How To Market Your Art For Free

How To Market Artwork

As an emerging artist, you are working hard to enhance your artistic skills and finding ways to build name recognition.

Many new artists and even veteran artists feel uncomfortable and vulnerable when they put their work up for display. It is understandable to feel this way because the art you create reflects who you are and whom you were when making the piece.

Even though it is easier for creatives to start a business that excels today than twenty-five years ago, it is more challenging because they have to represent themselves and their artwork, making it even more vulnerable.

You need to learn how to take your emotions out of the equation when it is time to showcase and explain your artwork to your audience if you want to start an art business.

Share the story and message behind your paintings in a way that connects your art with the viewer in an emotional way while not sounding like a salesperson is how you will succeed and reach your art business goals.

If you are not going to have a gallery or agent represent you, you will need to learn how to promote and market your art.

Here are the basics to help get you started.

Create An Online Portfolio and Website

Before you start to learn about marketing, you need to create your portfolio and a website if you are thinking about selling your art online. 

Your online portfolio will be a way for collectors to learn a little bit about you and see the style of art you create.

To learn how to create a portfolio visit, How To Make An Online Portfolio.

A website is your online store and will allow people to view and purchase your artwork.

For a list of website builders visit, 16 Best Artist Website Builders.

Now that you have a portfolio and a website, let’s talk about driving traffic to your website. 

Online Marketing For Artists

There are multiple free online tools available for marketing artwork like sending newsletters, social media platforms, videos, blogging, and Pinterest.

The internet runs on content, and you will want to choose what type of content you feel more comfortable creating, either text or video.

For example, if you like writing, you might choose to start a blog, send out newsletters, and post on social media. Or, if you enjoy being in front of a camcorder, you might want to create YouTube videos.

And if you like photography, you might want to learn how to promote your art on Instagram.

The key is to start working with the tool you feel most comfortable with. Focus on learning everything you can about marketing with the tool you will use, like blogging, Pinterest, newsletters, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook.

Start building your following with your close friends and family. You might not think of them as an audience, but it is a great start and a safe way to start experimenting with your marketing strategy. 

Start sharing your upcoming shows or new art with your friends and family on social media. They will be supporting you when they engage and share your posts with their friends. 

Discover Who Your Target Audience Is

Once you feel comfortable using the marketing tool of your choice and you are receiving good engagement with your content, take some time to 

to learn who your target audience is.

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a specific group of people defined by behavior, likes, and demographics. Finding your target audience means discovering what kind of people are interested in your artistic style and the medium you use.

Do you know who would be your best customer, including age, race, gender, occupation, and demographics?

Learning who your audience will help you create more effective marketing plans and make it easier for you to connect with them.

The easiest way to discover who your target audience is with Google analytics. 

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that provides detailed information about your audience and their behavior.

Log into your Google Analytics, click Audience > Demographics > Overview.

This will show you the age and gender of your audience.

To discover their interests click Interest > Overview.

To discover where your audience resides click GEO > Location. Click on the links to view by states.

To discover what social media platforms your audience hangs out on click Acquisition >  Overview > Social.

All of the information will make it easier to write content based on your audience’s likes and interests.

The engagement of your posts will increase by including topics that your audience is interested in.

For example, NFAM target audience is females that are between 25 and 34 and reside in America.

The top cities are California, Texas, and New York.

We do not just focus on these cities because more people reside in those cities, making sense that more people visit our site from those cities.

The topics we write about are to help creative people generate income from their skills.

To get our point across better, we have to focus on including content that females between 25 – 34 can relate to.

Write To Your Avatar

Now that you know who your audience is start creating content just for them. 

What does this mean?

It means that you want to wite to one person and that one person is your avatar. 

Your avatar is your ideal customer. Write as if you are writing to your top art collector. You are focusing on them because they are the ones who admire your artwork and will be the ones who purchase your paintings and drawings.

Reach out to your target audience with the content you are creating. This is your chance to build a relationship with them, and they will help you by supporting your art business and telling everyone they know about your artwork.

Use Stories To Connect Your Audience With Your Art

Have you heard about storytelling for marketing?

Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to breathe life into your brand and is often called one of the main components of a content marketing approach. In order for consumers to form a personal connection with your brand, company stories must be authentic, creative and inspirational. (Source: i-scoop)

Most people remember stories more than just facts or statisics.

Stories are more emotional and can connect your audience with your art on a more personal level.

Connecting your audience to your art emotionaly will increase your sales.

Here is a great video about crafting the perfect story for your brand by Neil Patel.

Include A Call-To-Action

There should be a clear call-to-action at the end of every piece of content you publish. This includes blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, and videos. 

The call-to-action tells the viewer what they should be doing after reading or viewing the content.

Call-to-action Examples:

• For more information about … read this
• Check out more paintings like this
• Are you looking to purchase giclee prints, go here
• Join my email list to receive newsletters about upcoming events

The reason you see businesses use call-to-actions is that they work.

Most people do not know what to do after reading a blog post or watching a video. kYour call-to-action will keep them on your site rather than going to a different artist’s website.

Start Marketing On Different Mediums

By now, you have a good idea of how to market your art business with the medium that came easy to you. The next step is to start working with a medium that might not come as natural.

If you want to reach a broader audience, you will have to take advantage of all the marketing tools online.

Mediums like blogging, social media, newsletters, and videos are great ways to connect your target audience to your art for free.

Take advantage of all of them so you can connect with your audience worldwide.

Join Art Competitions

Marketing is all bout getting your art in front of people and connecting them to your art emotionally.

So far, we talked about the obvious ways to market your art online for free. Now let’s talk about some other ways you can have your art seen by more people.

One way to get your art seen by more people is to join art competitions.

If you want a quick way to build name recognition in the art world, joining competitions is the way to go.

There are fees to join most art competitions, but the benefits are worth every penny.

Benefits of Art Competitions:

• Display your work in front of other artists
• Feedback received will help you to grow as an artist quicker
• Your art will be shown to curators, editors, and galleries
• Even if you do not win, your art will be seen by a large group of people

Popular Online Art Competitions:

• Artist Network
• The Lumen Prize
• American Impressionist Society
• New American Paintings
• Paint Annapolis

Network With Other Artists

As artists, we do most of our work alone in the studio. 

Promoting art is different.

You will have to get yourself out in front of people, and building a network with other artists is a strategy that is often overlooked by many artists. 

Networking exposes new opportunities that might not have come along if you didn’t work with other artists.

Make A Presence At Local Events

Promoting art at local craft fairs, open studios, street shows, and even family-owned businesses is a great way to build name recognition in your local area. 

Besides making a presence at these events, you will also have the opportunity to build relationships with people on the board and other local artists.

The easiest way to build name recognition is with people who already know you. Start marketing your art locally than branch out. 

Final thoughts On How To Market Your Art

Selling your own art might not sound as fun as creating the art but if you think about the money you can make from selling art, the efforts you out in will be well worth the time invested.

Like I have mentioned earlier, art marketing is about putting your art in front of people who have a passion for what you create. A good art marketing plan is when you talk about your own work and potential buyers on an emotional level. You will know when you have accomplished this when a person purchases a painting.

You have the ability to take your art career as far as you wish. Start promoting your art with your closest friends on a medium you feel comfortable with and then branch out from there.

Collect email addresses, talk about art where ever you are, create an artist statement, and read related articles about marketing online.

Soon you will find that there are people who have an art collection of your best work.

More Related Posts About Art MArketing

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