Artist Marketing Plan

Strategies for Art Marketing

Developing an artist marketing plan goes well beyond printing brochures and business cards.

Art marketing or craft marketing includes everything you consciously and sometimes unconsciously do to sell your work. Done well, an artist marketing plan is consistent, comprehensive and all encompassing.

Art marketing efforts that are effective and time and resource efficient require planning and focus. Too often people dive into piecemeal strategies without developing a strategic, comprehensive art marketing strategy, trying out whatever opportunity or strategy comes to mind. They don't take the time to think through what image they want to portray to their customers and whether a given strategy reaches their customers in a way that is beneficial to their art or craft business.

Many people building art or craft businesses use a "throw it all on the wall and see what sticks" artist marketing plan or strategy, trying out any tactic, hoping something will eventually work. The problem with this strategy, or lack of strategy, is that you end up wasting a lot of time chasing ideas that don't lead to your long term business goals, when you could have been focusing on well thought out marketing activities.

Get Tips to Develop Your Artist Marketing Plan

Promote Crafts with Brochures and Catalogs
Developing a catalog or brochure that showcases your work can be an effective option to promote crafts. Catalogs or brochures can easily be distributed among your network of contacts, sent to your best customers on your mailing list or used to develop relationships with retailers.

Use Consistent Craft Marketing Strategies
Consistent, targeted craft marketing is crucial to the success of your home based craft business. Find out why the impulse to try to be all things to all people is a losing proposition for your home based craft business.

Selling Your Crafts - Be Prepared!
Guest author Beverly Taylor describes how being prepared helps her find great opportunities for promoting her business.

Better Networking for Business
Beyond power suits and conference rooms, there must be ways to do better networking for business owners. Arts and craft business networking does not have to be the intimidating ordeal that many people assume it will be.

Market Your Craft with Focus
Determine what your company image will be and how you will communicate that image at every point of contact with your customers. Avoid sending mixed messages to customers and meet their expectations with a consistent marketing message.

Take Time to Develop a Comprehensive Artist Marketing Plan
Developing an artist marketing plan usually goes hand in hand with writing your business plan. A one year plan that you revise and update regularly is typical. In this plan you will determine your goals, develop a sketch of your target customer, plan how you're going to reach that customer and build strategies to outshine your competition. Developing a plan will help save you time and money that might otherwise be wasted in pursing inappropriate marketing strategies.

Identify Your Target Market
Get to know your customer. Is your customer typically male or female? What is the typical age range of your customer? What is their income range? What motivates your customer? What needs are common to your customer (and how can you meet them)? What does your customer value in general? What do they value about your type of art? How do they perceive your type of art? Where does your customer live, shop and play? Getting to know your customer will help you to focus your artist marketing plan and efforts on art marketing strategies that appeal to your own specific customers.

Determine How You Stand Out From the Competition
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your main competitors as well as your own strengths and weaknesses will help you to determine how you will outshine your competition. For some artists, the first impulse is to compete on price; however, most people buying handmade pieces want something special and unique. As long as it's within their general budget, they are not typically buying based on price, so this strategy is not necessarily effective. A lower price can even backfire by making your work seem less special.

Rather than competing on price, work on developing your own distinct style and voice that is compelling and stands out from the crowd. In addition, research what your customers value. Is it a personal message in the piece, unique function, a meaningful story behind the work? Try to consider those values when creating your work and communicate those benefits to your customers to outshine your competition.

Don't lose sight of the big picture
It's pretty easy to get bogged down by the daily responsibilities of running a business, but it's important to consistently remind yourself of your long term goals. Because it can take three to five years for a business to become profitable, it can be easy to get distracted by apparent short term money making strategies. These are strategies that appear to be able to bring you money quickly for the short term, but really don't contribute to the long term growth or direction of your business.

The problem with this approach is that pursuing several unfocused tactics can divide your time and attention so much that you won't be able to focus on any one thing enough to do it well. Developing your artist marketing plan will help you establish the company image that you want to portray, your customer profile and your long term goals. Once you do that, write them down and post them where you see them. When you are making decisions about whether to pursue specific marketing tactics, refer back to your big picture image and goals and ask whether that strategy serves to meet those ends. Reconnecting with your big picture will help you to stay on track.

Remember, you're in this business for the long term
It's easy to become discouraged when marketing efforts don't have immediate results. It takes time to build a reputation, a customer base and a comprehensive artist marketing plan. It's important to remember that marketing needs to be ongoing and repetitive. Be sure that you've spent a reasonable amount of time on your artist marketing plan before you assess whether it is effective. Don't quickly drop a strategy and bounce to something else just because it didn't meet your expectations the first time you tried it.

Develop personal connections for your art and your customers
One reason why people buy handmade art and crafts rather than cheaper mass produced goods is because they're unique. Customers want to feel a connection with you, the artist. They understand that your work is special because you made it with your hands and your heart and soul. The more you can connect with your customers by telling them stories about your work or placing descriptive cards near your work at art and craft shows, the more easily your customers will connect with your work.

Artists are so visual; some feel they shouldn't have to describe their work in words. They say they became artists so they could communicate visually. If you recognize yourself in this line of thinking, keep in mind that your customers are not necessarily artists and nor are they as fluent in communicating visually as you are. Most customers appreciate some kind of story or insight about the piece that comes directly from the authority - you, the artist. Keeping your customers' point of view in mind is central to good marketing and should always be considered when developing your artist marketing plan.

Everything is marketing
Everything from the way you speak with your customers, the way you dress when you meet customers, your print materials, the way you package your work all impact the image of your company that you build in your customers' minds. Customers quickly and unconsciously link the quality of your marketing materials to the perceived value of your work, so this is not a place to skimp on quality. Similarly, a quick hand written thank you in a package that you mail out to a customer can go a long way to adding to the customer?s feeling of personal connection. Over the course of running your business, you'll make plenty of decisions. Some will seem monumental and some will seem meaningless. All of them should be considered part of your artist marketing plan because they will all subtly or substantially impact your company's image in the customer's mind.

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