If you’re looking for types of art marketing you could try, or art marketing examples that can bring long-term success for you as a creator, this is the article for you.
What is art marketing (really)?
Art marketing is everything you do to promote and sell your art.
It includes:
- making people aware of your products and
- positioning them in a way that’s favourable to them,
- so they would be engaged enough to make a purchase,
- and hopefully, become repeat customers, too.
The keyword is PERCEPTION.
Whatever art marketing tactic, tool, platform, strategy you use or partnership you may dive into, everything boils down to perception.
Your aim should be to influence people’s perception of what you make and make them see (not trick) that your art is what they’ve been looking for.
Let’s see how successful creators do this themselves in various art fields—here are 14 art marketing tips from professional artists: illustrators Cristina Gómez, Rebeka Rajnai, and Dais Scott-Bennett, ceramicist AJ Simpson, and ceramic artist and illustrator Kness.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Show your true identity and recognisable style for authenticity
- Have your own website to keep control (and money)
- Use SEO for free, organic traffic
- Run a newsletter to keep a loyal following
- Manage social media smartly to be consistent & stay sane
- Do giveaways to grow your online community
- Establish partnerships to reach new audiences
- Create a course to spread knowledge and further your brand
- Attend events and art markets for extra (special) opportunities
- Work with galleries to connect with their visitors and buyers
- Aim for balance and control of platforms to avoid risks
- Invest in functional design for product variety
- Learn what it takes to convert people into buyers
- Diversify your income channels for financial stability
1. Show your true identity and recognisable style to build an authentic brand
Authenticity is everything. People will resonate with you if you show your true self in the digital world, too, and if they recognise your style of work across platforms, you have the full package to win this art marketing thing.
Honestly, you can do anything in art marketing, but if you come off in a dishonest way, you’ll turn potential customers away. Just like how your art pieces are unique, trust that your unique personality can win people over, too.
By the way, when I’m talking about showing and sharing yourself, know that I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to “show your face” on social media if you don’t want to. There are ways to connect with people in other ways. For instance, you can do voice-over videos instead of “talking head” videos where your face is visible.
Don’t push yourself into any framework, tactic, or method out there for the sake of being successful at art marketing if it doesn’t feel right. People will notice, just like how they will notice you having good vibes and feeling comfortable. Find a way for the latter.
“I think that the best promotion you can do is to be yourself and show who you are, because people can resonate with you. For example, I used to be a graphic designer but decided to become an illustrator because of my mental health. People can resonate with that. They will probably start following your work and connect with you in some ways. If you are a false person, people will reject you. If I started marketing myself as a superstar illustrator with a big office and lots of projects and talking about making huge amounts of money every month, it would be difficult to resonate with me.”
“I always tried to establish a kind and easily recognizable style and atmosphere when it comes to my illustrations. It was really important for me from the very beginning to take my online presence seriously. The way you present your creations and your “persona” on social media as an artist is crucial, and I recognized this very early.”
“Use social media like a portfolio, but try to give a peek behind the scenes, and include your personal life a little bit. I mean it’s up to the brand you are building, but people love to get to know the person behind the camera and art, love to get in touch, and are more likely to commission someone with whom they have a connection. You can build a lovely community!”
“Having a very specific identity in what I make, and having that consistency through my designs, really helped build my brand. This means that I have very recognizable pieces, so if you saw one of my pieces out of context, then you’d know where it’s from, which is something I really like about my work.”
2. Have your own website to keep control (and money)
Even if you’re a beginner artist, I would advise you to start your own website and webshop. Opening a store on an e-commerce website and launching your first products is not necessarily less expensive than putting up your own site. Nowadays, there’s not much truth anymore in saying that it’s easier or cheaper to test your products and whether people are interested in them on third-party marketplaces.
Buy a domain, connect that to your website, and create your store there. Then, start using and managing another platform (a social channel is fine for that purpose) to send people over there.
There’s no need to share your profits with a third-party seller if you don’t absolutely have to. Making it in the creative markets is complex on its own; don’t let others rob you of your hard-earned money.
“[What helped was] setting up my own website, rather than selling through a third-party seller like Etsy. I know that many people are not in a position where they can have their own website yet, but I find that really helpful in growing my following because people have a place to go where they can find what they’re looking for from me.”
