You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?
– George Bernard Shaw
As we close out a tumultuous 2021, I’m confident no one predicted this outcome a year ago. What’s transpired proves we only have little control over macro events and how they affect our lives and businesses.
Watching macro trends in politics and science skew human behavior is why I believe the future is brightest for artists who control their business on the micro-level. That’s where the concept of selling to a POP becomes valuable to artists.
Because you can use the concept of marketing to a POP (Pocket of People) to help you live the dream, I’m following up on my previous Successfully Selling Original Art Using a POP post with this one.
Even in tough times, there are ways to make a living the dream a reality.
– Barney Davey
It’s not how many people you know but who you know. Some refer to a POP as a micro tribe, which works for me. Label the concept of gathering connections to a small group in any way that motivates your buy-in.
I believe living the dream is way more than a snarky reply to, “How are you doing?” Enjoying the life you build as an artist is possible. We are each the steward of our lives and the ultimate decider of the goals we make and the paths we take. Get those in alignment to live your dreams and your best artist’s life. It’s what I want for you in 2022.
Thanks for Reading Art Marketing News.
I want to thank you for reading Art Marketing News. It’s an honor to have the chance to engage you in your life as an artist. I know from direct feedback my words and advice help artists, which is immensely gratifying. Whether I’ve heard from you or not, it’s my wish for you to find the groove that allows you to live your best life as an artist.
I send you all the best for Merry Christmas, the holiday season, and the New Year! May your lives be filled with joy, and your art business brim with prosperity.
Changes Leading to Personal Growth and Living the Dream.
This past year has been one of growth for me. I’ve come to a clearer understanding of how marketing art must fit into a larger picture of how artists live. I no longer see art marketing as a standalone function that artists can use at will without considering how it fits into their lives as artists.
I encourage artists to set intentions to decide what they want and how they want to live before marketing their art. This approach allows them to make informed decisions about operating their businesses to sell their art.
Art Marketing Is Vital But…
Marketing is vital, but it’s advisable to wait to implement it until you know where you are headed with your art and life. That is unless you like operating under the Ready, Fire, Aim concept, which I do not advocate.
How to Find Art-Life Dream-Work Balance.
You don’t need any instructions to know what art-life dream-work balance means and what is causing the imbalances you experience. You instinctively know the way to fix it even if you can’t right now. Sometimes life is such that you can’t overcome problems immediately, but recognizing it helps you shift as soon as possible.
Indeed, you can’t always get immediate results because that’s life. However, you can always make plans and take little actions toward a better day. Or maybe you are on an even keel and ready to go, and I hope you are. The rest of this post aims to help you gain poise in your life as an artist.
Start with thinking about where you are at with your art-life dream-work balance. Draw some conclusions about how things are going for you and what to improve now. Commit to enhancing your art-life dream-work state. Then work on developing a personalized marketing plan that steers you to your best moves.
The Role of Marketing.
Marketing is a servant, a service to help you fulfill your visions and get what you want. It is a mix of tools, techniques, and tactics, and nobody uses all of them at once. Instead, you want to develop a plan and pick the marketing components that will do the job and keep you interested in using them. That’s how to get repeatable success.
Tune out the distractions and noise to focus on getting your most urgent and important tasks done first. It’s helpful to stay alert for changes and opportunities but learn to dismiss them quickly to move on unless they can significantly boost your marketing results. Recognize the benefit of training yourself to evaluate and promptly reject Bright Shiny Objects. A solid plan does that for you.
Start with the Basics.
Everyone needs essential tools. A domain name, and preferably an ecommerce enabled website with print-on-demand capabilities. FASO is an artist-centric website provider that offers all that, plus built-in art marketing assistance, including email marketing.
On a budget, you can get a free ecommerce website from Shift4Shop, (US-based only and probably for a limited time.) Set up a free email marketing program from Moosend, Mailerlite, or ConvertKit, or others of your choice. Establish a minimum presence on major social media platforms.
Add the right mix of tools and set your plan to work them to match your goals and needs.
One Size Never Fits All.
Although it may seem like it at times, there is nothing I encourage to do that is elite and only possible for people with special abilities to accomplish. Indeed, anyone can do it. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should, or that using a tool or taking my suggested art marketing actions are right for you.
The cold reality is if there is something you don’t like doing, you are not likely to stay with it for long. Know yourself and be honest with what marketing you will do and stick with. Candid self-assessment is as potent a tool in your art business arsenal as any. Use it as a shield to avoid anything that isn’t helping or working for you.
If It Turns You Off It’s Not Going to Work.
For example, if email marketing using marketing automation turns you off, or if blogging is fingernails on the blackboard to you, you won’t use it for very long. Instead, it ends up being a waste of time, money, and energy.
