There Are Many Different Things You Can Do
If you have other quick tips and links for how to build your art career, please add them in the comments. Do your fellow artist friends and me a favor and share this post.
- Make sure your website and blog are mobile ready. Google is watching.
- Check your website and blog page load speed. Fix if needed.
- Plan your blog posts for the next quarter.
- Send a personal handwritten note to your art buyers.
- Never be afraid to ask for an order. Lead your customers; they want you to help them.
- Check your website and blog for broken links.
- Consider ideas for publicity for the holidays and seasons, upcoming events, or news about your business.
- Stop wasting your time commenting on other blogs.
- Always use the Be Back Offer at shows.
- Find at least 20 artists who are competitors that you don’t know now.
- Compare your website and blog to those 20 artists. Subscribe to their list to see what happens.
- Start a swipe file to gather inspirational ideas, concepts, images, and graphics.
- Start a quotes file and post one per week on social media.
- Start using Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Coschedule to schedule your social media.
- Make a list of 50 -100 art subjects you would never create. Review and you are sure to find a few that inspire you otherwise.
- Go through your Inbox and unsubscribe to lists you are not reading.
- Reverse the setup in your office or studio, so you face the other way.
- Share the love. Tweet out, or share on Facebook posts of other five other artists.
- Create a Slideshare deck with a grouping of your art. Share it on your blog, and social media.
- Donate some work that has not sold to a worthy cause.
- Write a press release about your donation.
- Think of ten things you are doing now or plan to do soon that is press release worthy. Plan, write and submit the press release.
- Use your phone and make an informal 30-second tour of your studio. Post it on YouTube. Upload it to Facebook.
- Use your phone to make a short video describing your current work in progress.
- Ask a collector friend if you can call them on Zoom or Skype to talk about your art. Record the call. Edit if necessary and post it on YouTube and your blog/website.
- Create a color scheme for your brand and logo.
- Hire or swap with a graphic designer to create a new logo for your business.
- Buy a domain name that includes your name.
- Convert your site to your domain name with your name.
- Get off your free email address. Nothing says amateur like a Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, or any other free email provider.
- Use your domain with your email address and set up a free account at Zoho.com/mail.
- Create a Facebook page, if you haven’t already, for your art business. Learn why to use a business page instead of a personal page.
- Learn how you can use Facebook advertising with the new, free Facebook Blueprint training.
- Create a profile of your most valuable collectors. Use it to help shape your promotion and advertising.
- Create a profile of the person you think is most likely to buy your art.
- Find two groups on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+ where these potential buyers are active.
- Join those groups and become known as an active participant in them.
- Collaborate with another local artist friend or more, and have a springtime renewal sale.
- Claim your spot on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. Fill out all the contact information on each site completely. Google does not like incomplete info.
- At the least, complete all profile information on those social media sites. Do this regardless of whether you are active in them or not.
- Take a local collector to lunch just because.
- Create a fan club or collector society.
- Practice and perfect your elevator speech answer to, “Tell me what do you do?”
- Get the Hemingway App to polish your writing skills.
- Make it a point to help others. Payback is a beautiful thing.
- Learn to ask politely for referrals.
- Do something fun, spontaneous, random and unexpected for someone you love.
- Work on your backstory. You are more interesting than you believe.
- Work on using your backstory to help write backstories for your art.
- Consider creating a premium brand, such as more substantial pieces, more time, unique finishes, more elaborate framing, free shipping.
- Be grateful. Thank your buyers publicly. Send them unexpected gifts. Put a pack of notecards in with your shipment.
- Create 6” x 9” postcards and give a stack to your friends and family. Ask them to help you spread the word about your art. Even better, make an open studio date and ask them to invite their friends and family.
- Join and become active in a local cultural group.
- Offer risk reversal in the form of money back guarantee.
- Pay it forward. Share this post on social media so other artists can learn from it as well. It will help me, too. Thanks!
This Book Now Available on Audible.