“I tried Etsy at the start of my career, and I wrote a whole blog post series about this experience and why I turned to having my own webshop. Etsy has definitely changed a lot in the past 10-15 years, and the changes are not favoring artists…” [In her blog posts, Kness says that Etsy is expensive, doesn’t provide enough traffic, and overall exploits creators, instead of supporting them in their careers.]
3. Use SEO for free, organic traffic
I’m a huge fan of SEO, or search engine optimization, and an absolute fan of creators who utilise it. We have a free course for creators who want to learn the basics of SEO—make sure to check that out. But, in short, SEO is about making sure that you appear in a good position in search. It helps to get more people to find you online and click through to your website and webshop, which improves your chances of selling.
As Kness mentions below, the search landscape is not like it used to be, and even though that’s the case for any platform, SEO keeps its throne as a free, organic set of marketing tactics that you can use to bring traffic to your website and boost your overall art marketing success.
“I used to build my audience with SEO, but the invasion of AI-scrapped content has really muddied the waters here. [But], nowadays, I focus on SEO still. It’s important, and I’m still hopeful that AI will somehow get out of the way. Quality content written by humans is essential.”
4. Run a newsletter to keep a loyal following
Just like having your own website, a newsletter, or email list is something you control and allows you to manage the contact information of people who are interested in your work (as opposed to social media followers).
Start building your newsletter base from day one, as it is one of those channels that takes time to grow, but it also provides lasting results. After all, somebody who willingly subscribes to receiving emails from you in their sacred inbox is immediately more engaged than somebody giving a like on a post.
If you want, you can provide little perks to subscribers—just make sure to promise a gift that is fitting for your audience. Sometimes, though, simply saying that subscribing is the way to keep up-to-date with you and receiving early news of new products is enough.
“I also have an email subscription on my website so I can send emails out to people, specifically when I have something going up for sale, and I know that the people who are subscribed to my emails are interested and want to actively look for my things to buy.”
“I don’t want to completely overload people’s inboxes with information, and then have them miss the ones that are truly important, like when I’ve got something to say about a market where I’ll be and want people to attend, [or] a sale coming up on my website. So I don’t have a regular schedule for sending out newsletters, I just use it when I have information to share, whereas I use my Instagram, for instance, more casually. There, I try and post more regularly.”
“I think it’s good that I made it immediately clear on my website that if you want an update on when my shop uploads are going to be, then subscribe to my emails. So I know that the people who are subscribed are interested in hearing the information that I’m going to be sending to them. This also means I don’t get a lot of people unsubscribing, which is quite good.”
“The most important thing I work on is my e-mail list: it’s the best way to keep a loyal following. I send a weekly-ish email to my list. It’s often sale-related because I have one monthly release of new work, so before, during and after the drop, it’s mostly stuff like, ‘Hey, I’m going to have a new drop’ or ‘Hi, new drop is here’, and ‘Thank you for buying my cute little things’. Besides that, I often share studio news. I love to send emails, although it’s always a bit intimidating for some reason. At the same time, I love it when people hit reply and tell me that they really enjoy the emails.”
“I build my email list all the time. There’s a monthly free phone background when you subscribe, and there’s a little coloring calendar, too. I try and offer little perks from time to time to promote it and also make my subscribers feel super special because they are!”
5. Manage social media smartly to be consistent & stay sane
With so many social media platforms out there, you need to be smart about picking the one or a few that will work well for you. Put in the research, start testing, and when you have the right mix of channels, try to stay consistent with sharing content.
Most importantly, remember: It’s not about posting every day. It’s about posting consistently, whether that’s once a week or even bi-weekly in the beginning until you set foot in the digital landscape.
“You can make the most amazing and beautiful things, but if nobody sees them, then you won’t have anybody to sell them to. It’s underappreciated how much work goes into it by the way: the “showing” part. I’ve done a lot of work over the last few months to try and make it a bit easier for myself to manage my social media because I do enjoy making videos, editing, and uploading them, but I also have to make the time for it because otherwise it would never be done and I’d be busy doing other things.”
“I did a lot of research, looking at other creators and their social media profiles, what they were posting, the frequency, the color palettes, and the hashtags they were using… Then, I tried to be true to my own style of posting, and I think that consistency keeps people coming back because people who are generally and genuinely interested in that will come back as they’re expecting it.”
“I try and keep it colorful because that’s what I like to see myself, too. I put a chunk of information on there that I want to tell people, but you don’t necessarily have to read it to understand the post, though. That’s because I’m also one of those people who quite often can’t be bothered reading loads of text and a million hashtags when I’m scrolling.
I’m trying to think of if someone was searching for something and wanted to find my work, what might be the things they search for: colorful ceramics, character design, or creature ornaments. I guess their ideas, and include those in the post. After all, it’s good to be able to experiment with it and see what gets more interaction and what gets less interaction, too.
But, the most important part is to just try and enjoy it because I think people respond to that, and they can see that in your work if you’re enjoying posting about it. People can sense that. I try and do things that are fun for me and hopefully, it’s fun for other people as well.”
“My Instagram is probably what drives my sales the most, though, because it makes my work visible. It also keeps people up-to-date when they see a post about me working on something, so they know that I’ll maybe have something up for sale in the next few months, and they’ll keep an eye on my website to see when they’re available.”
“On YouTube, I can show the process of a drawing, and on Instagram, the final drawing. I believe that my audience is there mainly because I post regularly… [and] I simply post an illustration or do a drawing challenge where a lot of people share their work related to mine, as they participate.”
6. Do giveaways to grow your online community
Whether you do giveaways on your own or in collaboration with a brand partner, there’s always the chance to expand your following with that promotional activity.
While simply growing your numbers is not the goal in the sense that you don’t just need random platform users only interested in a prize, the more people you reach, the bigger opportunity you’ll likely have to earn some true fans and potential buyers, too. Those people will surely stick around in the long run.
“I do giveaways through brand collaboration. With XPPen, for instance, people could win a tablet if they participated in a drawing contest. The brands I partner with share my work and give me exposure as their followers see what I do on my profiles. I can reach more people this way.”
7. Establish partnerships to reach new audiences
When you partner with a brand or another creator, you’ll tap into new audience groups. A good partnership is one where your audiences’ interests overlap to begin with, and then, you’ll find yourselves in a win-win situation where both of you can reach people you haven’t before.
Nowadays, reaching new audiences is getting harder and harder, especially on social media, so when you have the chance to collaborate with a company or perhaps a fellow creator with values and interests similar to yours, getting access to their followers is the jackpot.
And all this besides enjoying the merits of a creative partnership.
“I partnered with Esk Valley Lampshades. Odette Illingworth, who’s behind the company, messaged me on Instagram after The Great Pottery Throwdown [the TV show where potters compete to win] came out and asked if I would be interested in collaborating. I said yes, that’d be awesome. We had emails back and forth for a few months, which then turned into over a year because I was busy. We were sending measurements back and forth, she sent me some samples, and I sent her pictures and progress photos. It was a full-on teamwork to make these blamps, and I just adore them.”
8. Create a course to spread knowledge and further your brand
Illustrator Cristina Gómez was approached by Domestika to do a course, but you should know that you can always apply yourself to launch your own course. So far, nearly 5000 people have taken her course, and while the target audience there is mostly made up of other illustrators or people who want to learn how to illustrate, having a popular course makes her brand even more appealing. It communicates success and expertise to potential buyers, as well.
As for Cristina, she also gained new marketing and sales knowledge along the way that she uses to further her creative business.
“I joined Domestika [one of the largest creative communities with online courses], where other illustrators teach you how to manage your own business. I also learned more about the business side of illustration and how I can apply marketing techniques for commissions, like cross-selling and up-selling. So now, if you want, you can have an illustration framed, which brings in extra money for me from the same commission.”
9. Attend events and art markets for extra (special) opportunities
With all the digital craze we live in, it’s easy to forget offline art marketing tactics, such as events and art markets. You can meet different people there than in the digital space, and also meet fellow artists, which will strengthen your belief that the power of creator communities is something you can certainly benefit from.
Testing is something you can do with offline sales opportunities, too. Some artists become regulars at certain events, while others do one or two market appearances a year, and others come to the conclusion that digital marketing is what works best for them instead.
If you need some pointers for trying your luck at cafés and art markets, read our guide to selling your art locally.
“I love doing events. I think they’re so much fun, and it’s so great to speak to people in person and interact with your customer base in a way that’s not an email or a comment online. I find that really rewarding.
When it comes to sales, I can’t say I’ve noticed a huge difference. If I had to pick, I’d say that I have more sales online, and it’s a lot steadier there because I have a much larger audience that I’m selling to versus the amount of people who can make it to an in-person market. But I think that’s just because you have a smaller pool of people at an event, even though you also do get a lot of returning customers. I do a Christmas market in my art studio every year, and I usually see many of the same customers every year who will come back and chat with me and buy a few things, and that’s always really nice.
I’m still trying to find a balance of how many in-person markets I should do, versus online selling. It depends on everyone’s practice, too. I know a lot of potters who have a lot more success in person than they do online, and so they arrange for and sort of plan their markets through the year according to that. But for me, I find that online is a bit more successful, and overall, it’s definitely worth doing both online selling and the markets, if you can.”
10. Work with galleries to connect with their visitors and buyers
The art world has become a lot more democratic than ever before, and while it may be difficult to get into the high-level institutions, you can always think local and reach out to the galleries and museums in your own city and near you.
Upon sharing your portfolio with them, you might be presented with the opportunity to participate in an exhibit or to sell your work in the gift shop next to other local artists.
Don’t think you’re not allowed to connect with these intuitions. Supporting artists is literally in their job descriptions. You’re one of them. So.. go!
“It’s a good thing as an artist to be in a gallery even if you’re not making as good of money as you can in other places, because you’re being seen by some really interesting people, or you’re doing a lot larger volume in sales and then you’re getting commissions through that.”
“At the moment, I do a lot of my business selling through galleries. They let me know when they need more stock, and I send them a batch, which works really well with how I have to process my prints because I need some time to finish each print.”
“I contact them, or sometimes you get galleries that reach out to you and want to stock your art. I really like being in galleries, but it’s tricky, getting the confidence to ask them. I have been rejected so many times, but it’s just one of those things that is okay anyways. Sometimes you’re ignored. Sometimes they miss you. But when you message a really nice gallery that you want to be in, and they say yes, you feel very validated.”
“To other creators and particularly people starting out, I’d just say, don’t be afraid to ask because galleries want interesting people, and now more and more particularly, in my experience. I find there are more and more galleries that work with real local artists, which is really nice, and these types of galleries are always really great to work with.”
“[In the galleries], I’m more in the gift shop range. They have my prints, cards, and a few of my original art, as well. They’re responsible for selling it, and then I receive my commission—the amount I get really varies depending on the gallery. Some of them do well selling prints, others focus on smaller sales like cards, and those few are better at selling originals. It can happen that you don’t hear anything in ages, and then an original is sold. But because of this strange timeframe, you have to balance it all out.”
11. Aim for balance and control of platforms to avoid risks
You don’t need to overwork yourself and do everything to cater to algorithms. This is a complex subject, of course, but for now, let me highlight that in the long run, what you need is to balance your channel mix and make sure you have control over the platforms you use.
Balance means picking the channels that feel comfortable and managing them in a way that won’t exhaust you.
Don’t use TikTok because “everybody does”. Don’t post daily because “everybody does”. Use TikTok if you think you can create content that would fit there well and content you feel comfortable making.
And as mentioned, if you post once a week but keep it consistent, that means you’re winning. Why would you try to post daily and get overtired, then tap out before making lasting results? Don’t do that, please. We don’t need another burnt-out artist struggling in the trenhes of art block.
In addition, after settling into your creator business, try to avoid platform risk and invest in platforms (at least one) where you have ownership over your relationships with your fans, community, and existing or potential buyers. I.e., don’t just have an Instagram account where you’re not actually granted (true) access to followers.
“For somebody who is only starting out, it’s okay to pick one channel as a focus point, but try to be present on other channels as soon as possible, too, because if one of them fails or is flopping at the moment, they will still have followers somewhere else, too. Just pay attention to the fact that the different channels work differently.
“I learned to think ahead and to try to be smart when working and doing many things at the same time. I know I need to record most of my drawing processes because they may be necessary for a piece of content for a certain platform later, whether that’s Patreon or YouTube.”
“You can earn money from private commissions. You can have your own webshop. You can create courses. You can do more than one thing, but at the same time, don’t do everything; it’s impossible — focus on a few things. For instance, if you like to teach, you can open a Patreon or a Ko-fi account and start sharing your tutorials. You have to figure out which channels are the ones that you feel comfortable with.”
“I’m trying to develop my newsletter and my website—these are the platforms that are not affected by any algorithms and are entirely my own. For instance, my Instagram profile can be gone in a minute for various reasons, so it’s really important to have some other online venues where your clients, customers, and followers can find you and your work.”
