I am desperately lacking in ways to advertise my art work. At the moment it relies almost completely on word-of-mouth, which is nice because I know the people who promote me are truly passionate about my artwork.
However, I want to reach a wider, larger audience for both my pet portrait work and the type of art I am creating as a university project - which is much more personal and experimental.
So I got researching.
Currently I have tried a small bit of self promotion with limited success. There are many websites, blogs and books with tips on advertising and I am actually going to a lecture in January with my mum on the topic but I am going to write this blog today about things I have either tried or am going to try over the next year.
Business Cards
I have got a little box of a few hundred business cards - heres a photo of them, They're pretty basic. So I'll give the first bit of advice here make batches of cards rather than bulk amounts. If you have a large assortment of work it can be tricky to summarise this with just one piece. I suggest thinking about what you are going to use your business cards for - who is going to receive them.
So either make very simple and elegant cards with quality card, or even fabric. Maybe emboss the cards with just your name, website and phone number. I consider this to be for more established artists who are getting regular shows and selling quite a large amount of work. Or an artist who has more industrial or minimalist work.
Alternatively use numerous examples of your work for a number of cards - say as an example you make equal amounts of paintings and sculptures and you want one hundred cards - get half printed with a sculpture image and the other half with a painting. You could even choose a few paintings and a few sculptures so if the cards are spread out on a table at an exhibition visitors will be able choose the card with the art they like on it.
Don't get too carried away with making business cards though - don't get too many printed out at once as if your working style changes you haven't got a surplus amount of out-of-date artwork. I can say this for sure because I have around 300 cards advertising my graphite drawings when I much prefer making oil paintings now.
Make a book
This isn't to give out to potential customers like business cards but it is helpful to put in waiting rooms and on coffee tables with places you have a good relationship with. These don't need to be specifically "arty" places either. I'm considering making one to see whether my dentist would put it in their waiting room - they are animal mad and are close family friends. But it could be a cafe, restaurant, hairdressers - I could potentially have one in my parents waiting room of their business, since I have also made most of the artwork currently on their walls and could include this in my book.
rightbrainrockstar.com has a blog on the topic but I think he links to an American book making website, here's a link for UK version.
These books are also something you could sell, I haven't ordered one so I can't say what kind of quality they have but I'm sure it isn't bad. I'm particularly interested in this because in my second year at university I bound and hand printed my own book.
Start a Blog/Website and keep it up to date
This is important not because it raises your google rating (which it does) but because when someone takes your business card, or reads your book in a waiting room and they visit your website to learn more they want to see a nice easy to understand website.
My website is admittedly not that up to date, and I would be more willing to direct people to this blog but that is because I am not entirely happy with the website maker I made my site on, it's quite glitchy and complicated on some issues and too limited on others - although it is free for a year and does the job until I want to splash out for an expensive site. I am going to buy the web-address and make the site from scratch I think.
Visual Art Trader gives you your own artist website when you join so this is also a really good option for any artist unless you want a personalised URL like mine.
The only other issue with your website is that the general public won't stumble onto your website through google - and if they do you can't guarantee they want to buy your work. So you need another form of promotion to direct traffic to your website.
Another really good method to gain fans and perhaps even customers is through social media like facebook or twitter. Facebook is basically an online version of word-of-mouth promotion. If one friend likes your work all their friends can see it so you have a huge potential audience. It allows you to engage with your audience rather than having a one way conversation like on this blog. Questions and answers can go both ways on social media.
See my previous post on ways to make your facebook page stand out from the crowd. Or this one by rightbrainrockstar (again I know, but that site is just so useful) on artist websites.
Enter Art Competitions
Late October I started researching art competitions to enter and was disappointed to find most 2012 deadlines were in early November so I am going to start entering and making note of ones to enter early next year.
The best one (in my opinion) is the RA Summer Exhibition. My friend from my foundation course got a sculpture piece accepted and it just seems like good fun as well as good exposure.
I have an ever growing list of competitions to enter here. I will then post photos of my entries and how I do in them.
Connect with Artists
This is related to all the other tips in this post. Like artists pages on facebook, link their websites on twitter and comment on artwork you like. These relations are nice but can also be useful, if the artists work is similar to you in anyway you can use them as examples to learn from.
Speaking of which heres mine.
You can emulate successful artists and also connect with artists in a similar position to you to help you price your art, join communities or find galleries that like the kind of work you produce.
Other Reading
I will update this as I find other useful websites on promotion.
16 ways to get your art noticed
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