Self Promotion for Artists - Tips for Self Promotion for Artists

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Self promotion for artists is a crucial, often underestimated and misunderstood tool for building art and craft business success. Great self promotion for artists goes beyond smart branding and effective packaging. It's about you and your ability to present and express yourself in a way that is meaningful to your potential customers.

Developing the ability to promote yourself and your work will open up plenty of opportunities for you and your business.

Whether you're directly retailing your art or craft yourself or building wholesale or consignment partnerships with retail store or gallery owners and buyers, all of these customers are typically buying more than just your art.

Your direct retail customers are also buying an image that fits their own sense of style. You can help establish that image with good strategies for self promotion for artists.

Your wholesale and consignment customers are buying into a relationship with you. They need to know that you are someone who they would want to work with on an ongoing basis. Your ability to promote yourself as an artist and a professional will go a long way to assure those customers that they will benefit from establishing a business relationship with you.

Knowing how to promote yourself can be extremely beneficial to you and your art business. Unfortunately, self promotion for artists has an undeserved negative image in the minds of many people. In my role as a career counselor, I watched hundreds of people really struggle to describe their most marketable skills and qualities. Some of the most common reasons people give for avoiding or struggling with self promotion are:

• You feel you are bragging and worry that you will come across as conceited, arrogant, insincere or pushy.
  
  
• You've been socialized to believe that talking about your achievements is not polite.
  
  
• You haven't taken the time to think about what is special about your art or craft and how it benefits your customers, so you can't express it effectively to customers.
  
  
• You feel others are busy and don't want to spend their time hearing about your work.
  
  
• You doubt your skills and aren't truly convinced that what you have to offer your customers is really special.

If you recognize yourself in any of these points, then spending time working on skills related to self promotion for artists could really benefit your art or craft business.

Below you'll find a list of tips to help you build these skills so you will be able to promote your home craft business effectively.

Several of the tips deal with polishing your image and how you speak and present yourself to others. I'm not suggesting in any way that you need to pretend to be someone you're not. Rather, these tips are geared to help you bring out the best of your own personality and personal style as you promote your home craft business.

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Learn More About Self Promotion for Artists


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Talk in a Way that Inspires and Intrigues Customers
People make decisions about you and your work very quickly. Studies show that you only have a few seconds to make a good first impression on a customer, so it's important to be able to speak about your work in a way that is immediately intriguing. Most customers who buy handmade products appreciate the idea that there is a story behind the work. Being able to talk about your pieces in a way that tells a story or adds extra meaning to the piece is an effective strategy for self promotion for artists. Telling stories and establishing meaning for your art goes a long way to building customers' feelings of connection to your art.

Understand Your Image and What it Says to Your Customers
The way you dress, your personal sense of style, even the look and feel of your website, all subtly impact your customers' interest in your work. They are all a part of self promotion for artists. No one is saying you should dress in a way that doesn't suit your personality, or become something you are not just for the sake of public relations. However, it is important to be aware of the image you are portraying to customers and how that affects your self promotion efforts.

The next time you're getting ready to meet with customers, as well as thinking, "Do I really want to stand all day in these shoes?" also take some time to think through, "What message does my look send to my customers?"

Consider how Subtle Language Affects Your Sales
A simple shift in the language you use to describe your work can make a huge difference in your appeal to customers. Are you a crafter or an artist - a beader or a jewelry designer? Although these terms might be close in meaning in your own mind, they have vastly different connotations in the minds of most of your customers. When you're thinking about the kinds of words you use to describe your work, it's important to also consider who your customer is and how those words resonate with those customers.

Think Like a Customer
After working diligently on a variety of self promotion, sales and marketing strategies, it's so easy to lose your objectivity. It's important to always come back to thinking about how your customer perceives your promotion efforts.

One strategy I use to gain some insight and objectivity is to catch my random thoughts when I'm in the customer role. If I realize I'm feeling compelled to buy something on impulse, I try to stop and think through the reasons why I'm having that reaction. What is it that is resonating with me? Are they hitting some emotional chord? Can I use a similar approach in promoting my own products? Catch yourself thinking like a customer to gain insights into what your own customers may be thinking.

Remember that Your Customers' Priorities May be Very Different from Your Own Priorities
You may feel your art is special because the symbolism of the subject matter resonates with you, or because you were pushing your own boundaries in technical skill when you made a particular piece or maybe you had a vision of something so compelling, you just had to create it.

Your customer, on the other hand, may feel your work is special because the colors in your painting match perfectly with her new sofa, or because he needed to buy a gift for his mom and the price fit within his gift giving budget, or because she saw the celebrity of the moment wearing something like it. Another important factor in self promotion for artists is the ability to remember that your customers' priorities can be very different from your own. Keeping this in mind can help you to better understand your customer and sell your art.

Never be Negative
We may have different views of success, but customers all want to associate with people who are successful. An article on self promotion for artists wouldn't be complete without a note on the power of staying positive. If a customer asks how your business is going, always have something positive to say. You don't have to lie. Even if your sales are at a low point, you can comment on other positive aspects of your business.

Here's an example: In January, I might say to my best friend, "My sales really drop off at this time of year." But to my customer I'm going to use self promotion strategies, so my more proactive and still honest comment would be, "I'm working on several new designs for the coming year, and I'm really excited about the direction of the new line."

Always Carry Your Promotional Materials
You never know when a networking opportunity will present itself. It's helpful to get in the habit of carrying several of your own business cards in your wallet. Carrying business cards of people you partner with can also be helpful.

For example, if you sell your work on a consignment basis in a local store, carry some of the store’s business cards so you can direct potential customers there. If your art or craft is wearable such as jewelry, t-shirts or purses, wearing your own products whenever it makes sense can be an effective strategy for self promotion for artists.

Develop Networking Strategies that Work for You
Networking plays a huge role in successful self promotion for artists, but so many people are intimidated by the thought of it. If you're nervous about the idea, start small just by talking to your close supportive friends about your business. Your goal is not to sell anything to them, just to practice talking about your business. As you practice and gain confidence, push yourself to network in situations you find more challenging.

Developing some specific skills related to self promotion for artists can really help you to build your art business. With a little knowledge and practice, using public relations and self promotion strategies to grow your art based business can take you on your way to your business goals.

   

 
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