How To Write An Artist Business Plan That Works

Marketing Plan For Artists

Going from a creative hobbyist to an art professional takes planning. Once you have decided to sell your work, you have turned your hobby into a business.

To be successful, you will need an artist statement, a marketing plan, art business goals, and a road map to build name recognition in the art world.

An art business plan helps artists sell work at art fairs, sell original art and giclee prints online, and showcasing their art in a gallery and open house studios.

Entrepreneurs develop a detailed plan that helps them to reach their goals. The plans they create help them stay on track to produce more paintings and drawings to sell.

Developing business plans when you first start can be challenging. You might even be asking yourself, how do I write an art business plan or How can I make money off art? To make the process, easier NFAM created this detailed post to develop an art business plan that will produce positive results.

Selling Art

An art business is much more than just creating artwork to sell.

It takes hard work, dedication, and planning to sell art on a steady basis.

Once you have decided to start selling your art, you have crossed the line from being a hobbyist to becoming a CEO of a business.

You are no longer creating art just for pleasure.

You are creating art to generate an income.

You will no longer spend your time and money on art supplies to create art that you will give away for free.

Your goal will be to make a profit and an honest hourly wage.

Before you start to develop business plans, you will need to answer a few questions.

• Do you want to make extra income from your fine art to help supplement your entertainment expenses?
• Do you want to make a career from your art?
• Are you willing to do other activities such as teaching, tutoring, or commissioned work relating to art to supplement your income?
• Do you have a steady income now to help supplement your income while you are building your business?
• Do you have a support group? (People around you that will support your vision and goals)

Art Marketing Strategy

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy refers to a business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of the business’s products or services. (Source: Investopedia)

Your strategy is what you will be focusing on when you are writing different action steps.

The action steps are strategic tactics you will be implementing daily that will guide you towards your business goals.

Decide on your main objectives and where you would like to be in a year from now, 5 years from now, and 10 years from now.

Your objectives could be as simple as selling your art online.

Or it could be hosting an art show in your local area.

It does not matter if you want to start a digital art business or if you are trying to write a fine art photography business plan. A clear vision of your objectives is essential for starting a business as an artist.

To learn more about writing achievable goals, visit:

• How To Write Art Business Goals How To Succeed
• How To Set Art Goals You Can Achieve
• How To Review Your Goals And Sell More Art Next Year

Tactics

Tactics are the strategies you execute. They will be decisions you make, such as what platform you use to sell your art, pricing, stores, galleries, craft shows, agents, social media networks, studio, and overhead costs.  

The tactics or ideas you implement should reflect your strategy and complement your objectives.

For example, if you are selling art online, you will need a platform where people can view and purchase your artwork.

Your tactic will be to build or have someone build a website where buyers can see and purchase your artwork.

The next steps will be to upload your art on your website, set the prices, promote your website, and drive traffic to your art listings.

To learn more about driving traffic to your artist website, visit How To Drive Traffic To Your Online Art Gallery.

Milestones

Milestones art like goals but are used more for inspiration and motivation.

Write down some measurable milestones you would like to accomplish.

Start with small milestones—something you can accomplish in a relatively short amount of time but benefit your art business.

For example, it might be selling your first painting. Or maybe it will be to collect 100 emails for your email list. How about your first YouTube video or your first blog post.

Write them all down. When you accomplish something, check off the day it was accomplished and set a new milestone.

Creating milestones will help you to stay focused on what is important at the time.

Achieving a milestone will motivate you to work as hard to accomplish the next milestone.

Tracking Results

Many artists are afraid of writing a sales forecast simply because they do not know what it is.

TrackMaven describes sales forecasting as:

“Sales forecasting is the process of estimating future sales. Accurate sales forecasts enable companies to make informed business decisions and predict short-term and long-term performance. Sales forecasting gives insight into how a company should manage its workforce, cash flow, and resources.”

All you have to do is predict how much money you will make in a year or broken down into quarters.

This information will greatly benefit your planning. You will know if the strategies you are implementing are on target or not. You will be able to make adjustments promptly, and you will be more focused on what matters. Making money.

