Art Online
Selling art online can be somewhat of a misnomer if you don't know where or how to start. But at the same time, it can seem quite simple - find a good auction or sales site, post your art and hope for the best? You never know, you might get lucky!
What I'd like to share with you are some strategies that will not only help you to sell your art online, but also enable you to sell your art online over and over again.
Now, don't think that I'm completely discounting online auctions and sales sites, these can be an incredibly useful tool. However, in order to regularly and successfully sell your art online consider the following 5 steps:
1. Commit to Selling Your Art
This is one thing that a lot of hobbiest artists don't fully consider - do you really want to sell your art? Selling your art online can be a bit more of an emotional process than you may have initially considered. What I mean by this is when you're so close to your art you may struggle to actually part with it for money.
Before you commit to selling your art online, consider that you are ready and completely prepared for the sale of your particular pieces of art. If you're not, you may find that you have either priced yourself out of the market or turning down reasonable offers giving vague reasons. Nothing can be more frustrating for potential buyers and this can seriously impact your chances for future sales of your art online.
On the other hand, if you are completely committed to selling your art online, then you will be a much more appealing artist and salesperson to deal with. A lot of your sales success will depend on your ability to rationally evaluate the place of your art in the online market.
2. Create a Consistent Portfolio
The best way to start out selling your art online is with a complementary and consistent portfolio of work. I would highly advise against starting out selling only one piece of your art online. Instead put together a collection of 10 to 15 pieces all of which are centered around a common theme or central approach.
This is something a lot of beginner artists do not consider when it comes to selling their art online. Take the opportunity to present your art online as a complete portfolio of works, one that represents the core of your approach or inspirations in art. This way your potential buyers immediately get a glimps into yourself as an artist and the range of work you have to offer.
Now, don't think that I'm completely discounting online auctions and sales sites, these can be an incredibly useful tool. However, in order to regularly and successfully sell your art online consider the following 5 steps:
1. Commit to Selling Your Art
This is one thing that a lot of hobbiest artists don't fully consider - do you really want to sell your art? Selling your art online can be a bit more of an emotional process than you may have initially considered. What I mean by this is when you're so close to your art you may struggle to actually part with it for money.
Before you commit to selling your art online, consider that you are ready and completely prepared for the sale of your particular pieces of art. If you're not, you may find that you have either priced yourself out of the market or turning down reasonable offers giving vague reasons. Nothing can be more frustrating for potential buyers and this can seriously impact your chances for future sales of your art online.
On the other hand, if you are completely committed to selling your art online, then you will be a much more appealing artist and salesperson to deal with. A lot of your sales success will depend on your ability to rationally evaluate the place of your art in the online market.
2. Create a Consistent Portfolio
The best way to start out selling your art online is with a complementary and consistent portfolio of work. I would highly advise against starting out selling only one piece of your art online. Instead put together a collection of 10 to 15 pieces all of which are centered around a common theme or central approach.
This is something a lot of beginner artists do not consider when it comes to selling their art online. Take the opportunity to present your art online as a complete portfolio of works, one that represents the core of your approach or inspirations in art. This way your potential buyers immediately get a glimps into yourself as an artist and the range of work you have to offer.
3. Keep Your Sales Page(s) and Copy ProfessionalAs an artist I have no doubt that you will be able to write sheets and sheets of information on your art, what your inspirations were etc. While this is all very interesting and inspiring, keep it to a minimum when marketing your art online. You want to give just enough insight to entice potential customers, but don't give everything away.
Keep your blurbs short and professional. Offer a snippet of information on the piece, yourself as an artist and specific details of the art work. No more, no less. If you feel your customers need more information on you and your art online, then direct them to your artist website (see next tip).
It should also go without saying that you need to always have professional high quality photos of your art online. Selling your art online becomes so much more successful when your able to represent your art work as closely as possible online. You need to be able to sell your work through these digital images so extra investment here will never go astray.
4. Create a Separate Artist Website
One of the best marketing tools you can have to sell your art online is your own dedicated artist website. Personally, I'd recommend using this space to present your work and information on yourself - don't try to sell on this site. There are right and wrong places to try to sell your art online.
This dedicated artist website should be established as an information only forum, of course you can direct people as to where you can buy your art, but don't try to blatantly sell. You should keep a sleek and professional approach, and invest in adding some good gallery pages to best present your work.
This doesn't have to be a costly exercise, it's very inexpensive to create and host your own website these days. Or you can even convert a simple blog site (such as wordpress) into a dedicated artist website to present your art online.
5. Sell Your Art Online
Before you actually get to the point of promoting and selling your art online, it's essential you ensure you have completely considered and actioned the first four steps outlined above. To be quite honest with you, anyone can put up a piece of art online to sell. In order to really separate yourself from the rest, you need a well thought out and established artist presence online.
There are a number of sites like eBay or Amazon where you can promote and sell your work yourself, there are also a lot of independent sites that will promote and sell your art online for a commission. If you're looking to start out selling low priced art online, I'd recommend using the generic sites like eBay initially. However, if you're looking to sell higher priced, more exclusive pieces, you'd be better off to seek out well established commission sites.
Initially reasearching and looking at what other artists are doing will give you a good idea of how you can best price and advertise your work. Keep an eye on what other artists pieces are selling for, how long they're taking to sell and what price points seem to sell the best online.
In order to start out selling your art online may take a bit of trial and error. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you don't give up! It can be quite discouraging having a piece of art online for sale for a couple of months, but as long as you continue to work at it, speak with potential customers, you will find a successful marketing mix to work for you.
The Thriving Artist Review
Learning to sell and market your art should be an ongoing process, especially when your looking to sell your art online.
The Thriving Artist is such a course that is designed to teach you all of the art marketing skills you never learned at art school (but probably should have!). By integrating both online and offline art sales and art marketing techniques and including idea generating strategies that will enable you to create profitable series of art works time and again - you too can be the successful artist you always knew you could be.
There really is nothing more satisfying than being able to sell your art in order to make your living doing what it is you love most. That in itself is a true blessing all artists must behold!
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