From Art to Marketing and Back to Art

I have just started learning the processes of marketing after creating and launching a website. I am beginning to realize that if you spend all of your time marketing you never get the time to paint. Even still an artist is not like a salesman that sells a product to strangers who could buy the product from anyone but is seeking the best price or the best service. I believe artists need to know their clients more than the standard business relationship, we need to create relationships with buyers, the buyers need to know why we create art and understand the meaning or inspiration behind what they are buying  and we need to understand what about our art inspires them.

Both disciplines can be done well in tandem but I do think you need to work smarter in the field of marketing. Constant checking, posting and adding to twitter and facebook can become tedious. We need to contact the right people that are interested in buying but we also need to build relationships with people that know about art and have sold art. I have recently learned many things just by reading through linked- in and Artpromotivate-a website that has many great examples and effective techniques to successfully promote artwork. All this information is so helpful in saving time because you are learning from people who have sold art and have been promoting it for some time.

Another important aspect to selling art and connecting with other artists is a real relationship. I think that if anyone in sales treats customers like they are only patrons that pay the bills, they are missing a large portion of the sales/customer relationship. Most customers know when they are being taken advantage of or just being sold, they want to feel as if there is something more than just the sale and the salesman is thinking of their best interest. I think artists and their customers take that relationship to another level. I would rather have fewer customers that were very happy with their product and offered repeat business than more customers that only bought one painting or print.

I think community is something that people are really needing these days and the relationships of artists to artists and artists to their clients should be as genuine as the inspiration that initiated the work itself. I am learning so much every day, from other artists, web processes and social media. I will continue to update this blog on the successes and roadblocks I have experienced through marketing my art and my website.
I hope my information will be as helpful to others as the information from other artists has been for me.