Selling Without Selling Out: The Ultimate Guide to Marketing for Artists
* Updated December 2024
Marketing for artists can be a painful necessity. While most companies have separate departments for creatives and sales, as an independent artist looking to make money, you have to do it all yourself. Yet marketing doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and not every artist is excited about putting themselves out there and trying to sell their work. Luckily, marketing can take a lot of different forms and doesn’t have to involve aggressively begging people to buy what you’re selling.
Selling art is done through three primary channels: channel partners (galleries), directly to customers (art fairs), and online. A smart marketing plan will set you up for success in all three. In this guide, we’ll give an in-depth overview of marketing for artists, covering the best ways to successfully get in front of customers and make money doing what you love. The modern artist has a host of different tools at their disposal and using them will build organic interest in your work, connect you with those who are excited about art, and give people opportunities to support your work in a lot of different ways.
Be confident about your prices.
The first step is to be confident about the prices you set. Every artist who has tried to sell their work has experienced someone questioning their value. “Why should I pay $400 for that? There’s no way it can be worth more than $50.” These kinds of questions are unfortunately common when selling art, so it’s important that when you enter the market, you are certain about how you’ve set your prices. Consider the materials, the hours of labor, and other business expenses you’ve accrued in the composition of your work. Also, consider your own level of experience.
As a beginner, it can be a good idea to keep your prices on the lower end since you’re more likely to sell affordable work when building your collector base from the ground up. Starting out, the most important goal is to make connections with potential buyers or collectors, and start building some initial sales. As you gain experience, make more sales, and build up a reputation among collectors, you can slowly increase the prices of your work. If you’re not sure where to begin, look at similar artists’ websites to get a sense of the market prices for similar works from artists with similar levels of experience.
Take advantage of online tools.
The internet is an artist’s best friend, with countless tools and platforms to make promoting and selling art easier than ever before. Vincent van Gogh famously only sold a single painting while he was alive, but if he’d had an Etsy shop and an Instagram account, he probably would have done a little better.
The specific online tools you can choose to use are flexible, but the best strategy will include, at a minimum, an online shop for sales and social media for exposure. For artists looking to do more than just scratch the surface, here are some of the best online platforms for marketing your art:
Instagram & YouTube
Social media can put your art in front of millions of buyers and collectors instantly. Instagram is the most obvious choice since you can simply upload photos of your work. Even if you’re not a photographer, it can be worth investing in a high-quality camera and some simple lighting tools to make sure you’re always showing your art at its best. As an artist, expect an even bigger expectation to make your page aesthetically pleasing.
But simply posting art isn’t enough; you need to also get in front of the right audience. Using hashtags on all your posts can help boost your visibility beyond your followers and attract a new audience of people who enjoy your art. There are a ton of popular art-centric hashtags with millions of followers you can use on Instagram: #art, #artistsoninstagram, #artoftheday, #painting, #sculpture, #photography, #streetart just to name a few. Use Instagram’s search bar to search for popular hashtags relevant to your specific medium and style and include them when you post.
You can also use YouTube or Instagram to create video content as well. Art enthusiasts are often curious about an artists’ process, and showcasing behind-the-scenes footage of your work can help you diversify the content you’re posting and pique the interest of people who are passionate about art.
E-commerce shops
Instagram followers are great, but if you want to sell your art, you’ll need a way to convert fans into buyers. E-commerce platforms like Shopify can integrate with existing websites you use to show off your work. But an e-shop can be difficult to manage and doesn’t help new buyers find your work — after all, only people that get to your site will be able to buy from your e-shop. Digital art marketplaces, on the other hand, can make you more discoverable by listing your work on an established website.
Online shopping platforms such as ArtFinder make managing online sales simple and have a searchability component that lets shoppers who’ve never heard of you find your work when browsing art on the platform. However, these sites sometimes require an application to become a vendor, or take a higher percentage of your sales as a fee. Finally, when you participate in an art fair, the fair will usually have some e-commerce presence, so partnering with an established brand can make it easier to get your work in front of more people. As an additional benefit, many art marketplaces have print-on-demand services, allowing you to sell prints and other merchandise (if you choose to) next to your original works.
Whichever online platform you use to sell your work, make sure you include a link to your shop on your social media pages, your website, your email signatures, and your business cards so people can always easily find where to buy.
Blog/Newsletter
Creating content can help you build an online following. While showing off your work is important, you can give your followers more value and more reasons to stay engaged with a blog or newsletter that isn’t purely self-promotional. A blog about your favorite brand of paints or a rundown of your favorite contemporary artists, a newsletter where you interview friends and colleagues in the art world, and other creative endeavors can showcase your expertise and help you foster a community of artists and art lovers.
This will let you keep in touch with people and stay top of mind. Even if they don’t want to buy your art immediately, they’ll remember you the next time they want to buy and may even recommend you to their friends.
Patreon
One of the reasons art flourished during the Renaissance was because of wealthy patrons that financially supported artists by commissioning works such as The Last Supper and The Birth of Venus. These days, you don’t need the Medici family to pay you to make art. Crowdsourcing sites like Patreon let you turn your fans into patrons by enabling monthly contributions of as little as $1/month. These modern patrons can help you make ends meet while working as an independent artist.
To successfully use these services, you’ll want to already have at least a small established following on Instagram or other social media sites. You can also include tiers of monthly subscription prices, offering incentives that encourage people to contribute more. For example, while you may let people contribute $1/month, patrons who contribute $10/month can get exclusive content, personalized shout-outs, or rewards like stickers or other merchandise with your work on it.
Patreon is a way visual artists can connect with art fans who may not be in the market for art, but want to support the arts in an affordable way. And as with all crowdfunding, the small contributions can add up and help you pay for materials, renting art show booths, and other things that support your artistic endeavors.
Personal website
A website that features your work is a must-have for artists. With a website, you’ll be able to have a digital gallery to show off your work (with contact info for interested buyers) and to share information on your bio and artistic approach.
You don’t have to hire a web designer or be a tech whiz yourself to make a great site. There are countless websites that help you buy a domain name and offer templates to make building a site really easy: SquareSpace, Wix, WordPress, and more.
Make art fairs your best friend.
Art fairs are an essential part of marketing for artists. While your digital efforts and galleries can help promote your work, art fairs are your best bet to drive direct sales and to reach an audience that's much larger than the audience of your local galleries. The most successful artists will exhibit at 4 to 8 art fairs per year, and will be able to leverage their time at these events not only for making immediate sales, but for enhancing their long term marketing efforts.
Set the right price.
Exhibiting at art fairs can help you make sure you’re charging the right amount for your work. Setting prices can be difficult, but fairs give you an opportunity to experiment to see how potential customers react to different prices you set. This concrete feedback can help you strategize about your prices for future sales.
Learn who your audience is.
Another valuable lesson you can learn from art fairs is what kind of person loves your work. Exhibiting at these events lets you see and meet the people who directly buy your art and notice patterns of age, gender, style, and more. Once you get a sense of who buys your art, you can try to reach that audience more strategically with marketing tactics that speak to them.
Grow your audience.
Fairs give you an opportunity to grow your collector base. By connecting with people face-to-face, you can make a lasting impression and get their contact information to stay in touch. Even if they don't make a purchase that day, that email address could lead to a valuable sale at a later date.
Make bigger sales.
Though online art shopping is growing, and an important part of the modern art market, art purchases online tend to be in the smaller price range of $400 or less. The simple reason is that most people want to see art in person before they spend a lot of money on it. At art fairs, people can see your art and are much more likely to invest in a higher-value piece.
Maintain and grow your email list.
As a professional artist, you should always work to grow your email list. A mix of past buyers and people you've connected with about your art, your email list is one of the best ways to stay directly in touch with people who like your work. When you make a sale online or at a fair, or have a great conversation with someone in person at your booth, get their email address so you can quickly send a heartfelt thank you about their purchase or the time you spent chatting. Then you can stay in touch by sending a slow drip of informational emails.
Turn your art into giclées or other unique prints.
The reality is that not everyone is always looking to buy an original piece of art all of the time. But you can reach a broader audience by selling additional items such as giclées and limited edition prints that are more cost-effective, but still allow collectors to have your art in their home. Selling these in your online shop and at art fairs and festivals makes the barrier for entry smaller for those who love your art but can’t yet invest in an original. Many digital art markets already have printing services available for artists that can let your audience easily buy your masterpiece on a print, a t-shirt, or a coffee mug.
Think beyond the gallery.
Getting your work displayed at a gallery can be difficult, especially if you don’t live in a city with many galleries for up-and-coming artists. But galleries aren’t the only physical spaces where your art can be displayed. Talk to your local coffee shops, gift shops, and libraries. When your art is displayed in popular community spaces, you can not only set it up for sales, but you can at the very least increase your exposure and build your fan base as passers-by check out your website or follow you on Instagram.
Another way to do this is to sign up for pop-ups, fairs, and festivals. Whether it’s a holiday gift fair or a festival for art collectors, getting a booth at these kinds of events can help you reach an audience of people more likely to buy art. Plus, they can prove to be a powerful networking opportunity to connect with people who stop by to look at your work (and other artists attending the events as well). Make sure to have business cards on hand, so even if someone doesn’t buy that day, they can have something to take home and remember to look up your work online later.
Track what drives sales.
Marketing for artists is both an art and a science. There’s no prescriptive formula that will guarantee immediate marketing success, and you’ll have to play around with various tools to find the recipe that works for you. However, once you start seeing success and making sales, you can start getting more strategic. You should obsessively track what is working in your marketing efforts and where sales are coming from.
As you begin tracking the origin of your sales, you may learn that going to festivals yields higher success than making YouTube videos, so you’ll want to invest more time and money in the former. Or you might learn all of your online sales are coming through Instagram, and therefore want to ramp up your efforts on social media to increase that success.
By using online analytics, such as Google Analytics for your website, you can get valuable insights about how you’re connecting with fans and how you’re successfully converting those fans into buyers. Though it may not be the most glamorous part of being an artist, tracking your success will help ensure your artistic practice continues to financially support you and grow your status as an artist over time.
Remember that marketing takes time.
Don’t get frustrated when you don’t see your marketing efforts pay off overnight. Marketing for artists is a marathon, not a race. Though the time you spend on these marketing efforts won’t always immediately turn into lots of sales, keeping at them will help you build an audience over time and build a solid foundation that will grow into a steady business.
With all this new marketing know-how under your belt, want to put it to good use and meet art lovers, curators, and buyers?