Traditional marketing is a bit leaden. You have to reach out so people follow you on social media, then you treat them to your content and encourage them to join your mailing list where you’re creating more involved content and that’s where you can invite people to buy your stuff or come to your shows.
And .. I’m pretty much knackered already.
So let me tell you about the Moonstomp boot dude.
He commented on one of my posts and sometimes I have a moment where I can go look at a new follower’s Instagram page so .. I did that.
Straight away, I liked the art. So yes, for the artists who say “it’s the art” .. of course that’s part of it. It’s not all of it though.
I clicked one of the videos. It turned out to be a process video. I wouldn’t normally be into the development of a painting, but this was much more multimedia than that and as I recall, it started with this seemingly street, cool dude picking flowers.
This is the core of it. I love flowers, I was thinking about flowers this morning about what makes flowers similar and different to flags, and how the robin’s song maybe is also a flag.
I wish I still had some nature books I pored over as a kid, I can still sense the feel of those books. They were about .. yeah I know, this is a definite NO now .. but it was about kids discovering English nature, flowers and animals, through their friendship with a guy who lived in the woods and kept a dormouse in his pocket. I know. But I always did want a dormouse in my school blazer.
Let’s just stop a minute. See how rich that is? I came to this artist, he picked just three flowers and now my head is full of all those warm feelings. See how I’m a step closer to him?
I’m watching this video with the sound off and then realised because it names the tune atop the post, Symarip, Moonstomp.
Well now. That’s a ska classic, and I’m a ska drummer. Ska is pretty much the only music I listen to because I DJ it too. Literally at bedtime (autism alert) I have a routine to go through the next three news items in the Do The Dog skazine (it is a vibrant, international scene), go find the tunes mentioned and put them in a playlist along with another tune that is suggested for me (just in case Do The Dog is missing anything). Then there’s another routine where I work down those tunes and split them into Sunday afternoon easy listening, uplifting, full-on, and quirky-go-home-now. Then I go through those lists and move them into ‘yeah’ or ‘maybe not on second thoughts’ (and depending on how many people dance I move them around from there.
Ska stands for anti-racism, and it’s working class. This piece, it’s called Stand for Something, which is very much my thing.
Like I say, I’m into ska. More richness, I’m connected to this dude because I like his process (it had some photography in it and I’m an amateur photographer), I like his art, I like that he’s into the natural world to some extent and he’s into ska. This is a full set of green lights.
The particular video I was watching was boots n flowers, so the boots are symbolic of ska too, so all of that worked. It means I could put that up on my wall and it would really say a lot about me.
It would really say a lot about me.
It would really say a lot about me.
Got that? I’m not going to buy a piece of art for my wall that I can’t talk about, that doesn’t say something about me.
Alright, let’s check out his website, and his online shop. Turns out this particular item I coveted is not a print yet, but the prints are affordable so I’m still game, but obviously I’m going to have to wait. Let me say I don’t really buy art (sorry). But if this was a print, I would have, right there and then.
While I was looking, I noticed he did something in North Shields which is not so far from me, and he’s perfectly articulate about consumerism and the decline of things we used to look up to. Still, all fabulous.
I commented, he replied, so that’s nice.
My point is this. Prior to this guy, I was earmarking budget to buy something from an abstract artist I was working with, but they went with a full service artist marketing website setup and I just didn’t like their style. That reflects on that artist and so that’s the end of that. So everything has to be right to make the sale.
It’s like cooking. Just adding salt makes a soup palatable but if a chef adds the herbs and other flavours you get a full experience. So with the Moonstomp Boot guy, it’s not just the artwork, it’s the full experience of ska, wildflowers, street art and all of my good associations with that. It’s a huge cloud of goodness carrying me towards the sale. And it happened in under an hour .. from me not even knowing he existed.
It’s everything.
If even one thing was off, I’d have doubts, the sale would pause or stop or reverse.
What that means for you selling your art is .. pull forward your full self. All of those connections need to happen, the cloud needs to form to tip the sale over the edge.
If you hide, no cloud will form, few sales will happen.
Typically, we make ourselves pleasant in order to sell.
But people have so much choice now, that pleasant is just .. pleasant. If you want to sell art online, you need to enhance the different ways people can find meaning in what you do. That means mining your life for meaning & stories.
It’s work. It is. But it’s more satisfying than trying to build a marketing funnel, and aren’t you mining your life anyway for your art?
Anyway, here’s the thing:
