Whether you are new to selling your art online or have been selling art for years, you will want to be prepared for this year’s holiday rush to avoid losing any sales. In this post, you will discover how to sell your art with these 10 Holiday Season marketing strategies.
Sell Your Art With These 10 Holiday Season Marketing Strategies
Angelica LaVito, a news associate for CNBC talks about the increase in holiday shopping for 2017 in a post she wrote for CNBC.
Online shopping sales hit a record $108.2 billion this holiday season, a 14.7 percent increase from last year, according to Adobe Analytics.
The National Retail Federation previously said total sales for November and December were $691.9 billion, a 5.5 percent jump from last year.
Mobile was a big driver on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with $7 billion spent on tablets or smartphones between the two shopping holidays.
To read more visit Online Shopping Sales Hit A Record During The Holiday Season.
More and more people enjoy the convenience of online shopping, which is a big win for artists like you.
You have the opportunity to reach a larger audience who are interested in purchasing your artwork online.
You might have already noticed that your local businesses display holiday products.
Are you prepared for the holiday season?
Think like your local businesses and start preparing now, so you do not miss out on this profitable opportunity.
Below are 10 holiday season marketing strategies that will help you increase your art sales this year.
Successful Holiday Marketing Strategies Start With Goals
Before you can start developing a holiday marketing strategy, you need to have a clear vision of your objectives.
- How much money would you like to generate this holiday season?
- How much art would you have to sell to achieve your goals?
- Do you have enough artwork prepared? If not, how many pieces will you have to create, and how will you get the job done?
- How much will you have to charge to achieve your goals?
- Are you going to sell prints of your artwork?
- Are you going to offer pints on merchandise and greeting cards?
Goal Setting Resources:
How to Write Goals You Can Achieve Workbook
Annual Art Business Review Workbook
Artist Goal Planners in Light Blue
Artist Goal Planners in Light Pink
Now that you have a clear vision of your objectives let's go over some strategies to help you achieve your goals.
Create A Shipping Calendar For Your Art Collectors
I have learned over the years that people start to think about holiday gifts right around the time children go back to school.
In my first couple of years of selling my art online, I didn't have a shipping calendar for my shoppers, which caused many headaches. I was spending more time answering emails than I was creating art.
Every day I would have to stop what I was doing so I could answer the same questions repeatedly. I started to feel like I was an employee of the United States Post Office.
I knew that I had to do something different to be more productive with my time, so I created a holiday shipping calendar, displayed it on my site, and posted it on social media.
This saved me many hours during the week answering emails, and it created a better shopping experience for my art collectors.
Your shipping calendar should include:
- A link to the shipping service you use
- Holiday shipping cut off date
- How long does it take for you to process and ship the item
- How many days does it take for an item to be delivered
Showing when a purchase will arrive during the holiday season will eliminate guesswork and lead to a quicker purchase decision from your shoppers.
Return Policies
Take some time to review your return policies and include a special note for September, October, November, and December that explains how long it will take for a buyer to receive a refund.
The information you provide will make a first-time buyer feel more confident purchasing from you.
Keep your policies simple and consider accepting returns through January 30th.
Post clear instructions on all of the steps a buyer will need to take to receive a refund.
Don't forget to revise your return policies in February.
Holiday Gift Ideas
How often have you stressed out over finding the perfect gift for someone?
You will increase your art sales by going back to the basics and solving a buyer’s problem.
Make it easy for your customers to find the perfect gift.
Create blog posts that highlight some great gift ideas. Publish the blog posts on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media platforms you market on.
Below are some tips on how you can make holiday shopping less stressful for your audience:
Review recent trends.
Take some time to research what is selling well on sites like Amazon, Etsy, and Fine Art America.
Take note of what colors, sizes, and subjects are popular, and make a list of the art you have in stock that is similar to what people are purchasing.
Review what you sold last year.
I hope you have kept records of what sold for you last year.
Take out your records and review what the hot items were.
Did you sell original art online? If so, what sizes were they? What were the primary colors, and what subjects sold the best?
Did you sell greeting cards, fine art prints, or offer your art on merchandise through a POD site?
Related Post:
POD Websites How To Increase Art Sales
Social Media Engagement
Take note of what is popular on your social media channels.
What posts are receiving the most likes, comments, and shares?
The information you gather will make a great blog post for gift ideas you can feature on Pinterest.
Related Post:
How to Start Selling Art on Pinterest
Create Gifts Ideas by Themes.
Below are some gift receiver ideas that will help you to group your artwork into specific themes:
- Gifts for wife/girlfriend
- Gifts for Husband/boyfriend
- Gifts for male friends
- Gifts for female friends
- Gifts for mom/ Grandma
- Gift for Dad/grandpa
- Gifts for teachers
- Gifts for Coworkers
Create A Gift Board For Pinterest
To sell original art online, you will have to promote your art on all of your social channels, art blog, newsletters, etc. The more places, the better.
Pinterest is a platform you will want to take advantage of.
87% of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest. (Source: Omnicore )
Creating a Gift Board for Pinterest that is SEO friendly will help you to reach a new audience.
Related post:
Increase Your Art Blog Traffic with Simple Pinterest SEO
Create A Gift Idea Page For Your Website
Make it easy for your audience to find the perfect gift on your artist's website.
You can create a category or subcategory that will link to posts you have written about the perfect gift.
Related Post:
How to Create a WordPress Category
Some Post examples might be:
- Gift ideas for...
- Bestselling art
- New artwork
- Bestselling art prints
Mobile Responsive Website
Are your artist website and art blog mobile responsive?
Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors) (Source: StackExchange)
Mobile was a big driver on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with $7 billion spent on tablets or smartphones between the two shopping holidays. (Source: CNBC)
Having a mobile responsive website is one way you can increase the odds of landing more sales this holiday season.
If your site is not responsive, take the time now to find a responsive theme.
Recommended WordPress Responsive Themes:
StudioPress Themes (affiliate link)
Update Pinterest Product Descriptions
Spend a few minutes every week to revise your Pinterest descriptions.
Use gift-specific keywords that relate to your artwork. This will help shoppers on Pinterest to find your products.
For example, "great gifts for nautical lovers" or "great gifts for horse lovers."
Host Giveaways Or Contests
This is the perfect time to give back to your loyal art collectors who have joined your email list and follow you on your social media channels.
Be creative and make it an exciting event that your followers will want to share with their friends and family.
A free tool you can use that will create viral giveaways is KingSumo.
Record Your Sales
The best way to grow your art business every year is to keep accurate records of your art marketing strategies and your art sales.
The information you gather will help you to develop better marketing strategies for next year.
Don't think that you will be able to remember what strategies worked for you next year.
It only takes a few minutes to write some keynotes that will help you to sell more art next year.
Related Resource:
Annual Art Business Review Workbook
Conclusion:
Preparing now for the holiday season will help you to increase your art sales during the busiest online shopping season.
It does not matter if you want to sell fine art online or if you want to sell art prints online, the strategies listed above will help you to increase the odds of you landing more sales this holiday season.
Don't forget to take notes so you can develop a better marketing strategy for next year.
Sell Your Art With These 10 Holiday Season Marketing Strategies Overview:
- Successful Holiday Marketing Strategies Start Wit Goals
- Create A Shipping Calendar For Your Art Collectors
- Return Policies
- Holiday Gift Ideas
- Create A Gift Board For Pinterest
- Create A Gift Idea Page For Your Website
- Mobile Responsive Website
- Update Pinterest Product Descriptions
- Host Giveaways Or Contests
- Record Your Sales
You might also be interested in:
Holiday Art Business Planner Part 1 September
Holiday Art Business Planner Part 2 October
How Artists can Prepare for the Holidays
Tips for Packaging Your Art for the Holidays
