Being a great artist requires more than just creating art – it requires marketing your art. More specifically, you need to market your art online. Right now, the art market is booming, and in order to take advantage of the boom, promoting your art online is essential. Where do you start with online art marketing?
Websites
There are lots of ways to sell your art online, and it starts with a website. Every artist needs their own website, and not just an online showcase of artwork. Your website must include an online store. Without an ecommerce website, your art business is dead. So you’re not website savvy? There are many sites such as Shopify or Square where you can build a full-featured online store with ease. You do not need any website design skills or programming knowledge to quickly set up an online store at a very low cost.
Your website is your unique brand and gives you the freedom to sell and market your art without paying commissions to online galleries and other artist-run web sales platforms. Plus, you get a captive audience that is not viewing another artists’ work.
Art Subscription Services
The next step is to add your art to an art database or art subscription service where your art is shown on digital picture frames. A large digital picture frame is a digital wall frame that displays art on a rotating basis. These digital wall picture frames are often hung in the entry or reception area of a business, or they are purchased by individuals who want new art displayed in their homes.
The process is simple. You upload digitized versions of your artwork. You offer your collections to subscribers or individual pieces to collectors. You control how the art is presented on the digital picture frame, and your art is protected from copyright infringement. Users pay a monthly fee to view your art, and you get paid a commission on each subscriber. For more information about this process, please click here.
Art Marketplaces
Once you have an ecommerce website up and running, marketing your art can expand to online art galleries and marketplaces, social media and digital stock sites. As an independent artist, you can create an account and display your art on a variety of online art marketplaces that already have an established audience.
An art marketplace is an art gallery on the internet. These sites market your art and sell your art for you, similar to an art gallery. A buyer purchases online, you ship the artwork and the marketplace pays you after they take a commission. The benefit is that art marketplaces are in the art marketing business, and they know how to sell art and attract art buyers. Your art will be viewed by a huge audience of serious art buyers.
Other good options for art marketing and promoting your art are mass-market sites like Etsy and Amazon, and social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. A savvy artist takes advantage of all the options to sell art online.
Social Media
Marketing your art and selling your art on social media sites also requires an ecommerce platform. For example, if you have a Shopify page, you can setup a Facebook Shop that directly integrates your Facebook page with your Shopify account. You can also enable Pinterest to link to your Shopify account. Your Shopify artwork is turned into a Buyable Pin where buyers can purchase directly on Pinterest. On Instagram, you can tag your products in an Instagram post, and Instagram users can tap the link to view and buy a product in your online store.
Once your art is added to all the social platforms, marketing your art and promoting your art is much easier and cost-effective. Selling your art on your own website, from art subscription services on digital picture frames, on social sites, and via art marketplaces is a full-throttle strategy to make money as an artist.
Final Thoughts
The online art market is huge and caters to all kinds of art buyers. Your goal is to create an art selling solution that hits all your potential buyers. Don’t fret, just take it one step at a time. Use these ideas to start marketing your art and promoting your art, and your art marketing will pay off.
Remember to visit this “Call for Artists” page to learn more about selling your art on digital picture frames as part of an art subscription service.
