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Many artists wonder if they can make money off of their artwork. Building a creative business may seem daunting, but with some strategy and dedication, it can be done.
Selling your Fine Art entails creating a brand, understanding marketing strategies, and displaying your art to the demographics most likely to purchase it. There are many places where you can sell your artwork, such as online marketplaces, your website, art galleries, or local street fairs.
This guide will help you take the first steps in successfully selling your fine art to the general public.
To sell your fine art, you need to create a business. This means making your brand, thinking about market strategies, and ensuring your artwork is discoverable by the general public.
You should decide whether your main focus will be selling your fine art online or in person, as each tactic has different actions you need to take. Regardless of whether or not you sell online or in person, there are a few actions that every artist turned business person needs to take to succeed.
First and foremost, you have to start thinking of yourself as a brand. Successfully selling artwork entails finding your particular angle on how best to represent yourself.
Being your own artist brand means identifying yourself as an artist. Describe yourself as an artist when you meet new people, and don’t be shy about talking about your work. People can decide for themselves if they want to know more, but no one will be interested in your artwork if they don’t know it exists.
To create a brand, you need to decide how you want to present your art business. Coming up with a succinct name for your fine art brand is how the public can easily understand what it is you make.
When choosing a name, it is important to include a keyword that describes what you sell. Words like art, studio, artwork, designs, or patterns are a great place to start.
Your business name can be based on your name, for example, “Fine Art by Jane Doe”, or more symbolic like “Artful Dreams”.You can also incorporate the medium you use into your name. For example, “Mosaics by Molly” or “Crafty Crochet”.
Names should be no more than three words, clearly describe your art, easy to spell, and be easy to pronounce. A name that is too obscure or difficult for people to say will be forgotten.
A logo will elevate the professionalism of your art business.You can make your own with graphic design tools like Canva.com or pay a graphic designer to create one for you. Your logo should be a simple graphic that represents the general ambiance and feel of your artwork.
Think about what colors represent your brand. Is your artwork best represented with soft curves or bold angles? What fonts create the feeling you want people to feel when they view your pieces?
Incorporate these ideas into a simple image that represents who you are as a professional artist.
High-quality images are essential to marketing your fine art. The medium you do will dictate whether photos or scans are best.
If you make artwork that can be turned into prints, then investing in high-quality scans is well worth it. You can increase the availability of your artwork to customers by printing giclee prints, cards, or even stickers.
If you only want to sell originals, scans are still important so that your artwork is represented well on any marketing materials you may distribute.
Taking high-quality photos of artwork is harder than it may seem. If you cannot afford to hire a professional photographer, then invest in a good camera and some studio lights. You can teach yourself how to take excellentphotos of your artwork with a little patience and persistence.
The key to creating a great marketing strategy is toidentify your target audience. Your target audience is the demographics that you think are most likely to buy your artwork. This entails determining the age range, gender identities, typical income, and interests of your ideal customers.
The description should be very specific, for example, college students ages 18-22 attending such-and-such university and who support eco-friendly businesses and social justice movements.
Once you have this dialed in, brainstorm where your target market is. What other interests does your target market have? How do they spend their time? Where do they go? This will help you appear to the people most likely to buy your work.
Now that you have identified where your ideal customer is, you can choose the best marketing avenues for you. It may be advertising on social media, putting your art up in a coffee shop, hosting wine and paint nights, or placing postcards of your art in a local gift store.
Whatever you choose to do for marketing, it is important to be consistent and willing to try many different approaches until you find what converts interest into sales most effectively.
If you plan to sell your artwork online, building a website is essential. You can create a space on the internet dedicated just to your artwork.
You can pay a website designer to build a website for you or use a user-friendly DIY website-building company. Choosing a website that includes e-commerce options is a good idea. Quality DIY website builders are Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress
Even if you plan on primarily selling in person, a website is a great way for your customers to find you and stay connected with your art business. Websites help you gain repeat sales from people who love your work.
The best place to sell artwork is online marketplaces, art galleries, local shops, and street fairs. Your ideal venue will be determined by who your target audience is and whether or not you want to sell primarily online or in person.
Many artists opt to sell their fine art on their websites. If you decide to create a website with e-commerce capabilities, then all you need to do is list your artwork and advertise.
You can drive sales to your website through social media, google ads, and email newsletters. If you do any in-person marketing or sales, it's a great idea to have a business card with a QR code that directly links to your online store.
