If you’ve ever wondered how to sell your art on Instagram, there are some critical things you need to consider. Choosing your niche and finding your audience will help you discover how to market more effectively. When you’re looking to create a sustainable business, it’s essential to learn which tactics work for your type of art and which ones don’t. Thorough market research will keep you from wasting time targeting the wrong audience and missing out on sales.
It’s almost the beginning of 2022.
Over 1 billion people use Instagram each month.
Artists from around the world are reaching experienced collectors with their cleverly branded accounts.
Are you?
If you’ve ever tried to sell and market your art on Instagram but didn’t have a clue about what to do, this article is for you.
Art marketing isn’t rocket science, although, at times, it may feel like it.
Plenty of artists have followed in your frustrated footsteps.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tips and tools to help you succeed on Instagram.
Are you ready to sell more art?
Let’s begin.
Before we get started, there are a few things we need to cover.
Conduct Audience Research
Unfortunately, creating a beautiful artist Instagram feed isn’t enough to help you sell your art.
To have a better chance at success, you’ll need to discover whether your audience buys art on Instagram.
Many artists whose brilliant conceptual work sells best in blue-chip galleries don’t translate into instant Instagram sales.
If you relate to this situation, you’re not alone.
Beware of clever art marketing programs that confidently proclaim that all marketing tactics work for every artist.
They don’t.
The type and style of your artwork will determine how you plan your marketing activities.
Every marketing strategy for selling art on the internet should center around thorough market research.
Here are some things you need to consider before you sell your art online:
- Is there a market for your art?
- Can you create a sustainable business by selling your artwork?
- What type of medium do you use? Is it in demand?
- Have you created SMART goals for your brand?
- What is the standard price to charge for your artwork?
- Have you created a comprehensive marketing plan for your business?
- A thorough one helps you decide how and when to run sales, promotions, or special offers. Posting strategically and purposefully enables you to achieve your goals as you cross-promote your art on different platforms.
Finding A Market For Your Work
Building a business blindly without understanding the elements you’ll need to create a successful brand is a recipe for confusion and disaster.
No one likes to find out that the artwork they spent hours or weeks creating will never find a home with an appreciative client.
It hurts your ego, soul, and pocketbook to market to the wrong audience.
I’ve been there; I understand your pain.
How can you avoid this common predicament?
Before you set up an account on a dozen platforms or pay for an expensive website, you need to see if enough people are searching for your type of art online.
One way to do this is to visit Google Trends.
Type the search term that best describes your artwork.
At first, you’ll l want to use a broad keyword to gauge the general popularity of your work or medium.
Here, I added abstract paintings.
When you press return, you’ll arrive on a page with a chart labeled Interest over time.
Above this chart, you’ll see a menu containing four categories: Country, Past 12 Months, All categories, and Web Search.
In this example, I’ve chosen the United States for the first category.
To see the results for each country, click the downward pointing arrow.
Next to your country, click the downward pointing arrow and select Past five years.
Here you can view how popular the general search term that best describes your artwork has been over time.
As you can see, people have maintained a steady interest in abstract painting with subtle variations depending on the year and month.
You will need this critical information to figure out if your art business is indeed sustainable.
So far, from the data provided, we can conclude that several individuals still search for abstract paintings.
Run your cursor over the points on the blue graph.
The number you see in the search results will show you the popularity of your art keyword over months for each specific year.
Now click All categories and select Arts & Entertainment.
It will show you the popularity in the Arts & Entertainment industry compared to other trades.
After this, head over to the category titled Web Search.
Web Search shows you how often people search for your art keyword each year and month.
If you click the arrow next to Web Search, you’ll see a drop-down window with the following subcategories: Image Search, News Search, Google Shopping, and YouTube Search.
The results from these different search options will help you decide how to adjust your brand marketing plan on varied platforms.
Under this chart, you’ll notice a table titled Subregion.
This table will show you the popularity by region for your art keyword.
Here we can see that most web searches for abstract paintings over time come from the southeastern states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Across all industries, the majority of searches come from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Iowa.
These results will differ depending on whether your search is worldwide or by country.
Below this table are two small tables, Related topics, and Related queries.
The Related topics table shows you topics people search for that are related to your art keyword.
It also has two subcategories: Top and Rising.
The Top subcategory shows you the most popular topics with values ranging on a scale of 0 to 100.
The Rising subcategory reveals related topics with the maximum increase in the number of searches performed since the last search period recorded on the chart above.
When Google Trends gives a keyword the Breakout label, it indicates a sudden increase in search traffic for this term in a short amount of time.
The Related queries table shows you the most common queries of people searching for your term as well.
From the example provided, you can easily see that abstract paintings are a viable option for starting an art business.
However, to find out if your particular type of abstract paintings has a chance of selling, you must narrow down your search.
After this stage, it’s time to visit Ubersuggest keyword research software.
Here, you’ll conduct a more detailed search by gradually using more specific keywords to describe your art medium and genre.
Type in a more specific art-related keyword in the search window provided.
For this example, we’ll use abstract paintings in acrylic.
As you can see from the Keyword Overview section below, it has an average of 6,600 searches per month.
The Keyword Overview shows your keyword popularity and profitability.
While there is not an enormous amount of traffic generated by this long-tail keyword phrase, the results are enough to indicate you could form a small business from your art efforts.
However, you’ll have to take into account popular art print-on-demand sites.
Your small business can’t compete with these commercial companies or their ad budgets, but there are three things you can do immediately to increase your chances of being found online:
- Find profitable keywords to help you improve your website ranking.
Make sure these keywords are medium to low competition keywords. You won’t rank for high competition keywords unless you have the right amount of backlinks and a fat ads budget. Most artists don’t.
- Join art sites whose clientele have a bigger budget to spend on art.
If you’ve not yet attracted collectors, you can join Fine Art America or Great Big Canvas to have a more prominent presence on the internet. When you’ve acquired a following or have a small collector base, you can apply to be featured on sites such as Singulart or UGallery to increase your exposure beyond your artist website.
- Submit your work to popular websites that feature fine art, illustration, or digital art.
Sites like Hi-fructose, Juxtapose, and My Modern Met feature artists every month. It’s a great way to help people find your site and acquire valuable SEO backlinks.
Create A Sustainable Business Selling Your Artwork
Not everyone can make a sustainable/lasting business on the internet based on the type of art they choose to create.
Sometimes, images of your work don’t transfer well online, and people need to see your work in person to develop full appreciation.
If you’re not producing commercial art, decorator art(modern/semi-abstract landscapes, abstracts, animals, seascapes, wildlife, Impressionistic landscapes, and nudes), or illustration, your work might not sell as fast. The exception to this rule is in the case of crypto art such as NFTs or Pop Art.
Do you produce conceptual art? Then I recommend you find your audience before you create your online presence. Sure there are some outliers(people who’ve had the perfect combination of luck, skill, connections, and keen business sense), but they’re the exception.
Pay attention to the style and type of artwork you create. Let it guide your marketing efforts. Don’t guess or assume marketing strategies for one kind of artwork will work for everyone.
That is why it’s crucial to study the successful marketing strategies of artists producing similar artwork.
Visit their website and social media accounts. Study what they’re doing well and how they connect with their audience? Which areas could they improve?
Taking all these factors into consideration will help steer you in a more profitable, less frustrating direction.
Is Your Art Medium In Demand?
Another crucial step in determining the marketability of your brand of artwork is to discover the level of demand for your chosen art medium. If you produce acrylic or oil paintings, you’ll have a better chance of selling your artwork than people that sell photography. I’m not saying if you’re a photographer, you can’t sell your work. However, if your work is not commercial photography(wedding, infant/family/portrait, product, landscape, fashion, or journalism), establish an audience before you market online. You’ll need to find an alternative marketing strategy and appropriate platform to sell your images.
When it comes to certain types of digital art, it all depends on where and how you sell your work. For instance, many digital illustrators pitch or submit their work to agencies, advertising firms, companies, and publications. If your style is popular and you have a strong portfolio, you can make a decent living.
Artists with experience using 3D software like Blender can find plenty of lucrative work with app developers, gaming companies, creating 3D models for products, and working on animated films.
With the rise of cryptocurrency, digital artists have more options than ever before. Non-fungible tokens (aka NFTs) are digital artworks that function as a form of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. If you choose to sell NFTs establish an understanding of cryptocurrency and how it works.
Pricing Your Artwork
When you’re ready to price your art make sure you examine the following tips:
- Labor
How much time or effort does it take to create your work? What will you charge per hour?
- Materials
What is the cost of the materials you are using to create the work? Did you use specific software or paint to produce your art? Add that to your expenses.
- Overhead
Where did you create your art? Do you rent a studio, work from a home studio, shop, or home office? Combine this with the overall cost.
- Size
Yes, size matters. Charge by square inch if it’s a physical artwork, by file size if it’s a digital artwork, photograph, or hybrid of the two, such as photo manipulation.
- Shipping
To determine shipping prices, consider your city, country, or region, dimensions and size of the artwork, and combined weight and packaging price.
- Availability
Are you selling affordable prints of your original art anyone can buy? Do you plan on notifying collectors about limited editions? Will you offer original paintings, sculptures, photos, collages, ceramics, jewelry, or digital art? If your work is easily accessible to the general public for a department store price, many collectors will not consider it as valuable as your original artworks. Therefore, it’s necessary to price your work based on its ability to grow in value.
Create A Comprehensive Plan For Marketing Your Business
When you post on your website, blog, or social media, make sure you post with a purpose.
You need to understand the reason why you’re creating certain content. How does it serve your art business goals? Posting for the sake of posting is not a strategic marketing plan. Often, it is a waste of time, especially if you’re trying to sell a product or service.
That is why you must make a complete marketing strategy before you pay for a website, blog, or expensive google and social media ads.
First, you’ll want to perform audience research.
How do you do this?
Study your past customers for clues as to how to improve and personalize your latest marketing efforts.
From this valuable data, you can form buyer personas or fictional customer models based on the information you gathered about your past customers and the customers of your industry competition.
Here is a list of things to consider when building buyer personas for your unique art brand:
- Age range
How old is your average customer? Are they young, middle-aged, or mature?
- Occupation
What do your collectors do for a living? Do they share similar job titles? For example, are they all teachers, farmers, or corporate executives? Do they work in the same industry or complementary industries?
- Location
Do they live in the same region, state, or country?
- Pain points
Are they concerned about the poor quality, misrepresented color, wrong size, images, or damaged artwork?
- Interests
What are their hobbies? Do they enjoy a specific sport, food, type of movie, or other activity?
- Income
What is their average salary range?
- Language
What is their native language? Do they speak English, French, Spanish, or other languages? Do they use colloquialisms?
After you’ve created your buyer personas, you can address your tailored content strategy.
When posting on your blog or social media, use the stages of the buyer’s journey as an evergreen guide to producing premium content.
What is the buyer’s journey?
The buyer’s journey consists of the stages that a buyer goes through before making a purchase. It contains the awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage.
In the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, you create
content that makes your site or social media page visitors realize that they have a 1,000 dollar problem. This problem isn’t something that is going away any time soon. If they don’t take care of the problem soon, it could turn into a 10,000 dollar problem that will steal their joy, productivity, and peace of mind.
No one wants that!
At this stage, your main goal is to get people to subscribe to your website or blog and become marketing leads.
For your art business, awareness content would consist of the following examples:
- Website copy talking about why the world of your buyer isn’t complete without art on their walls.
- Copy, content, and emails discussing the problems they’ll run into when selecting the right art for their home, design, corporate, and advertising projects and how they can solve them.
- Content about what inspires you to produce your novel brand of art or art-based products.
Do you serve a specific community or cause with your art?
Share something appropriate about yourself that makes you seem more likable.
Maybe you’re a bit socially awkward. Perhaps you love refurbishing antique furniture. Whatever it is, your imperfectly perfect human touch is what helps you to make a connection with collectors and people newly interested in your brand.
In the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey, your potential buyer is trying to decide whether your product or service is right for them.
Your goal for the consideration stage is to convince your potential customer that your product or service is better than the competition. What do you provide that other artists don’t? You want to convert active subscribers/marketing leads into sales-qualified leads.
When you create art content for the consideration stage, make sure to include the following suggestions:
- Show how your artwork directly addresses the needs of your potential customer needs, concerns, and desires.
For instance, you could mention how you always use archival, quality materials. You may also tell them you package your artwork with the utmost care, so it always arrives in the best condition, or you’ll return their money.
- Share what makes your art original, innovative, and collectible.
What makes your art stand out from the rest of your competition? If you create animal art, what makes it different, then artwork that is already out there? Maybe you use a specific process or combination of media that other artists do not. Perhaps you approach your subject from an unconventional point of view.
Finally, in the decision stage, you can begin to focus on product pricing and sales. At this point, you’ve already defined which members of your audience are ready to leave the admiration stage and make a purchase. You want to put forth that extra effort to address the objectives and issues of your customer.
The chief goal for the decision stage is to answer all your potential concerns of your customers and make a sale.
Artwork content for the decision stage needs to incorporate these suggestions:
- Create content that answers all of your potential concerns of your buyer.
To end their worries about shipping costs, reassure them that you include shipping in the overall price of the artwork. If they’re concerned about getting the wrong size, color, or print on the wrong medium, reassure them you’ll either give them their money back or replace the incorrect or defective item for free(no shipping charges included).
- Include a hard-to-resist future incentive to entice them to make a secondary purchase
If you sell decorator or commercial art, offer them 15 to 30 percent off their next purchase. When selling fine art, let them know they’ll be one of the first to know about future collections, shows, and exhibitions.
Now you understand the basics of how to research the viability of your online market.
It’s time to learn how to sell more of your art on Instagram.
These timely tips and tricks can help move you closer to getting the sales and recognition you desire.
Create Your Artist Instagram Account
For potential clients to take you seriously, you need a professional profile.
If you don’t already have one, it’s time to set up an art page for your brand.
There are a couple of suggestions for how to do this. You can create a business page or a creator page.
So which one is best for you?
Well, it all depends on what you want to accomplish.
For artists, public figures, and influencers, Instagram recommends setting up a Creator Account in addition to your account.
However, if you’re an illustrator or designer who sells several images on T-shirts, cups, shower curtains, and other home decors, a business account will work just as well.
To learn more about how to set up your page, check out this handy tutorial by Sellfy.
Show Part Of Your Process
Believe it or not, people are intensely interested in how you create your art. Your audience is waiting for you to invite them into your unique world of art-making.
Maybe they want to watch the beginning steps of your latest liquid pour painting. Perhaps they would be thrilled to see a small section of the flowers or landscape that inspires your ethereal nature photography collection.
Whatever medium you choose, it’s never a bad idea to educate your audience about the quality, time, and effort that goes into your artwork.
However, there’s a fine line between sharing a small part of what you do and giving away the whole proprietary cake recipe.
Don’t spoil that special something that makes your art stand out from the crowd.
Stifle the urge; your career will thank you for it.
Share only enough to increase the curiosity of your audience and no more.
Here are a few tips to help move you to take action:
Instagram Slide Shows
Instagram Slide Shows are a great way to show your audience and collectors the inspiration behind your work.
For instance, if you create fine art or decorator art, you could include some slide boards showing objects, pictures, colors, and themes that help you arrive at your finished piece.
Reels
Do you ever film your preparation process for your painting, sculpture, digital art, or photography? Many artists use this method to increase curiosity and encourage viewers to ask about their work in their Instagram post comments section.
Reels are videos that you create that loop after you finish filming. Additionally, you can use the Instagram Reels feature to capture the opening of your art show or a live demo for your students.
Stories
Unlike Reels, the Stories feature is only visible to your immediate followers and lasts a mere 24 hours unless you pin your favorite images or moments as highlights to your profile.
You can use stories to create community. Invite your audience to a virtual studio visit or to join you on an art inspiration adventure.
The options are endless.
IGTV
Facebook-owned Instagram released IGTV in 2018 to allow users to include long-form YouTube-like videos over 60 seconds.
If you want to film an interview someone has done featuring you and your work, an art-based podcast, or a long tutorial, this is a great way to engage your audience and increase your exposure.
Microblog About Your Art
According to Express Writers blogging statistics, 77% of internet users visit and read blogs.
That is quite a lot of people.
Blogs help increase audience interest in products and services, and art is no exception.
While you don’t have time to write a long-form blog post every time you release new work, you can profit from a recent Instagram marketing trend, microblogging, to promote your artwork.
Photographer Brandon Stanton whose Instagram account Humans of New York has a whopping 11.3 million followers, does an excellent job of sharing the stories of the people he has photographed.
Each microblog story is compelling and invites the viewer into the world of his subjects. Their trials, tribulations, triumphs, and struggles are laid bare and easily accessible. As a consequence, viewers flock to read and engage with his account.
Humanizing each microblogging post by revealing your artistic journey helps create a connection between you and your audience and future collectors.
Since microblogging can be time-consuming and not everyone is a natural storyteller, it’s best to start with a few descriptive paragraphs and extend your story as you practice writing about your art.
If you detest writing, consider using IGTV to create a mini vlog(video log) on Instagram to share your thoughts, concerns, and motivations.
This kind of content is perfect for the awareness and consideration stages of your art marketing plan. It gives your audience a unique window into your world and helps them understand why your artistic vision improves their lives.
Post Pictures Of Your Work in Rooms
Sometimes your audience needs help to decide whether or not your brand of artwork is a perfect fit for their home, office, or collection.
They may not be able to envision your art on their walls. If this is the case, it can keep them from making a purchase.
Do not give them an excuse to leave and search for another artist.
Go to Shutterstock and pay for a royalty-free image of a room sample in the decorating style your audience loves. Then add your work to the photo using Photoshop.
If you’re on a budget, use free room images from Unsplash or Picsart.
Mockup room examples are perfect for future collectors who are in the consideration stage of buying your art.
Remember, it’s up to you to make them realize your work fulfills their needs.
Show Pictures Of Your Work In Progress
Work-in-progress posts are almost always fascinating to your viewers as they focus exclusively on the progress you’re making on a specific painting, photo, sculpture, or digital artwork. While this type of post may not be as appropriate for the awareness stage of your marketing plan, it’s perfect for your consideration stage posts.
Add An Instagram Shop
When the threat of Covid-19 entered the scene and brought many businesses to their knees, Instagram released their Shops feature. It helps you sell your artwork and related products more effectively and increases brand awareness. Your audience can visit your shop and scroll through your current collections and merchandise with ease. Now the buying process is a seamless, hassle-free experience.
Share A Little Bit About Yourself
When you share some of your trials and successes, it can help to humanize the experience your audience has with your brand. In the awareness stage of the buying process, people need to know there is a human behind all of your hard work and creativity. Employing this fosters more of a connection and aids in building trust. Trust is necessary for making sales. Why not add a touch of vulnerability and tenderness to your repertoire of content creation. You can ask your audience relevant questions, advice, and more.
Talk About The Inspiration Behind Your Work
Your work is remarkable. Share some of the thoughts and ideas behind your best creations. Do you have an intense interest in social justice and equality? Are you mesmerized by the beauty and bounty of nature? When you understand the unique value behind your work, your audience will gain a greater appreciation for your efforts. This awareness and consideration content is vital to persuading your audience to purchase during the decision-making part of the buyer’s journey.
Show Your Work In Sets Of 3 or 4
The majority of art marketplace websites are selling artworks in sets of three and four panels. While initially, your artwork may not lend itself to this popular arrangement, adjusting your inventory to include what buyers are already asking for could help boost your sales. When you begin to provide other art display alternatives, your audience is likely to respond more positively since they’ll appreciate the flexibility of your art production, especially in the case of commissions.
Create A Hashtag For Your Art Brand
Brand hashtags are a perfect way to encourage engagement and build brand awareness. When you run a holiday campaign, you need as much exposure as possible to sell your art. An expertly branded hashtag coupled with a consistent posting schedule can keep their eyes always on your merchandise. A bonus is that they begin to see you as a professional presence on social media. And that is a beautiful thing.
Show Yourself With Your Work
You’re the face behind your work; why not become your art brand ambassador. Sharing pictures of yourself with your work not only helps others see that you’re proud of your creativity and hard-won craftsmanship, but it also associates your image with your brand.
Again, this builds trust, which is crucial for networking and making connections that get you and your art noticed.
Share Client Testimonials and Stories
What better proof that your art is in demand than featuring client testimonials and stories. When potential buyers see satisfied customers that rave about your artwork and art products, they are more likely to make a first-time purchase. It assists them in choosing your artwork over other brands with similar styles and appeal.
Post Art Content Frequently
The more people see your work, the greater chances you have of growing your audience and selling art. If you can not post once a day, aim for at least three posts per week. This practice will ensure that different groups will get a chance to view your art on the other days of the week. For instance, some of your fans may not see your Monday post, but they have a nice chunk of extra time Wednesday evenings. They can catch up on your post content midweek.
Cross-promotion of Your Sales and New Editions
Promoting your art doesn’t start and stop on Instagram. Perhaps you’ve extended your audience to Pinterest, LinkedIn, TickTok, or Facebook. Whenever you promote a sale, run an event, or targeted campaign, make sure to schedule posts on other social media platforms. Then, you can notify members of your audience on those platforms as well.
Share Meaningful Milestones and Experiences
Whenever you make a big sale, adopt a pet rescue, or discover an unforgettable restaurant, use your surprising experiences as audience-connecting content for your posts. If they see that you’re a lot like them, it will increase your engagement. Meaningful sharing is an excellent way to raise positivity around your brand and eventually ensure customer loyalty.
Create Instagram Stories
Share photos and videos about your art production, inspiration, and exhibitions to your Instagram Story feature. While your individual Stories are only visible for 24 hours, your followers will love learning more about how and why you create your artwork. In addition, there are apps connected to the Instagram Stories feature that allows you to make them more engaging and creative by adding filters, text, stickers, and more. According to Instagram, as many as 500 million people use the Stories feature to create content. Many brands have experienced success utilizing it, especially for growing brand awareness. Why not give it a try.
Share Your Interests
Let people know about some of your interests. Maybe your audience also likes tennis, remodeling old cars, or reading crime novels. You never know; your willingness to let them in on certain aspects of your life could help you create the necessary connections that lead to a sale.
Use Industry Hashtags
Many artists underestimate the marketing power of a strategically placed industry hashtag. Often, it can make the difference between the right potential customers finding you or getting your artwork lost in a sea of unrelated posts. You’ve put time and effort into your art, help promote it to the world by becoming familiar with and using hashtags appropriate to your art medium. When employing a hashtag strategy for your post images, be sure to use both broad and specific hashtags to describe your work. Niche hashtags like fluid art for abstract fluid paintings or landscape mountain for landscape mountain photography can help you further target your ideal customer.
Determine An Ads Budget For Your Campaigns
When considering ad campaigns as part of your marketing strategy, remember to set up an ads budget. Then, you’ll know what you can spend on advertising and how to advertise more effectively. For instance, holidays and events such as the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Christmas are all great times to plan strategically targeted advertising campaigns to promote your products and services to a larger audience. Suppose you’re on a tight budget but need to reach your sales goals, set money aside for Christmas Google and social media platform ad campaigns. No other holiday or event besides Halloween brings in sales that could change the course of your business growth.
Feature Your Social Media Content On-Site
It takes plenty of work to get people to your website. Once they’re there, remind them of items you have in your Instagram shop by embedding them at the bottom of related posts with content in line with the consideration and decision stages of the buyer’s journey. This method is especially effective if people miss the items in your online store. Not everyone that is looking for information is aware that you sell products or services. They may not have initially visited your website to look at your art or art design products. It reminds your visitors that you are also an online merchant.
Take Advantage Of Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing Hub predicts influencer marketing growth will reach 13.8 billion in 2021. In a recent survey, 90% of the participants agreed that influencer marketing was beneficial to business growth. If you’re a relatively unknown brand, the impact of a carefully chosen influencer marketing strategy could help to boost your art brand awareness and eventually lead to more sales. Several influencer marketing agencies such as Viral Nation and Kairos Media have sprung up during this rapidly growing marketing trend to help connect businesses with the right influencers for their audience. While not everyone can afford to pay an internationally known influencer to market their art, the rise of micro-influencers has provided fertile ground for up-and-coming artists to find an influencer that will work with their budget.
