Branding For Artists
Are you frustrated with the lack of traffic your artist website is receiving? Do you feel like you are wasting your time on Facebook and Pinterest? Do you want to sell more art? In this post, discover the art branding basics you will need to know for increasing art sales.
Art Branding Basics
The staff from Entrepreneur define business branding as:
Definition: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.
An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does “branding” mean? Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from that of your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.
Visual artist branding differentiates your art from other artists.
Unlike a corporate business, your artist’s brand is about you as an individual and will include your ethics, philosophy, and beliefs.
Designing an art branding strategy for your business will provide you with a significant advantage over your competition.
Customers who purchase your art will know what to expect, including the quality, value, and services that you provide.
With so many artists selling online, you want to take every step necessary to build an online presence that separates yourself from the crowd so you can be noticed.
Art Branding Benefits
Many artists wonder why they should take the time to work on a brand and believe that a brand is for larger corporations.
That is simply not true. A branding strategy is important for any size business.
Here are five reasons creative people should be focusing on branding their business.
5 Art Branding Benefits:
Build customer recognition – In general, people are more likely to choose a brand they recognize over something they are unfamiliar with.
Competitive edge – You will be able to compete with the top artists the more recognition you receive and the more people start to trust your brand higher prices.
Productive release dates – The stronger your brand is the more loyal your customers will become. It will be easier to promote your new art to your audience. Your loyal art collectors (your tribe) will help you to share your new art with their friends and family. Think of how well Apple built its brand and how productive their release dates are.
Customer loyalty – Most of the time brand loyalty lasts a lifetime. Think about products you still purchase today because the business built your trust ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ago.
Increase art sales – People purchase from companies they know, like, and trust. It will be easier for you to land a sale if your brand is credible.
What Reflects Your Art Brand
Everything you do reflects your brand.
The way that you communicate with your audience on social media networks, customer service, articles you write, the look of your website, logo, and tagline/slogan makes up your brand.
Your brand tells the story of you and your business.
It is essential to pay close attention to how people perceive your story.
How To Brand Yourself As An Artist
Concentrate on these questions when you are designing your branding strategy:
- What is your mission?
- What style of art do you create?
- What value does your art offer?
- How is your customer service?
- What is the quality of your product?
- What are your policies?
- What do customers already think about your business?
Answering these questions will help you design your branding strategy.
You might be wondering how to brand yourself as an artist.
Branding yourself as an artist starts with your artwork and your signature so people will start to recognize your art with your name.
The next step is to create a website logo and tagline.
Art Branding Basics – Logo
A logo is a symbol, image, or letters that will allow people to identify your art business. Your logo will be the foundation of your brand.
Let’s talk about the BMW logo for example. It is simple, elegant, classy, and recognizable.
Anyone that sees BMW’s logo knows the quality and the values of the company.
Take your time and think of a logo that you would like to have for your business. If you are a solopreneur, you might use your initials, an image of your artwork, or design a symbol that reflects your artwork.
The logo you create should be prominent on your website, blog, social media sites, packing, and promotional materials like business cards, flyers, brochures, etc.
There are many jobs associated with operating an art business. Outsourcing jobs, so you can focus on more important tasks, is a smart thing to do like hiring a freelancer from Fiverr to create a log for your website.
Art Branding Basics – Tagline
After you have designed your logo, you will want to start working on a slogan or tagline. Your slogan’s primary focus is to describe your business that will separate your artwork from your competitors.
When you are writing your slogan:
- Keep it simple
- Make it memorable
- Keep it honest
- Describe your brand
Here are some example of slogans:
- M&M’s – “Melts in your mouth not in your hand.”
- Snickers – “Snickers satisfies.”
- Disneyland – “The Happiest place on earth.”
- Subway – “Eat fresh.”
- Taco Bell – “Think outside the box.”
- Nike – “Just do it.”
- Red Bull – “Red Bull gives your wings.”
- McDonalds – “I’m loving it.”
- BMW – “The Ultimate driving machine.”