Think of it as your monthly budget. You know how much your bills will cost you per month and how much income you will generate.

For more about keeping track of your business progress visit, the Annual Art Business Review Workbook.

What Are The Five Parts Of A Business Plan

Successful artists, entertainers, small and large business owners, know that the plan is not what brings them success. It is implementing the plan.

5 Parts Of A Business Plan:

Mission statement – A brief story explaining why you are in business and what you have to offer

Elevator Pitch – 3-minute speech that is an overview of your company

Market research and marketing strategies – Marketing strategies that compliment your company’s goals

Employees – How many people work for you

Financial budget and Financial documents – How much money you have for expenses and accurate records of money coming in and money going out

How To Write An Artist Business Plan

Here is a breakdown of how to write an effective artist business plan. Every artist is unique, so your plan will be different from all of the other artists selling their products.

Mission Statement

What is the mission of your company?

Why do you want to sell art?

What do you want to accomplish with your business?

Vision Statement

Many people confuse a mission statement and a vision statement. The mission statement says “why” you have a business. The vision statement says, “where” you would like to see your business go.

Do you want your business to grow big enough so you can live in a beach house?

Do you want to employ people and other artists?

Do you want to make just enough money so you can enjoy a night out at a fancy restaurant?

The answer is up to you, but you do want to know what the answer is.

Goals

Setting goals are important for any movement or change.

If you want to lose weight, you have to set a goal of how much weight you would like to lose and when you would like to lose it.

If you want to make money selling art, you have to decide how much you would like to sell and how much you will be charging.

A successful business plan starts with goals and objectives.

Who Are Your Customers?

Identify who your target audience is. Your target audience is the people who are interested in your artistic style. This is an important part of a business plan and is often overlooked.

They are the people who are looking to purchase your products.

Here are some questions you will want to be able to answer:

• Does your work attract mainly males or females?
• What is the age range of your audience?
• What is the yearly household income of your target audience?
• What is the marital status of your audience?
• What inspires your audience?
• What motivates your audience?
• What common problems can you solve for your audience?
• What are your customer’s values?
• Where does your audience shop?
• What fun activities does your audience like to do?
• What social media sites does your audience hang out on?

Who are Your Competitors?

You want to know who your audience is, but you will also want to know your competitors.

• Who is selling work that is similar to yours?
• How long have they been selling?
• Where are they selling their products?
• What are their prices?
• What social media sites are they using?
• What strategies are they using that is working?

After you know your competitors, you will want to do some reverse engineering.

Figure out what you will need to do to outshine your competition.

• How can you make your website better?
• How can you make your artist blog better?
• How can you make your listings more appealing?
• How can you shine on social media?

One of the best tools for discovering new artists and artist blogs is Keysearch.

Budget

Your business will have expenses.

Make a list of your expenses, including money for supplies, shipping, marketing, promotional items, and learning.

Make a detailed list of all your expenses and how much artwork you will need to sell to cover the costs.

Marketing

• How are you going to market your creativity?
• What platforms and mediums are you going to use?
• Are you going to market online, offline, or both?
• How much time are you going to devote to marketing?

These are important questions you are going to need to answer.

You have to make people aware that your artwork is available for sale and you are the artist who created the piece.

People cannot buy something if they do not know it exists.

Art marketing is to make people aware that you sell artwork and what style of work you create.

Final Thoughts On Business Plans

An artist business plan is a plan that makes people aware of your products and services. A successful business plan will turn potential buyers into loyal clients.

Many artists are trying to sell their products and services online and offline. The internet has made it possible for businesses of all sizes to promote their ideas to clients worldwide.

You no longer need gallery representation to be a successful artist. Just take a look at your favorite artist online and see how they promote their work. There are many ways you can reach new clients online and ways to communicate with your fans, like sending an email newsletter or posting a question on social media.

The best resource is the artists who have become successful online. Many artists share articles that explain what has worked for them. Success comes from developing a plan and executing a plan. Success comes from developing a plan and executing a plan. Take the time to draft your artist business plan.

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Have you been successful with your art business plan?

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