Digital Content Marketing – What Artists Need to Know

Before you purchase a high ticket item, what do you do first?
Do you ask a family member or a friend?
Do you post a question on Facebook?
Do you search Google for reviews?

The internet has provided us with entertainment, jobs, education, and convenience.

It has also changed the way people shop.

Not too long ago, people would have to hop in their car and drive to a store to purchase something.

They would hope the store would have what they were looking for, and it was in stock.

Today, you grab your closest mobile device, take a few moments to look for the best price and best reviews, then hit purchase.

After you confirm your order, you continue with your day.

Online shopping is consistently increasing, as are the opportunities for individuals to capitalize on selling goods or services online.

According to Statista:

“Online shopping is a thriving market. Retail e-commerce sales worldwide are forecast to nearly double between 2016 and 2020.

In 2016, about 42 percent of internet users in the U.S. stated that they purchase items online at least once a month, and 24 percent said they bought items or services online once or twice per week”

Some of those online shoppers are your target audience.

They are looking to buy art, just like yours.

If they come across your art, they will purchase it.

How do you get people to notice your art online?
How do you find your target audience online?

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The internet is a busy place, and it will only get more active.

As more people realize how easy and affordable it is to upload items for sale online, the more difficult it will be to stand out from the crowd.

What is the solution for artists?

The answer is to write content and promote it.

Once you upload your art and have it available for sale, the work begins.

The work does not stop until you sell the artwork you have listed for sale.

Here is the cycle of a digital marketing strategy:

Upload art, write content, promote, sell, repeat.

It is actually simple.

If the strategy is so easy, why are so many artists not doing it?

Maybe they just hope their items will sell when they post an image on Facebook.
Maybe they do not want to put in the time to write blog posts or develop a digital marketing plan.

It doesn’t matter why they are not doing it.

What matters is that you do it, and you start your digital marketing plan today.

Even though new artists are starting an art business daily, the good news is that many artists are unwilling to do the work.

The more artists who are not willing to put time into their overall marketing strategy, means it will be easier for you to stand out and attract your target audience.

What Is Content Marketing

It is evident that if you want to drive traffic to our online art gallery, you must write and publish blog posts regularly.

But what do we write about?
Where do we post the content?
Is a description of the artwork good enough?
What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that involves creating content via text, video, audio, and images that are shared online.

Content marketing does not usually result in direct sales.

Instead, its purpose is to build brand awareness and trust for the business. The result is an increase in sales.

What should you write about?

You write about everything that relates to your business and artwork.

The more content you can publish, the more ways people will discover you in Google’s search results.

For example, write about the specific breed you paint if you paint dogs.

Write about any news that relates to the breed.

Write about rescues if you work with rescue dogs.

The more you write about the subject you paint or draw, the easier it will be for people interested in it to discover you online.

Keep in mind that:

You can not sell drawings online if people do not know you are a graphite artist.
You can not sell paintings if people do not know about your artist’s website.
You can not sell giclee prints if people do not know they exist.

Many artists get confused when I use the term Content Marketing.

I first heard of “Content Marketing” From Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose’s podcast This Old Marketing.

You can find a link to the podcast at Content Marketing Institute.

Content marketing is a way to tell the story behind your business.

Most people think of content marketing like blogging, but your story can be shared on other mediums like podcasts, videos, and PowerPoint.

Social media marketing is a form of marketing that utilizes social network platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on.

The primary purpose of content marketing is to drive quality traffic to your website.

Think of content marketing like the onramps of a highway. The destination is your website.

If you write a post on your website, you create one way for people to find your site or one way to get on the highway.

One post will limit the amount of traffic you receive. It will be more difficult for people to find the “onramp” to your site if you only have one.

If you publish two posts, you are now providing another way for people to find you.

The more posts you create, the easier it will be for your audience to discover you.

Publishing blog posts is like onramps strategically placed on the highway.

The more onramps a road has, the easier it is for drivers to get on it.

Think of social media as road signs that direct a person to the onramp of the highway.

Your social media posts will bring awareness to posts you write.

If a person is interested in the topic, they will continue to your site to learn more.

Social media is a tool businesses use to build brand awareness and relationships with people.

Content marketing is telling your story.

Benefits of Digital Content Marketing

According to Debra Murphy:

The foundation of a successful inbound marketing strategy is the consistent delivery of quality content. Without content, there is nothing to optimize and share on social sites.