The benefit of selling on your website is your sales are not chipped away by the fees charged by galleries or online marketplaces.The downside is that you have to do all the marketing yourself and don’t get the benefit of communal marketplaces marketing your artwork on your behalf.
Online marketplaces are wonderful because they do a lot of marketing for you. Using an online marketplace can help you get seen by people you would never encounter otherwise. The main drawback is that you are also being featured alongside thousands, sometimes millions of other artists.
Popular online marketplaces are Etsy, Fine Art on Amazon, and Big Cartel. These marketplaces are accessed by billions of people worldwide.
If you want a more exclusive, upscale online option for selling your artwork online, try UGallery. Ugallery is a curated online gallery for which artists must apply and be accepted. Another upscale option is Saatchiart, which styles itself as a curated online gallery, though there is no selection process to sell your art here.
If you want your images to be distributed and printed all at once, companies like Zazzle or Society6 are great options. These websites take your images and make traditional prints as well as print them on multiple surfaces, including clothing, mugs, and totes.
The most traditional place to sell your art is an art gallery. Art galleries are excellent places to sell original art. The gallery is entirely dedicated to selling your art, as they are sustained by the sales they make of your artwork.
The downside is that art galleries typically take a hefty commission, anywhere from 10%-50% of your sales.
The benefit is that the gallery does most of the work for you. Usually, all you need to do is drop off your art pieces, and they will arrange them for display. Galleries also host events to promote their featured artists, and this can easily get you in front of the ideal customer.
Being featured in a gallery will give your art the credibility you need to charge high prices. People expect original artworks in galleries to be expensive. You will sell less, but each sale will have a greater impact.
If selling primarily in art galleries, it is important to price your artwork in such a way that a few sales a year can sustain you.
Many people love to buy art made by local artists from shops around town. Putting your artwork in local gift shops can help you sell to people who are excited to support you.
Fine art originals can be sold in local shops, but if you make paintings or drawings having more affordable prints and cards available is a good idea.A gift shop is likely to take a smaller commission than an art gallery and can be a great way to become recognizable to the local community.
Street fairs can be a very effective way to sell art. Selling at dedicated craft fairs or farmer's markets has a certain ease to it, as people arrive predisposed to buy from local makers.
You can also vend at local events like music festivals, conferences, and symposiums. This is where understanding your target market comes into play. If you know your target market is likely to attend a reggae festival, for example, then paying for a booth and selling your artwork there may be worth the investment.
Street fairs can be better than online venues when the type of art you make is more visually impactful in person. People love to browse, and giving them a tactile experience where they immediately get to meet the artist can result in a high amount of sales in one or two days.
It is best to have your artwork and replications of it presented in a range of price ranges. Be sure to have smaller, affordable options as well as your big stunner pieces that are more pricey.
Street fairs are also a great marketing tool, as people are more likely to buy from you online if they have a personal connection to you.
The best way to market your artwork is to understand where your target audience focuses their attention. Great options are social media advertising, online tutorials, teaching locally, and displaying your art in local businesses.
Marketing is all about exposure. Oftentimes people need to be exposed to the same thing multiple times before they buy. This means you should determine a few different ways to market your artwork and pursue them consistently.
Social media platforms are marketing machines. Creating a relatable, engaging social media account that displays your artwork and helps people feel like they know you are a great marketing technique.
You can also take advantage of paid advertising on social media. The platform will use its marketing algorithms to place ads in the feeds of your target market. Who sees your ads depends on the criteria you give the social media platform when creating your advertising campaign.
Presenting yourself as an authority on your medium is a time-tested marketing technique. You can choose to teach classes locally or online. Many art galleries, art supply stores, or community centers will host classes by local artists.
Youtube is a great venue for offering free online tutorials. You can also use paid platforms like Teachable to teach techniques in your medium of choice.
Rotating your artwork through local businesses helps people recognize your art. Many restaurants, gift shops, and coffee shops like to decorate their interiors with art from local artists. Reach out to businesses that appeal to your target audience to see if they will display and sell your art.
Selling your artwork is a huge step. Building a successful creative business can be done by naming your business, creating a brand, and understanding some basic marketing tools.
There are many excellent places to sell your artwork. You can decide if you wish to sell your fine art online, in person, or a combination of both. With consistent effort, you can turn your hobby into a career by selling your artwork.
