Marketing 101 for Artpreneurs: my Mixer Philosphy

 

I remember my first real dive into marketing. Sitting on a hard, plastic chair in the Sacramento Superior Court, I waded through several days of mail.  As I sat for hours, I wondered if these hours would turn into days.

I had three days off in between a sling of 12 hour shifts at the hospital. It was 2006 and I was second guessing my choice of a career as well as a lot of things about life.  (oh the joy of the twenties!)

Writing wasn't much more than a hobby to me.  The same with my artwork.

Then I saw it.  A thickly padded letter with words that would change the direction of my life.

"Melissa AuClair, If you can write a sentence like this, you could make more money than a doctor....." was scripted in block print on the front of the oversized letter.

Really?

Well, I opened that letter and read it.

And read it again.

and again.

Then I ordered the program guaranteeing to help me move from my day job to a working writer.

And, while I never did "make it" as a copywriter, I did and have spent a number of years falling in love with marketing.  (copywriting is using words to persuade people to buy a service or product).

Here is the thing with marketing:

It isn't the art itself.  It is the tool that shares the art in order to expose it to other people and bring in sales.

I can have all the ingredients for cookies.  I still have to know HOW to make cookies, the right measurements, the right ingredients, the right baking time- the cookies are the art, the blender helps me make the cookies.

This is kind of a lame analogy and I apologize.

Let me expound a bit.

Marketing isn't magic.  It's a learned skill. Like all learned skills, we start as a novice and then as we study and practice we get better.

Your marketing can be like the $6 hand mixer I bought from Target. (um, the mulitple hand mixers I've bought at Target). It can be a plastic spoon. Or it can be a beautiful Kitchen Aid stand mixer. We are all at different stages of sharing our art well just like we are at different stages of writing, photography, developing software, designing houses or developing an e-commerce store.

(Affiliate link- picture of blender)

I can mix cookies by hand with a spoon, with the frugal generic brand mixer or with a Kitchen Aid.

Until we figure out the Kitchen Aid way of marketing our art, we'll make some blunders. Break some blenders.  Wear out some other appliances.

It's all part of the process.

The important thing is to keep working on both skills: the art and the marketing.

You can have a really great marketing model and have bad art.  That means that no one buys your art.

Lousy marketing + great product = no one knows you exist.

The combination we want:  good art + good marketing= exposure, sales and building a creative business.

There aren't a lot of "rules" in marketing but there are a few:

Rule #1:  Marketing is a learnable skill.  Read books. Listen to podcasts. Pay attention to successful artists and how they share their work.  It takes some time but you and I can learn to market our work {well} too.

Rule #2  Measure.

Measure what you are doing.

Then, when something is working, do more of it.  If something is not working, be willing to let it go.  If you have a blog or website, embed Google Analytics on it.  (if I can do it, you can do it.  Really).

This is marketing in a nutshell. There all are sorts of different ways to market your biz.

And, since this is a community of creatives, there should be no lack of ideas on the most creative way to market.   I struggle with marketing a lot.  Most days I feel like a novice with my $6 dollar Target blender.  But I also love marketing- I follow and appreciate good marketing and ad campaigns. The psychology of why people buy fascinates me.

I've compiled a list of all the different ways to market your art.

But before I release it, I'd love to know: how you market your art?