How to Sell Art to Interior Designers: Learn New Ways to Get Your Work into the Interior Design Market and Sell More Art By Barney Davey, Dick Harrison
CLICK HERE to order on Audible. Start listening today!
Find softcover and Kindle versions at bdavey.co/books

This list is awesome! You’ve got stuff I haven’t seen before.
I did read the link about not commenting on larger blogs. But I wonder about commenting on smaller blogs? I do that mainly to connect with people. It’s also to me a lot less stressful than using social media, a bit more casual and personal. But I wonder about the SEO and all that – if commenting on small blogs help both the commenter and the blogger.
Thanks for your comment and question. The point was posting on big blogs is mostly a waste of time. The SEO value is not worth the effort. Commenting on smaller blogs in order to get known to the blogger has networking value. Google does use comments in its 200+ algorithms, but it’s a lower value than other actions. Do it because you want to add to the conversation and/or get to know the blogger.
Thanks for clarifying that one!
Barney — I agree with Owen, this list has some information that is new to me. Like Slideshare. I clicked on the link and looked at the site but It’s confusing to me right now. So I guess i need to do more research to see how it can help promote my art. Looks interesting!
Thanks for your comment, Katherine. Slideshare is a way to present and share information similar to PowerPoint or Keynote. You can embed a Slideshare on a website just like a YouTube video. More exposure… and it seems like there is always something new to learn. 🙂
love the information. glad to receive your information via FaceBook! Anthony
Here is something that I learn from my realtor.
Ever year I get a Christmas card from my old realtor which got me to thinking.
Why couldn’t I do the same thing with folks that bought a prices of art work from me?
So every year I send out hand-painted Christmas Cards that I place a business card inside. I also write a personal note to each one of them.
Thanks for your useful suggestion. J.D.
Brilliant!
Just shared this on my FB Art Page Lots of useful ideas here, thanks!!
Can you please elaborate what’s the point making a list of 50-100 subjects??? I just finishef my masters and confuse about the topics. I mean I saw artists – kind of researchers and generally stick to one topic and area. More topics means more confusion of choice. No???
Thanks for your insightful article.
Thank you for your comment. The suggestion is to make a list of 50-100 subjects that you would never create. By doing this exercise, you will stretch your brain and get outside of your normal thinking, which can lead to breakthroughs in new ways of creating and presenting your art. Let’s pretend you write down you will never paint bagpipes. That might lead you to think of men in kilts, plaid, Irish or Scottish tribes, other musical instruments, and so on. The process may lead you to a subject matter that is both fun to create and profitable to sell. One that without doing the exercise you would have never thought to make.
Barney, thanks for the great list of ideas; just what I need to kick-start 2016! I’ve pinned it to my Artists’ Resources board on Pinterest, and hope many artists will share in the potential benefits of your wisdom!
All the best to you and yours! 🙂
So when do you do your art? I think somebody needs an agent.
Great ideas here. I will pass this along to my students as well. Thank you for posting
Jane Rainwater
Thanks for your positive comments and for sharing. 🙂
Thank you so much for putting this extensive list together. It inspires me so much that I’m turning it into a weekly task list for the year.
It’s my pleasure. What a great idea for how to use it!
Barney, here’s one I didn’t see in the list:
Turn your blog posts into Podcasts. Check out http://www.talkshoe.com. For example: Type: Dick Harrison in the Search Box.
You can record, edit and save on http://www.audible.com and upload as many podcasts as you want to Talkshoe. No cost. You can send links for your podcasts in any email.
Thanks for the introduction Art Marketing News
What is the general link to the pdf download that I can send to friends who are not members of FAA?
Hi Suzanne, Thanks for your interest and your inquiry. The link to share with friends is artmarketingnews.com/mind-map
Barney,
Thank you so much for this information. There is so much valuable information about marketing yourself and your artwork. As a newbie it’s going to take a bit to digest it all. Thanks again for the insight!
Not a bad review of Hemingway, have you ever worked with INK at all? There is for sure some overlap between the 2 editors, one key difference is that INK also helps with SEO. .