7 Tips That Will Sell Your Art Online This Holiday Season

Would you like to boost your sales this holiday season? In this post, I will share 7 tips that will sell your art online this holiday season.

Did you notice Halloween merchandise being displayed in your local store the week before school started?

This is a sure sign that the summer is coming to an end, and the race is on. The time of year when artists like you can prosper. But for you to do so, you will need to start preparing now.

I have learned many things over the years, and I am writing this post so you can make better art marketing decisions that will have you selling more art this holiday season.

During the first couple of years of selling my art online, I felt like spinning like a top.

I learned very quickly that success comes from preparing ahead of time. Now is the time for you to create your holiday art marketing plan so you can enjoy this special time of year while making some extra money selling your art.

Do you have your holiday art marketing plan in place?

In this post, I will share 7 tips that will sell your art online this holiday season.

I want to mention that not all strategies will produce the same results for everyone.

If you want to sell your art online for the long haul, you will have to analyze and discover what strategies work best for your business and audience.

Related Resource: Annual Art Business Review Workbook

How Much Money Would You Like To Make This Holiday Season

The first step is to decide how much money you would like to earn selling your art this holiday season.

Be specific with your number. Don’t just say that you would like to sell five items.

Instead, pick a dollar amount and write 2-3 marketing strategies that will help you to achieve your goal.

Here is an example of a goal and marketing strategy:

Goal: Generate 1,000 in sales for November 1st through December 1st.

Marketing Plan :

Write 4 new blog posts that highlight artwork for sale.

Painting Repeat Patterns by Hand: A Daily Practice by Cleo Papanikolas on Creativebug!

Post blog posts on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram, and send a newsletter featuring the artwork being promoted.

Offer a Free Shipping code to your email list.

Create a “Great Gift Idea” board for Pinterest.

The artist has a specific dollar she wishes to reach over the holiday season in the example above.

She also developed a strategy that will help her to achieve her goals.

Action Step:

Take a few minutes now, write your goals, and develop an actionable strategy to help you achieve your goals.

Remember to be specific with the amount of money you would like to generate over the next few months.

Keep accurate documents of all of the strategies and actions you take to record what worked well for you next year.

Featured Products

Decide on what products you would like to feature on your blog posts and social media accounts.

Do not overwhelm your audience by promoting a hundred different paintings.

Instead, pick 5-10 different paintings or drawings and use those to showcase your work.

The art you decide to showcase this holiday season will be what you will be focusing on in your blog posts and social media posts.

Provide a link to where your readers can purchase the art you are showcasing, and include a link to where they can view more of your artwork and products available for purchase.

Additional information to include in your promotional art blog posts:

Why will this piece make the perfect gift?
Who would this painting or drawing be perfect for?
How to care for the artwork.
How to frame the artwork if a frame is not included in the sale.
How to hang or display the painting?
The last day to purchase for holiday shipping.
What postal service you will be shipping your artwork with.
Return policies.
Any special deals you are offering during the holidays.

Action Step:

Take a few minutes to write any additional information you need (for example, information on how to hang a painting or how to take care of a painting.) so you can just copy and paste the information in the blog posts you write. This will guarantee that all of your information is accurate and consistent with each post.

If you have time, you can also make different blog posts for each topic and link to it in the promotional posts.

Create Promotional Graphics

Block off some time to create all of the promotional graphics you will be using for each social media account you will be promoting on.

I use Canva to create all of my social media images. Canva is easy to use, and best of all, it is free.

Taking the time now to create all of your images will save you a lot of time in the upcoming months.

The last thing you will want to do is to spend time creating an image for Facebook when the business starts rolling in, and you are answering emails and packaging items to ship.

I create several different images for each promotion, and I recommend you to do the same.

I also recommend creating a folder for each social media account you will be posting on. For example, Facebook Promotional Graphics.

The folders you create will save you a lot of time trying to find your social media promotional images when it is time to publish a post.

Now that you know what products you will be promoting this holiday season and have created all of the images you will use, it is time to create a social media posting calendar.

You can use a regular calendar you can write on, SpreadSheet, or an app of your choice.

It doesn’t matter what you use as long as it is easy to access and view.

Decide what days and time you will be promoting your art on all of the social media accounts you are on.

Write on the calendar what image you will be using and what message you will use with the image.

Be creative with your posts and create a sense of urgency.

For example, if you create commissioned art, you might want to encourage shoppers to order a commissioned painting in October.

Below is an example of how this could work.

Save 20% on all commissioned paintings from October 1st – to October 20th.
Save 10% off a commissioned painting for orders between October 21st – November 7th.
All commissioned paintings after November 7th will be at a regular price.
Commission orders will not be available after December 1st.

Decide on the strategies you will be using and start filling up the calendars.

Creating a social media calendar will make it easier for you to post your social media posts during busy times.

I use Thrive Ultimatum to create a banner that showcases my specials and coupon codes. You can control where you would like to place the banner and what pages you would like the banner to be displayed.

Block off some time during the next week or two to schedule all of your social media posts and newsletters.

For Pinterest and Instagram, I use Tailwind

Tailwind makes it easy to schedule Pinterest and Instagram images, and the best feature Tailwind offers is its powerful analytics which tells you what pins and boards are performing well for you.

Related posts:

How I Sell My Art Online With Tailwind

Understanding Tailwind Analytics | Pinterest Marketing Strategies For Visual Artists

How To Use Tailwind Tribes To Sell More Art

How Clickable Facebook Cover Photo Can Increase Traffic

For Facebook, I just use Facebook’s scheduling feature.

A few years ago, Facebook frowned on people and businesses using third-party apps for scheduling posts. I don’t know if that has changed over the past few years, but I find Facebook’s scheduler easy to use, so I continue to work with it.

I use Buffer’s free version for Twitter to post all of my tweets for the holiday season.

You should be able to schedule your newsletters with your email service provider.

Popular Email providers:

AWeber

Mailchimp

MailerLite

Encourage Multiple Orders

Now is the time to heavily cross-promote your products.

You and your buyers will win if you can make it easy to purchase gifts for multiple people at one time.

They win by saving money and time shopping around, and you win by selling multiple items.

A strategy that works well encourages your shoppers to buy multiple items with discounts or free shipping.

Here are some examples you can use to entice your shoppers to purchase more than one item:

Buy 2 or more paintings and save 15% off your order.
Free shipping for orders over $250.00
Buy 6 greeting cards and get a free greeting card of your choice.

Use your creative mind and create a special deal that compliments your goals.

Take advantage of this special time when people are excited to purchase gifts for their friends and family.

Holiday Events

Below is a list of Holiday events you might consider for your holiday marketing plan.

Halloween – October 31st.
Black Friday – November 25th.
Small Business Saturday – November 26th.
Cyber Monday – November 28th.
Giving Tuesday – November 29th.
St Nick’s – December 6th.
Free Shipping Day December 16th.
Super Saturday – Last Saturday before Christmas.
New Year’s Eve, December 31st.

Conclusion:

You can prosper this holiday season if you plan ahead of time and organize yourself. For more ways to increase your art sales, visit 10 Easy Selling Art Online Tips To Boost Sales.

7 Tips That Will Sell Your Art Online This Holiday Overview: