Have you been thinking about selling your art online but you do not know how to get started? In this post, you will discover 7 ways you can sell art online free.
7 Ways You Can Sell Art Online Free
Disclaimer: Please note that some of the links on this post are affiliate links and will be clearly marked as so. I will earn a small commission when you purchase a product or service from an affiliate link at no extra cost to you which helps with the costs of operating Nevue Fine Art Marketing. I will only recommend products I have used, found helpful to my business and are companies I trust.
As a creative person, you have a great opportunity to make a good income selling your art online.
You no longer have to be accepted by local galleries to have your artwork seen by the public.
You no longer have to pay 50% of your sales to the galleries for displaying your art.
Hiring agents to represent your art is a thing of the past.
Third-party sites make it easy to display art for sale but the monthly fees start to add up.
Owning and operating small businesses has changed over the past 15 years and the change is good for artists like you.
In this post, I am going to cover several different ways you can start and run a successful online art business for free or a very low starting cost.
The odds of being successful selling original art online in today’s day and age rests in your hands. You are no longer relying on or paying someone else to market your brand.
All of the tools needed to generate income selling art online are right at your fingertips.
You just have to be willing to put in the time and the time you invest will be rewarded with art sales.
How To Sell Original Art Online
Most of the strategies I am going to be covering today are free or have a small fee.
Use the tips I cover as a checklist.
After you have read all of the information start developing some strategies that will compliment your goals.
You might feel intimidated when you first start. This is normal, you have never done anything like this before.
The good news is that if you take one step at a time and put away some time every week to learn how to sell original art online you will become an art marketing pro before you know it.
Use me as an example.
I started selling art online when MySpace was the popular social media platform (over 16 years ago).
It was not an easy ride but I kept at it.
I Learned different strategies every week, made plenty of mistakes and was not afraid of trying new things.
You will be traveling a similar journey. The only difference is that there is more information available for you to learn how to market your art more effectively.
You can and will succeed as long as you want it and you are willing to put in the hard work.
To make the learning process easier sign up for my free newsletter.
Every week I will send you a newsletter with some easy and useful art marketing tips you can start implementing right away.
You can find the sign-up form at the bottom of this post.
Now that you have signed up for my newsletter you are ready to start building a solid foundation for your online art business.
How to Sell Art Online and Make Money
The order you accomplish the checklist below does not matter.
However, I recommend starting with your goals and building a brand first because everything you do will reflect your goals and brand.
Developing Art Goals
You can not accomplish anything without a vision and a plan.
You need to know where you are going before you can get there.
Writing goals is an easy task but often overlooked by many people.
Because I understand the importance of setting goals and understand the struggles many people have when it comes to setting goals, I have spent many hours developing tools for you to help you write achievable goals.
How to Write Goals You Can Achieve Workbook
Artist Goal Planners in Light Blue
Artist Goal Planners in Light Pink
Artist Goal Planner Printable
Month Goals Printable
Weekly Goals Printable
To-Do List Printable
Annual Art Business Review Workbook
Please take this step seriously. I have seen many talented artists give up early because they did not write goals.
Branding Your Art Business
Successful businesses of all sizes spend a lot of time and money branding their business.
Branding is not only about getting your target market to select you over the competition but about getting your prospects to see you as the sole provider of a solution to their problem or need. (Source: The Balance)
The brand you create will be the foundation of your marketing strategy.
Take the time and use your creative side to develop a brand for which people will remember you.
Laura Lake outlines the objectives of a good brand in her post Learn Why Branding is Important in Marketing.
The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:
- Clearly, delivers the message
- Confirms your credibility
- Emotionally connects your target prospects with your product and or service
- Motivates the buyer to buy
- Creates User Loyalty
For help on building a brand that will separate you from your competition visit Create an Artist Brand Workbook
Artist Website
Now that you have your goals and a brand for your online art business, you will need a platform to sell original art online.
Your artist website and art blog will be an online store where people can visit to see your artwork and make a purchase.
Several options are available for you, and you will want to decide the best platform for your goals and vision.
Platforms to Sell Fine Art Online:
Etsy – Etsy is a popular third-party platform for artists and crafters to showcase and sell artwork.
