I was recently chatting to an artist about selling online and they said they didn’t want to do it for two reasons:
- They didn’t like promoting themselves
- They didn’t like buying art online so didn’t think others would.
I only had two questions for the artist:
- But you’re happy to fill a van full of your art and drive sometimes hundreds of miles to attend an art fair and sell it there?
- Just because you wouldn’t do something, does that mean you’re going to risk losing valuable sales by not exploring that option?
I’ve said it before and I’ll reiterate: no question, buying art face-to-face is the best way… but don’t kid yourself it’s the only way. In truth, it’s the only growing market in art sales, worldwide!
I agree, the people least likely to buy online are people in their 50s upwards. But aren’t they also the people who have rooms full of art and so are least likely to buy new work anyway?
In my experience the people who are buying art online are young professionals in their early 30s upwards who not only don’t have enough time to visit galleries (family & job commitments) but also are the most comfortable buying online.
Surely an artist wants to be exploring those sales options rather than just assuming I wouldn’t buy art online, so I doubt others would?
And when said artist said she didn’t have the time to spend online, posting about her work on websites and social media, I asked again “But you’re happy to spend time filling a van full of your art and driving sometimes hundreds of miles to attend an art fair and promote it there?”
The world is moving and artists need to get on.
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Having created ArtRehome.com and seen my own gallery’s online sales soar from 23% to 35% of turnover last year (at the time of writing), one thing I’m living proof of is the growth in digital art sales. Like it or loathe it, online sales are very much on the increase so the choice is to get on board, or to lose out.
Websites in particular are extremely important to maintain and optimise. Many art-lovers are using smart phones and tablets these days so if your website is over 2 years old, it may not be optimised for these platforms and you could be losing potential sales… and you’ll certainly be losing visitor engagement!
Make sure your websites have good-sized images and lead with your best and most current work. Optimally they will have PayPal buttons or direct links to where visitors can buy your works: an Etsy/Artfinder/ArtRehome page, or to your page on the websites of the galleries that you work with.
Try not to make the ‘rookie’ mistake of having your biography at the forefront of your homepage. I know Google analytics likes to see this on the homepage, but put it at the bottom and add an ‘about me’ link in the menu. The last thing your return customers want to do is to have to scroll past this to get to what they’ve truly gone there for… your newest work! It’s tiresome. And even new customers don’t necessarily want to read about you until they’ve at least seen what you do.
After all, are you really that interested in what a shop is before you shop there? No. You want to see the goods, then maybe you’ll think, I like this artist. I wonder what their inspiration is?
Whilst on the subject of biographies, make sure your website biography is original and not used on multiple platforms. In fact, all your web biographies should be different on each site you work with. The reason for this is Google doesn’t like multiple copies of the same wordings together. If seen, it will ‘downgrade’ your/their site because of replication.
To make sure you have the best chance of being top of Google, or at least first page, for your particular search terms, take the trouble to re-edit your biography for each website it appears on so it doesn’t replicate combinations of words or sentences.
Your homepage should be reserved for fresh, beautifully photographed work that entices the visitor to stay. Make sure the images are true, square on, large (or have a zoom feature) and include sizes, mediums and prices under each.
A direct link to ‘more work’ will tempt your audience to stay, and the longer they stay, the more chance you have of a sale.
Add videos to your website regularly. Why? Because Google likes moving content, and videos are a great way of increasing your rankings. They’re fun to watch, too. Create a YouTube page, upload your videos there, then embed those videos on your website with links back to your YouTube page.
Your videos may depict you talking about your work, or time-lapses of you painting: anything to keep your audience engaged once they’re there, so they’re informed and more likely to be drawn into a purchase. Create social media pages (a how-to chapter on this later) and link to them from your website.
Consider starting a regular blog (again, I can’t emphasise enough the all-important regularities of posting). Make it punchy, short and personal. Few people have time to read a lot of content, so better more often and short rather than seldom and long-winded. Weekly, fortnightly or monthly so people know when to expect it
If you want to really drive traffic to your site, consider a SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) specialist. These guys aren’t that expensive given what they can do for you. For between £50-100 per month ($65 – $130), they will make sure your website is held at the top of Google for your chosen search term (Sussex Artist, Californian Painter, Marine Water-colourist) or at least on Google’s first page.
This all sounds like a mountain to climb, I’m sure, but believe me, it’s worth the effort. Just take it one step at a time. People will come back to a good website time and time again if it’s interesting and your fans will applaud you for the effort.
If it’s too much for you to take on yourself, consider engaging a website developer. But make sure you choose wisely. Having a ‘graveyard’ website is more detrimental than it is helpful, so don’t just get them to build it then leave it cold.
Once you’ve set it up… learn the basics!!! Updating your website will be a breeze once you get into the practice. I add new content to my website in less than 2 minutes, including superzoom images, PayPal buttons and cross-posting to all my social media platforms. It’ll become second nature the more you do it and your efforts will be richly rewarded with sales.
Why not start today? Search around the web for ‘Wordpress Templates’ (also: joomla, wix, shopify, etc.) you can find zillions of free and paid-for (premium) templates that look great, are optimised for smart phones and tablets and, once learnt, you can change your templates easily and quickly without having to relearn the ‘back door’ processes.
If you prefer, get a specialist to design one then get them to teach you how to administer it. You are an artist, but art is also your business and businesses need customers. It may all sound daunting but, like anything in life, once learnt it’ll open up a new world for you and the sales will make it all worthwhile.
Change is something we can either embrace or ignore, but it’s undoubtedly the only constant.
I will drill down into this, and more of the social media aspects, later in the book. For now, I hope you’ll take my challenge and start.
If you want inspiration, read the message below that I had from a grateful artist for whom I designed a new shopping website… and she sent this 2 weeks after I’d finished:
“Mark! I just sold a large painting directly from my website!! I can’t even count how many nice glasses of wine I owe you now…!”
Enough said, me thinks!