Content marketing:

Increases visibility of your brand
Develops lasting relationships with your audience
Improves brand awareness and recognition
Creates loyalty and trust, with both your current customers and prospects
Helps to build authority and credibility
Positions your business as an expert in your industry
Generates traffic to your site to improve lead generation
Opens a channel of communication through social shares and comments
Helps your customers move through the purchase decision more quickly
Provides value with no strings attached

You can read Debra’s article at 10 Content Marketing Benefits, Challenges, and Tips.

As Debra said, if there is no content, there is nothing to share, and your site or artist blog will not generate any traffic.

How can you expect to sell art online if nobody is visiting your website?

Why waste your time learning about what art sells best or learning more about websites that sell art if you are unwilling to do the work to drive traffic to your artist’s website?

The bottom line is that if you want to make money selling art, you need to write a lot of content.

Do you have a hard time writing content consistently?

If you do, you are not alone.

Many artists struggle in this area.

I have written an ebook to help keep you accountable and tell you what steps to take and when.

More than half of the planning is done for you.

All you have to do is write, publish, and watch your traffic increase over time.

Are you ready to take the challenge?

28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists download your copy today.

Digital Content Marketing Strategy

Now that you understand how crucial digital content marketing is for selling art online, you need to develop a content strategy.

Your digital content marketing strategy is the “why.”

Why are you creating content?

Are you creating content to sell art online?
Are you creating content to keep your following updated with new events?
Are you creating content to promote your art that is being displayed in galleries?
Are you creating content to sell art prints online?

Your “why” is unique.

It is like a fingerprint.

No one will have the same “why” as yours.

For you to be productive with your digital content marketing, you need to have a clear vision of your “why.”

If you don’t, your content will not be focused on your priorities.

For example, if your “why” is to promote art prints, your content marketing plan will be to deliver content related to your art prints.

Content Marketing Tips

Content marketing or blogging can be very stressful for people who are just starting.

You do not know where to start or what tools you should be using.

The good news is that I am going to share with you the best way to start.

First, I would like you to visit my Art Marketing Page. Here you will find a list of all the tools I use.

Look at all of them and become familiar with them and what they are used for.

Blogging Platform

You are going to need a platform for your blog posts.

There are free blogging platforms like Blogger that are available.

If you are planning to sell art online for the long term, you will consider starting with WordPress.

WordPress is free, but you will need to purchase a domain name (a unique URL for your site) and hosting.

I use and recommend SiteGround.

Another popular hosting service is BlueHost.

Both services allow you to purchase a domain name as well as hosting for WordPress.

They also provide a Quick Install for WordPress. You will have your site live in just minutes.

For more blogging alternatives visit Top 8 Blogging Platforms For Visual Artists.

Quality Content

Once you have your site up and running, you will be able to start telling your story.

Take out your content marketing strategy and your content marketing plan and start creating a list of post ideas.

Each idea should lead you towards your goals.

Think of it as a bike wheel. Each spoke is a blog post that leads to the central or primary goal.

What is quality content?

Quality content is content that your audience will enjoy reading.

It does not mean that you must be an English major to write quality content.

You just have to be able to express your thoughts in words people can relate to.

The best way to get your thought across to a broad audience is to keep it simple.

If you want to make money selling art online, you will have to attract a broad audience interested in your art.

You do not know how old or educational background your audience is.

Use easy to understand vocabulary so everyone can connect and enjoy your story.

Repurpose

You might think you will not have time to write content for your artist blog and social media sites.

That is understandable. You do need to have time to create your art.

The good news is all you will have to write for is your artist blog.

You will be repurposing that content to other mediums like Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and so on.

Do you remember when I said that social media is for building brand awareness and relationships with your audience?

You will be doing that by proving bits and pieces of your article and including a link to where they can read more if you wish to.

It is as easy as that. Take the main parts of your post and publish it on Facebook with a beautiful image and a link that directs them to the blog post.

If you are on Twitter, you can tweet a sentence of the article with a link to the post.

With Pinterest, all you have to do is create an eye-catching image that relates to the post. Don’t forget to link back to the blog post.

If you are creating YouTube videos, all you have to do is take some of the content from the post and make a video.

Do you see how easy this is?

