July 12, 2010 1

Sell Art & Design online – “THE LIST” part 1

By admin in How to sell

thelist

This is the first part of a series of posts on how to build and market your work to a loyal following of internet fans. Make sure you follow the rest of the series by signing up for regular updates by RSS feed, through Email or on Twitter.

Sell your art & design online using “THE LIST” pt 1

Do enough research on internet marketing and one thing you will definitely hear is “It’s all about THE LIST”.

What is “THE LIST”?
“THE LIST” usually means a list of email addresses that you have either collected over time, or purchased based on a set of keywords or filters. The idea is to build a list of email subscribers so you can send out regular mailshots or email newsletters using services like Aweber or Vertical Response and maintain presence of mind with the people who like your work (and will eventually buy some). With the advent of social media, your list can also include your Facebook friends, Facebook Fans, Twitter followers etc.

List marketing works because it build relationships, loyalty and trust. I talked previously about the need to give a little of yourself to your audience – your email newsletters are where you do this.

How to build a list
Since I doubt many of you are in a position to buy a list (and most lists you can buy are based around consumer product preferences – favourite toothpaste brand etc) I’ll focus on how to build your own.
First off, you need a way to collect email addresses. If you have your own website and/or blog, you can install a simple opt-in form that will collect email addresses for you. There are plugins for content management systems like Wordpress. Aweber can create a form for you that you can customise to fit your website, and it will also generate the code to copy and paste.

Once you have the form on your website you need to send people to it by:

Using a link or graphic banner in your website sidebar
Asking people to subscribe at the end of your blog posts
Using a pop-up window that displays on your site after xx seconds
Put a link to your signup form on your business cards, postcards etc
Put a link on your gallery page
Mention your newsletter on Twitter and Facebook
Post an article from your newsletter on your blog as an example of what people can expect

I’d recommend a phrase along the lines of “Get regular updates” and avoid using the word “subscribe” since I’ve found some people think it implies a fee needs to be paid.

Give an incentive to sign-up
I know, your work is amazing and keeping up to date with your latest creations should be incentive enough, but this is a quid pro quo world. If you have something that people can receive in exchange for their contact details it will encourage signup. Make sure that any work you give away also has your website included. Dependent on the type of work you create, here are some examples for incentives:

A discount on their first purchase
Desktop / iPhone / Android / iPad wallpaper of your art
A vector icon set
Photoshop brushes
A free font

This will take a little bit of extra work beyond the email signup form, since you’ll need to provide a link to a password protected download area of your site. Alternatively you could use a Rapidshare or YouSendIt account or similar.

Once you have a decent sized list, you’ll need to think about what you want the list to deliver for you, what to send it, how to manage that process, how to stop your audience getting bored by keeping them engaged, and how to get meaningful feedback that will help you sell more.

NEXT POST -
What to write about in your email newsletter and how to keep subscribers.

Make sure you follow the rest of the series by signing up for regular updates by RSS feed, through Email or on Twitter.

Tags: aweber, list marketing, vertical response

June 28, 2010 0

They buy YOU, not just your art

By admin in How to sell

vincent

When you sell a piece of your art, you are selling more than just the canvas and paint, or the time it took you navigating through the layers in Photoshop. You may not realise it, but your customers are actually buying a piece of YOU. Not the right to erode your privacy or a pint of blood (unless you’re Marc Quinn) but a connection between you and your work.

They buy your story
All artists need a backstory. A big part of the reason Van Gogh’s work is so highly rated is we know the torment he experienced in his life, and we can see a direct influence of the events in his life showing through in his work.

Knowing the story behind the work makes us feel like we’re in on the deal, someone with secret knowledge. It also helps establish an emotional connection between us and the work.

But I’m not a salesperson
You’re an artist, a designer, a creative. And many (not all) creatives have a distrust of the sales process. They think it is shady, manipulative, dishonest even. And yet we want people to buy our work nevertheless.

No-one expects you to become Don Draper overnight. But understanding a little of the psychology behind why people buy things will help you sell more work.

Why people buy art
Before I became a Graphic Designer I was a Sales Manager for a high street bank. I ran my own team of sales agents for 5 years. And one of the things I can tell you from that experience is there are two ways to sell a product. One is to list all the facts in the hope your customer will understand why it is LOGICALLY the right product for them. The other is to reach your customer on an EMOTIONAL level – by addressing their fears or showing how your product can help them achieve their goals.

The first way will occasionally persuade a few people, but generally you rarely make a sale by winning an argument, because to win, your customer has to concede, which makes them feel bad. The second way is gold.

People buy things because they make them FEEL something; be it clever, cool, sexy, powerful, secure or just plain happy. Ever seen something that was way too expensive, or didn’t quite do all the things it should, but you just plain HAD TO HAVE IT? That’s the emotional pull, right there.

People WANT to feel CONNECTED to your work. They WANT it to make them feel something. All you have to do is give them the information they need.

How to tell your story
There are many ways you can do this. You don’t necessarily have to describe your individual pieces of work in detail, although that is certainly one way. Distributing a weekly/monthly newsletter, or running a blog on your site is a great way to build a connection between you and your audience. They get to understand who you are as a person, and build THEIR OWN picture of how that relates to the work you produce. Having a Twitter account and Facebook page and using them regularly will give people an insight into who you are.

The important thing is to be aware that you have to do more than build a gallery site and drive traffic to it. You need to give a little of yourself too. Don’t feel worthy? Just take another moment to ponder why a stony broke, drunkard, manic depressive with syphilis became the most highly rated artist in the world. I’ll bet you it’s because WE KNOW that’s what he was.

This blog exists in part to teach you how to reach your audience. Over the coming weeks and months I’ll be posting technical tips on exactly how to do that online. But I’ll also be adding more theoretical posts like this one that you can use both on and offline. Whatever, you’ll be certain to get a broad range of information that will help you sell your art.

Sell Art & Design online – “THE LIST” part 1

Sell your art & design online using “THE LIST” pt 1

They buy YOU, not just your art

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