How to Set Up an Etsy Store Tutorial
For more information about third-party sites like Etsy visit:
Should You Sell Art On Third Party Websites?
Sell Art Online Free – 7 Popular Third-Party Sites for Artists
WordPress.org WordPress is a platform used by many businesses and professional bloggers. Many benefits are associated with using WordPress as a platform.
There are many benefits to choosing WordPress for your online art business.
WordPress Benefits:
- Easy to use
- Thousands of themes and plugins
- Secure
- Search engine friendly
- A platform you own
When you work with WordPress, you will not be building a business on rented land, and you will have total control of how it looks and the content you provide.
Recommended Hosting for WordPress:
HostGator
The next step is to master the platform you have decided to work with. The success of your art business depends on it.
Learn everything there is to know about the platform you are using. This will help you to be more productive with your marketing strategies.
Art Blog
Do you want to know how to sell art online and make money?
The answer is traffic.
You can have goals written down, a beautiful brand, and a platform that showcases your art, but if you do not have the traffic, you will not sell anything.
Your art blog will be the fuel that drives traffic to your art listings.
Shane explains why blogging is essential for small businesses in his post 5 Powerful Benefits of Blogging For Your Small Business.
Here is an overview of Shane’s post:
- Exceptional Boost To Search Engine Optimization
- Developing And Strengthen Relationships With Existing And New Customers
- Establish Your Business As An Industry Leader
- Connect People To Your Brand
- Create Opportunities For Sharing
Developing a digital content marketing strategy will help you build brand awareness that will drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your art listings.
The downside is that it takes time for a blog to build authority and rank in the search engines. This is the main reason most blogs fail. People are impatient and quit way too soon.
The artists who sell original art online are the ones who have not given up even through tough times.
If you plan to sell art online for the long term I would highly recommend starting a blog.
Speed up your blog’s growth by taking the 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual artists.
The 28-Day Blogging Challenged has helped over a thousand artists like you.
Build An Email List
Your email list will be a group of people who are interested in what you have to offer.
They gave you their personal email address because they trust you and they are interested in your artwork and services.
Use this to your advantage.
It will take less effort to sell products to your email list than it would to find new collectors.
For more information on building your email list visit:
- How To Start Your Email List Today so You Can Sell More Art
- Sell More Art Online by Growing Your Email List
- How to Build an Email List from Scratch Fast
- Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Selling Art Online
- 4 Email Opt-in Plugins for WordPress
- Email List Building Basics – Sell Art Online
Social Media Presence
At this point, your goals are written down, and you have a clear vision of your brand.
The next step is to build an online presence.
You want to tell everyone you have art for sale and where they can purchase it.
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest has made it easy for businesses of all sizes to connect with people worldwide.
Put aside some time every week to learn about social media marketing.
Make It Better
Now you know the basics of how to sell art online.
What separates successful artists that sell fine art online from artists who struggle to sell one piece of art?
Many factors will affect the outcome of a sale.
- The quality of the art
- The price of the art
- The brand of the business
- Online marketing skills
Think of marketing as the art of selling products.
It doesn’t matter what the top-selling items online are, and if you get your artwork in front of the right person, you will land a sale.
Keep learning, and strive to do better every day.
While you are learning how to market and promote your artwork keep creating new products to sell.
By the time you have built a large audience, you will have a large variety of artwork available.
Conclusion:
It has never been more cost-efficient for artists to sell their artwork.
Take advantage of all the tools available and use the information above to build a solid foundation for your art business so you can sell your art online for free.
7 Ways You Can Sell Art Online Free Overview:
- How to Sell Original Art Online
- How to Sell Art Online and Make Money
- Developing Art Goals
- Branding Your Art Business
- Artist Website
- Art Blog
- Build an Email List
- Social Media Presence
- Make it Better
You might also be interested in:
- How to Sell Your Art Online – The Ultimate Guide
- 10 Tips to Jumpstart Your Art Business This Year
- How to Create an Artist Blog That Generates Passive Income
- Best Places to Sell Art Online
- What You Should Pin to Your Artist Pinterest Boards