I’ve seen efforts like those get poor results for too long. It’s as frustrating to observe it as it is for you to experience it, and I’m out to change it for artists who want a better life and need some guidance to achieve it.
Live the Dream. Succeed at Art and Business Your Way.
I’ve spent considerable time thinking more about how marketing art and business fit into most artists’ lives. All the artists I know want to sell their work. That is the universal given. And why not? Selling generates revenue, feedback, and growth. The side benefit of marketing your art is developing awareness of you and your work. Success validates one’s work as proof of value on many levels.
Learning to sell your work with repeat success in ways comfortable to you makes living the dream possible. It will put you in the groove to live your best artist’s life.
The Artist Experience.
The act of using one’s imagination to create a unique artwork is enormously satisfying. Selling one’s art is a happy byproduct of the creative process. However, I believe marketing art is only genuinely satisfying when done within living your best artist’s life. Investing time and money into marketing with clear expectations leads to success.
A New Day, A New Year, A New Way.
The significant change for me is rather than promoting marketing systems, tools, and techniques as the answer to enjoying a successful art career, I’m seeing things differently and acting on my vision accordingly. I’ve come to realize we need to follow Steven Covey’s sage advice, which is to do First Things First.
Figuring out what you want to do as an artist is a key to living your best artist’s life. You may have the ability and resources to tackle a full-blown art marketing system, but you also may have little or no interest in pursuing your art business on such a high level. And that’s a reminder that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. So it’s vital to understand yourself, your motivations, and what art marketing methods will work for you.
Aligning Your Vision and Actions Is Key to Living the Dream.
I can see it and hope you can, too, that your happiness and ability to experience a well-lived artist’s life is more about doing things that bring you joy and that you genuinely want to accomplish. It’s worth it to work on this to get it right.
Like each of you, I am a work in progress. How I’m helping artists in 2022 is nothing like anything I’ve done in the past. Although I don’t know precisely how, but I have excellent ideas for helping artists get to a deeply personal space where their plans and actions align with their visions of what success means to them.
Getting Down to What You Genuinely Want to Do.
My goal is to help you do your best to determine what you want from your participation in the art business. Gaining personal insight simplifies how you pick your tools and plan your marketing to help you get your art into the world on your terms. For members of the Art Marketing Toolkit Project (AMTP), it’s at this juncture that they find digging into my extensive art marketing archives most helpful.
It’s not a matter of what you can do; it’s really about what you want to do and what you want to happen. Then, and only then, it makes sense to market your art seriously. Otherwise, you are wasting your precious time and energy. And when you are clear on what you want to happen, picking the tools and tactics to help you achieve your goals practically becomes self-evident.
Using Your Pop to Make Your Best Artist’s Life.
There is a reason for ending the year with training on successfully selling art with a POP. A POP is a pocket of people, a tribe if you will. Some call it nano marketing. It’s not the size of your list but how well those in it respond to you as a person and artist.
When you think about it, there are only a few ways to sell art:
- In-person selling to people who know you.
- Online selling mostly to strangers.
- Using third parties such as galleries, publishers, and licensors.
Success with any of these methods requires a POP. While making art is mostly a solitary task, marketing art requires involving other people. So we end the year by discussing the concept of a POP and what it means to you. To learn more about using a POP to market art, I recommend this post: Successfully Selling Original Art Done with a POP!
Get Help Living the Dream and Working on Your Best Life As an Artist.
Because of the importance and value to artists who embrace the concept of selling art using a POP, I’ll likely tackle it in more detail in a future post. But the members of the Art Marketing Toolkit Project (AMTP) won’t have to wait. Instead, I’m working on plans to help them create and execute a custom plan they develop on the best ways to build a POP based on their needs, desires, and capabilities.
If these concepts resonate with you, and I hope they do, please accept my invitation to become a member of the Art Marketing Toolkit Project (AMTP). In addition, you’ll join a worldwide community of artists and me who seek to find the best ways to market their art while living their best lives as artists.
AMTP is priced to make an enjoyable artist’s life possible for all. I offer AMTP membership at the low price of $4.99 per month with no contract because I Believe:
- Accessing practical art marketing training should be affordable to all artists.
- Low prices are how I can help more artists lead productive lives no matter where they live.
- The more positively charged artists I can unleash as ambassadors for art and humanity the better.
Reasons to Belong to the AMTP
- You will learn things about yourself that will help you live your best artist’s life if you try.
- You will learn art marketing concepts so you can choose what works for you.
- It’s so affordable you have virtually nothing to lose and so much to gain.
- You get to hang out with me and the community in the Facebook group and live Zoom sessions.
- Your monthly payment helps me keep the price low for those who find even the $4.99 per month fee difficult.
Please accept my invitation to become a member, and it will be a pleasure to meet you. Join Today!