Target A Specific Niche
Finding a niche can provide a ready-made audience to market your work. Do some additional research on where your style and subject matter will find appreciation. For example, if you love creating portraits of dogs and cats, then target dog and cat lovers on Instagram and Facebook. Join groups on social media to showcase your work. Perhaps you create landscape art from a specific area of the country. Maybe you love to create beautiful space art. You can gear your ads to focus mainly on potential collectors from that area like the Texas Hillcountry, Colorado, or New Mexico. If you target a specific niche, create a carefully crafted collection to appeal to a group of hobbyists or enthusiasts to bring in more sales.
Create a Recognizable Style
While not everyone creates art in one recognizable style, the work you market to galleries or license to a home decor company stands a better chance of being accepted if it remains visually consistent. When marketing on Instagram, if the visual look of your work changes with the subject matter, then be consistent with sharing the overall underlying concept. Then you can tie work with varying visual aesthetics together. When employing this technique, mention that your latest post is an addition to a themed collection. Many Instagram coaches recommend keeping your branding consistent as well. Choose only two or three fonts you always use. You should make sure they share a similar color scheme. If your brand uses rainbow colors or more than three colors, intersperse posts that use your whole color scheme with posts using one of its colors.
Be Strategic About The Way You Promote Your Art
Always lookout for new ways to promote your art, but don’t post for the sake of posting. Each post should help you achieve a specific goal for your business. For instance, a work-in-progress post about your artistic process reveals what is unique about your work compared to your competition. It aids your audience in making an active decision about whether or not to make a purchase. Similarly, a post that answers questions and concerns potential buyers might have about the quality of your products, cost of shipping or reliability of your business can improve trust and help buyers to make a final decision in your favor.
Create A Contest Or Giveaway
One of the most popular strategies to induce people to sign-up for artist newsletters is to create a contest or giveaway. People love free stuff. It’s like a game for adults. Winning increases self-esteem and makes the prize, in this case, your art, even more valuable. If they enjoy your work after living with it for a while, they may eventually become paid customers. In the meantime, you expand your marketing audience and improve your email copy.
Use Your Work To Support A Cause
Millennials and Generation Z don’t want to purchase products and services; they want an experience. They need to change the world. Help them do it. Use your business to further a cause dear to your heart and the hearts of others. For instance, you may want to help families in need with food and shelter or save the environment. Donate some of the proceeds from the sales of your work, one of your series, or collections. It will increase connection, trust, and support as you build a community atmosphere around your brand.
Create A Virtual Gallery Show
Create virtual exhibitions while waiting for galleries to select your work for a group or solo show. You can use the artwork you haven’t sold or sent for gallery submissions. Purchase a plan from Kunstmatrix and show your work in a sleek AI gallery setting. If you’re on a budget, you can use free software apps like Roomful. Here, you create a virtual gallery display for your art in several styles, colors, and architecture. Host an event around your show and promote it on Instagram through targeted ads or using the Instagram Stories or Reels features.
Finally
Learning how to sell art on Instagram isn’t as difficult as it may seem. However, without the proper planning and guidance, it can be a confusing and challenging experience. The prevalence of the one-size-fits-all mentality of most online marketing programs sets you up for failure because it fails to address niche-specific ways to market your particular type of art. Remember, not all of these Instagram marketing suggestions will be appropriate for the style of art you produce. You must be willing to do the necessary research to discover which marketing techniques will enable your unique brand success. What new ways have you found to market your work on Instagram?
Meet The Author
Marisa D. Aceves
Hello, my name is Marisa D. Aceves. I’m a forever curious B2B/B2C freelance writer, artist, and marketer. When not slaving away in the studio, I enjoy sharing articles on marketing strategies and tools and technologies. Follow my blog and receive my latest tips on art marketing, digital marketing, and business software reviews.
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