Evergreen Content

Have you ever heard of the term evergreen content?

Evergreen content is a buzzword used by bloggers and content marketers. Statistics show that evergreen content drives more traffic to websites than any other content over time.

Evergreen content is content that will never lose credibility or be outdated.

For example, if you write a post about how to clean artist paint brushes, the information will always be helpful to the reader even if they land on your post five or ten years from now.

The information will never be outdated. This type of post will generate traffic for many years.

An example of a post that isn’t evergreen would be to write an article about Facebook Marketing tips.

Every day Facebook is changing, so marketing on Facebook will have to change. What I write today might not work six months from now. The post will only generate traffic if the content is up-to-date.

You should strive to write as many evergreen posts as you can. The more, the better. In a year from now, you will notice the posts you are writing today are still driving a ton of traffic to your site.

Visual

People love visuals. That is why your Facebook News Feed is filled with images and videos.

Include high-quality images and videos to each to each blog post.

Adding images will be easy if you are writing about some artwork you have created. But if you are writing about something else that relates to your business, include images that relate to the topic you are writing about.

I find a lot of my images for this blog at Pexels. It is a free stock photo site filled with hundreds of beautiful photos you can download and use for your art blog.

Just make sure that you look at the licensing before you download it and use it on your post. Most images are CCO license. (Free for personal and commercial use with no attribution required.)

Or if you have time and enjoy taking pictures, use your photographs for your blog post. Keep in mind the image should have something to do with what you are writing about.

Check out this eBook to learn how to be more effective with your keyword research, Get Your Keywords Together: How To Do Keyword Research With Only Free Tools.

Developing a keyword research strategy will increase your organic traffic.

Search Engine Optimization

The last thing I would like to talk about is some basic SEO tips.

Search engine optimization is simply optimizing your website and blog posts for search.

The first tip is to be cautious of site speed.

How fast your site and pages load affects your PageRank (where your blog post is ranked in the search results.)

One of the easiest ways to speed up your site’s speed is to reduce your images’ file size.

I use ShortPixels to optimize my images for my blog posts.

ShortPixel is one of the best tools for reducing the size of the image file by lowering the image’s quality.

The other tip is to have a keyword research strategy.

Keywords are the words that people type into the search bar.

Search engines provide a list of content that relates to the keywords.

You will be wasting a great deal of time writing content about a topic that nobody is searching for.

Writing blog posts aims to have people read them, so they become aware that you are an artist who has art for sale.

There are excellent tools that provide keyword research, but there are also free tools that you can take advantage of.

Check out this eBook to learn how to be more effective with your keyword research, Get Your Keywords Together: How To Do Keyword Research With Only Free Tools.

Pillar Page

When I first started blogging, I didn’t realize the importance of keeping the structure of my artist blog organized.

My objective was to write about all of the digital marketing strategies that helped me build my art business.

Needless t0 say, over the past fifteen plus years, I have gathered a tremendous amount of information.

So I started to write about anything and everything that came to mind to help artists like you to build a thriving online art business.

After a couple of years, my artist blog was unorganized, making it difficult for Google to understand what my site was about, which hurt my rankings.

Let me tell you through experience, staying organized from the beginning is more manageable than doing content cleaning years after.

Keep your content organized with pillar posts.

To read more about pillar pages, visit How Pillar Content Generates Traffic To Art Websites.

Final Thoughts On Developing a Digital Content Marketing Strategy

In this post, you have learned what digital content marketing is and how important it is to include content marketing into your art marketing strategy.

You have also learned how to refurbish your posts to build brand authority and drive people to your artist website.

I have also gone over some helpful tips to think about when you are writing your posts to keep your readers happy and be coming back for more.

The first step you will want to take is to write down your content marketing goals.

The next step is to create content that compliments your goals then start marketing content on your favorite social media platforms.

Don’t forget to add the content you write into your email marketing.

If you still need to be held accountable, you might want to consider purchasing my eBook the 28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists.

This eBook will help you stay on track so you can continue to build your audience.

Would you like to learn how to build a blog that generated over $15,000 a month?

Debbie Gartner explains exactly how she created a blog that makes her six figures a year.

Check out this eBook to learn how to be more effective with your keyword research, Get Your Keywords Together: How To Do Keyword Research With Only Free Tools.

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Digital Content Marketing – What Artists Need to Know

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