Ronda’s slogan (tagline)
Natural Impressions…”I create a texture canvas and then I paint”
Ronda’s slogan accurately describes her artwork. You even get a sense of her style without even seeing her artwork.
Visit Ronda Count’s website
How To Write A Slogan:
Schedule a couple of hours when you can have some quiet time. You will want to avoid any unnecessary distractions.
Before you start to write anything down, think about your art business’s value and what makes you different from your competitors.
Start writing down adjectives that best describe your business and artistic style.
For example, if you are a graphite artist. You might use a pencil, graphite, animals, wildlife, dogs, portraits, realism, etc to describe your artwork.
Visit Thesaurus.com for more adjectives.
After you have the list of adjectives, start making sentences with the words that you chose. Do not spend too much time trying to make them perfect. This is only a rough draft. When you cannot think of any new sentences, put your list away.
In a few days take out the list. Read all of your sentences that you have come up with.
Take the best three or four sentences and revise them if necessary. Start showing them to your friends and family and ask them for their thoughts. They will be able to tell you the one that they like best or give you something else you can work with.
Take your time with this process. You want to be 100% satisfied with your slogan. You want to be proud to start sharing your slogan with the world.
Now that you have a blueprint for your website, your brand, and your slogan it is time to start building your artist website.
How To Build Brand Awareness
There are many online tools to help you start marketing yourself as an artist.
Marketing and creating an artist name for your self is easier than you might think. Your mission is to develop strategic plans to get the word out that you are an artist and showcase your work to people who have a passion for what you create.
After they have become loyal fans, your job is to keep them informed about upcoming events and new art.
The three tools utilize for your artist brand strategy are:
- Social Media
- Artist Blogs
- Art Gallery
After you have your brand, you will need to start building brand awareness. Your goal is to have everyone talking about your art, and you operate your business.
There are many places that you can start building brand awareness online.
Social Media
Social media sites are a great place to start making a presence. Share your artwork’s images and links to your blog posts to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Pinterest is a great site for artists to build brand awareness.
For tips on selling art on Pinterest visit How to Start Selling Art on Pinterest
Videos are becoming very popular. YouTube is the second largest search engine. Build brand awareness by making videos and posting them on YouTube.
Artist Blogs
Your blog is a great way for you to build brand awareness. This is where you can tell your story as an artist. The more that people get to know you and trust you, the more they will want to buy your art.
Here are some helpful articles to help get you get the most out of your blog.
- 5 Writing Tips For Art Blogs
- Use Internal Links To Increase Art Blog Traffic
- Increase Blog Traffic With Great Titles
- How To Brainstorm Art Blog Post Ideas
Would you like to learn all of the strategies I used to generate over 100,000 monthly page views to my artist blog in just over two years? If you do download the 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists.
Art Gallery
Your art gallery is another place that you will build brand awareness.
Develop a strategic art branding strategy to incorporate all of the different ways you will be marketing your business. Your brand should be the same for your social media sites, blog, and art gallery. You want the look and the feel to be the same or you will start to confuse your audience.
Final Thoughts On Art Branding
If you are just starting your art business, you will want to take your business seriously. It is great to have a passion for what you do, but it is still a business. Take the time to develop a strong brand for your business. Take pride in everything that you do. Be creative with your art branding.
The quality and recognition of your artwork is the formula for increasing your sales.
Always remember, branding for artists starts with art and a signature.
Art branding basics for increasing art sales overview:
- Art branding benefits
- What reflects your art brand
- Art branding basics for artists
- Logo
- Tagline
- How to write a slogan
- How to build brand awareness
Now that you know how to brand yourself as a visual artist it is time t take action so you can start separating yourself from all of the other artists selling art online.
In my opinion, it would be great idea to use the brands of artists not huge companies that have a boat load of $$ , such as M&M’s.
It’s hard enough as it is.
Sue Furrow
Sue, thank you for your thoughts, and you make a great point. I just wanted to share slogans from companies that everyone is familiar with. It was just an example to help artists to start thinking about how they can stand out of the crowd and create a slogan that everyone can remember.