrupts a rave. Ask yourself what is currently connecting with your audience and where it's happening. Why should they follow, share, and support you? What is it that you're providing?
Now this last question is a bit tricky. If you don't provide a service or functional art item, what are you selling them on? And I hate to say, yourself, but it to a certain extent, you're selling them on you, the artist. Your persona, your story, your ideas. This is why it's so important to know why you make the art: because there are subjective connection points and objective connection points.
Subjective: comments, opinions, and niceties.
Objective: content creation, grid galleries or portfolios, and reshares.
You can engage and connect in personal ways and in non-personal ways. Subjective connection points call to the emotional interest in your art. They encourage the viewer to think about it deeper and finish the story. Your objective connection points are obvious ways you can showcase your art and have your audience take the first seemingly unprompted
step.
How will you use your art and your space to catch their attention?
Conversion: Why buy your art?
When I am online, surrounded by amazing artists doing amazing things... I don't feel very unique or original. I don't feel special or like there is much reason to purchase my work when there is much better work out there.
You need to stop that insecurity and identify your story. Find the passion that lies behind your art and why you make it. The ideas that fuel the subject matter and recurring themes.
Why do you make your art!?
Your unique selling proposition isn't some sweet deal on an original or a heavily discounted mug with a printed image. It's the fact that there's only so much artwork you will make in your lifetime. It's the ideas and the perspective on the world that you are translating through your medium. It's your art. It's your story.
When you know why you make your art, you can passionately declare it and begin to have conversations around it. Passion makes people care about ideas. Passion does more for art than trendy colors and sizes and patterns. Passion makes people think twice about why that art is sitting with them and they just can't shake the way the way it made them feel. Passion turns an audience member into a fan and then into a collector.
You can do all the right things at the bottom of your funnel by having easily clickable links and perfect photography and the best sounding CTAs but without passion, the sales won't last and neither will your customer base.
You are the Artist. You are the Art. Your story is simply the path you take to make it and your passion brings it to life.
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