“Overall, I don’t have that many platforms that I’m on. I think I could definitely be on more, but you have to balance how much time you spend on your social media and how much time you spend on your work. I’ve heard it described as having two full-time jobs: managing your social media, and managing your actual work.”
“I also work a lot on social media and I use several of them, because as we all witnessed, one can disappear in an instant with your hard-won following.”
“I do have a plan for e-mails, but the rest is mostly dependent on how I feel and what I have in stock vs. what I need to sell and my monthly income goal. I post daily-ish on socials, less on Twitter now because of we-know-what, and more on Bluesky, Instagram, and Tumblr. Ko-Fi, I find it harder to post on regularly.”
12. Invest in functional design for product variety
If your art medium allows it, try creating functional design pieces as an extension of your original artworks. Digital illustrators often sell prints of their works, while those working on paper can also branch out into other fields, such as putting their designs on physical objects like mugs.
For most creators, this is a matter of testing and trial and error. What might work for someone may not work for you. Sometimes there’s no way to find logical explanations either, like why mugs sell but coasters don’t. The important thing is for you to test the waters and stick to what’s worth it.
If you’re interested, read this article about making and selling prints, and read this one about comparing print-on-demand services, if you want to go down that route.
“I’ve got the coasters and charms still selling, too. I’m working on the pillowcases. What I found is that I just need to make more stock and have more stock to send out or to list easily on my website. I know I need to create more physical products.”
“I used to do mugs as well, and I want to make more of them because they are nice, particularly for people who cannot afford a piece of art but could afford a piece of art that’s functional, so the mugs would be a kind of good way to access those individuals. Also, I’m trying to do these things in a way that’s ethical and doesn’t consume too many resources, and it’s local.”
13. Learn what it takes to convert people into buyers
While testing the waters in art marketing, it’s best to learn that people rarely buy something on the first “meeting”, whether they see it in an Instagram post or circle your booth at an art market.
Sure, there is what we call instant purchase, but usually, people need to be exposed to a product several times before actually buying it. This is true about art, too, if not more. After all, people are more likely to buy a new vacuum cleaner after the old one breaks than to purchase a new print for their wall. (Of course, there are exceptions, always. You do you!)
The point is, you need to remember that you can and should share the same artwork multiple times on your channels and employ art marketing tactics, like giveaways, that will help your visibility even more.
“In the illustration business, we reach our customers first with our work, and if they like it, they will start following you, then after a few weeks or months, they may decide to support your work on Patreon or share or buy your work. It’s not just a simple ‘I’m offering this, buy it’. It takes a lot of time to convert people from strangers to followers or subscribers and then customers. Activities, like giveaways, can speed up the process of growing an audience.”
14. Diversify your income channels for financial stability
As part of art marketing, you need to diversify your platforms and income channels. Apart from the very beginnings of your art career, later on, it’s not advisable to put all your eggs in one basket.
As creators often point out in our interviews, they are present on more than one platform, to make sure that at least one will provide some income from month to month, and that there’s always some passive income to rely on even in the hardest times.
“I like to say that an illustrator must have an active and passive income. For example, make brushes, sell digital prints, and sell digital products. Do something that you only need to do once and keep receiving money for it continuously. In my case, I have some brush sets that I sell that don’t make me rich, but I get some extra money from them each month. In case I don’t have that many commissions coming in from Instagram, let’s say, I can still pay the bills thanks to my other products.”
“Illustration gives me some passive income, too, and it’s not much, but it always helps (washi tape with The Washi Station, art prints with INPRNT, print-on-demand goodies with Threadless).
Read our interviews with the creators mentioned in this article:
- Illustrator Cristina Gómez: “Lose the fear of sharing your work”— Part 1
- Illustrator Cristina Gómez: “An illustrator must have an active and passive income” — Part 2
- Illustrator Rebeka Rajnai: “I can’t imagine my life without creating something, I need to make pretty things”
- Ceramicist AJ Simpson: “Bubbly, bright, happy, expressive ceramics is a really cool thing to be associated with” — Part 1
- Ceramicist AJ Simpson: “The fear of failing is all about pushing through and doing it anyway” — Part 2
- Illustrator Dais Scott-Bennett: “I’m trying to combine science and art, it’s what I’m about”
- Ceramic artist Kness: “I draw inspiration from the unending well of cuteness around me”
Featured image by Diego PH
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