The dream of being a full time artist involved a lot of painting, some packing of sales, some soirees .. bits of admin are OK (you can just wave that away with your hand). Probably not spending half your time trying to satisfy Instagram.
It is nice to stay afloat though.
Making art and marketing art don’t really mix.
Ideally when you paint you’ll get into flow. The last thing you want is to be thinking about marketing.
It’s solitary, whereas marketing and selling is about other people and their needs. It’s conversation and being in public.
You do have two heads
If you try to mix the two, it’s tiring, here’s why. Your subconscious ticks away at no cost. When you get into flow, you’re allowing its ideas to bubble through. When you ask your conscious mind for anything, that has a cost .. literally it uses blood sugar.
If I say ‘giraffe’, your head brings forward all the things you know about giraffes ready to have that conversation. That’s work. If you constantly swap between thinking about your art and thinking about your sales and marketing, all that loading up your conscious brain does .. it’s hard work.
This is why I recommend the Rockstar Lifecycle where you do art, then you exhibit, then you rest. (Write songs, tour them, disappear for a bit.) Yes I know the socials want you to post every day but truly, whose life is this? I personally don’t like machines telling me what to do. Or people, for that matter. Or billionaires. (I talk more about the Rockstar Lifecycle in my occasional Challenge Weeks.)
What if marketing my art makes everything worse?
So there you are looking at Instagram and I pop up and you think “if I do more marketing, I’ll end up doing less art and everything will come tumbling down, I’ll create a load of hullabaloo but my art will be worse”.
I totally get that, I’ve been there myself. Thing is, the choice is not lonesome art under a rock or having to avoid the paparazzi. In the middle, we can gently lift the whole thing.
Small steps is the way
My approach is values-based marketing. That’s the first thing, there’s no hullabaloo. We do a values exercise that gives you clarity on what you’re about and what you stand for. That’s fun and enlightening and it just means you’re naturally clearer in what you say and do. That makes you more attractive. Easy, see? Call it branding if you like (I tend not to).
So let’s tackle this issue of balance and the worry that marketing and sales will send you out of control.
Give yourself a reasonable perspective. Look at what you’ve been doing over perhaps a year. Perhaps you’re spending a third of your time and money on marketing, and two thirds on creating art and you’ve sold a few paintings.
There’s some equilibrium there. You can just carry on and get the same results this year. Nothing wrong with that.
However you may want to develop your career, improve your sales and build your reputation .. so just try to improve things a little. My approach is evolutionary, in other words we build by small improvements that multiply together to make a big effect.
(If you enjoy such things, put your turnover into cell A1 of a spreadsheet, make A2 = A1*1.01 and drag it down. That’s a 1% improvement, compounded. So if you made just one 1% improvement to your marketing each week, drag it down to row 52 and see what your turnover would be.)
You are what you do
Tied to that is the idea that you are the sum of your habits. Perhaps you think of yourself as an artist whose art will poke through, it will sell itself, you’ll get discovered. You’ve no need for marketing.
I don’t believe that there’s a good way to sell art.
I believe there’s a good way for you to sell your art, and it’s about your strengths, your beliefs, your values and your energy. We just have to find it, every artist is different.
It’s like wearing a new shirt
Imagine this with me. You’re creative, so imagine you have something you could give to people. Something they want. But also something that helps them understand your art.
That could be quite lightweight (your PDF guide to buying art to match the sofa), but I think in this world now, people have deep emotional needs. Maybe your art provides that. Maybe you can give them a snowflake of hope.
Give that for free when your prospect signs up to your mailing list.
If you do that, you become an artist who is serious about marketing yourself.
You wouldn’t have done that otherwise. It’s an internal change in how you view yourself.
Now that you’re an artist who is serious about marketing your art, it’s consistent if you market your art. A guitarist who doesn’t pluck is no plucking guitarist.
So you’re in equilibrium, then you add an offer for signing up to your list. Previously you were getting 1 signup a week, you’re now getting 2. “Sheesh, big flipping flopping deal” .. I actually heard you say that, us marketers can read minds. My point is that your equilibrium point is now a weeny bit higher. That’s your 1% improvement.
Notice that you didn’t lose your balance. You didn’t become overwhelmed. You just got a little better. Like wearing a new shirt.
Now add a welcome email that’s automatically sent when someone signs up. Another 1% improvement. No biggy. No extra effort once you’ve written it.
Look, you don’t have to have a mailing list. I believe with all my heart (and some of my pancreas) that the way you sell your art should be as unique as your art. If you don’t want to do video or email or social media, OK. But if you want to be sustainable you do have to find your way to sell your art, and that starts with values. Why? Because if your top value is human connection you’ll market by word of mouth. If it’s Wow At Nature then what can we learn from bird song or seed distribution?
Revolution is tiring, do this instead
Part of the reason you have a reaction to marketers is, in the normal world, they have a reputation for throwing everything away and implementing their shiny new idea. That’s revolutionary. That’s not me, I’m evolutionary. I start where you are and we improve from there.
You can do that yourself, but if you’d like to work with me I do coach a small group of artists who do this ongoing, it’s called We ArtStep, you’re welcome to join us if you like. No biggy, but it would be rude not to mention it.
Either way, if you take a marketing step and it works, drop me a message I’d love to celebrate with you.
