How to Grow Your Art Career

There are many ways to grow your art career.

Here is an Art Marketing News Classic repost. It is one of the all-time most popular of the 600+ you can read on this blog. You will find useful tips for making your career bloom all year long.
If you have other quick tips and links for how to build your art career, please add them in the comments. Do your fellow artist friends and me a favor and share this post.

  1. Make sure your website and blog are mobile ready. Google is watching.
  2. Check your website and blog page load speed. Fix if needed.
  3. Plan your blog posts for the next quarter.
  4. Send a personal handwritten note to your art buyers.
  5. Never be afraid to ask for an order. Lead your customers; they want you to help them.
  6. Check your website and blog for broken links.
  7. Consider ideas for publicity for the Holiday season, upcoming events, or news about your business.
  8. Stop wasting your time commenting on other blogs.
  9. Always use the Be Back Offer at shows.
  10. Find at least 20 artists who are competitors that you don’t know now.
  11. Compare your website and blog to those 20 artists. Subscribe to their list to see what happens.
  12. Start a swipe file to gather inspirational ideas, concepts, images and graphics.
  13. Start a quotes file and post one per week on social media.
  14. Start using Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Coschedule to schedule your social media.
  15. Make a list of 50 -100 art subjects you would never create. Review and you are sure to find a few that inspire you otherwise.
  16. Go through your Inbox and unsubscribe to lists you are not reading.
  17. Reverse the setup in your office or studio so you face the other way.
  18. Share the love. Tweet out or Facebook share the posts of other five other artists.
  19. Create a Slideshare deck with a grouping of your art. Share it on your blog, and social media.
  20. Donate some work that has not sold to a worthy cause.
  21. Write a press release about your donation.
  22. Think of ten things you are doing now or plan to do soon, that are press release worthy. Plan, write and submit the press release.
  23. Use your phone and make a 30-second informal tour of your studio. Post it on YouTube. Upload it to Facebook.
  24. Use your phone to make a short video describing your current work in progress.
  25. Ask a collector friend if you can call them on a Google Hangout to talk about your art. Record the call. Edit if necessary and post it on YouTube and your blog/website.
  26. Create a color scheme for your personal brand and logo.
  27. Hire or barter with a graphic designer to create a new logo for your business.
  28. Get a domain name that includes your name.
  29. Convert your site to your domain name with your name.
  30. Get off your free email address. Nothing says amateur like a Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, or any other free email provider.
  31. Use your domain with your email address and setup a free account at Zoho.com/mail.
  32. Create a Facebook page, if you haven’t already, for your art business. Learn why to use a business page instead of a personal page.
  33. Learn how you can use Facebook advertising with the new, free Facebook Blueprint training.
  34. Create a profile of your most valuable collectors. Use it to help shape your promotion and advertising.
  35. Create a profile of the person you think is most likely to buy your art.
  36. Find two groups on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+ where these potential buyers are active.
  37. Join those groups and become known as an active participant in them.
  38. Collaborate with another local artist friend or more, and have a springtime renewal sale.
  39. Claim your spot on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. Fill out all the contact information on each site completely.  Google does not like incomplete info.
  40. At the least, complete all profile information on those social media sites. Do this regardless of whether you are active in them or not.
  41. Take a local collector to lunch just because.
  42. Create a fan club or collector society.
  43. Practice and perfect your elevator speech answer to, “Tell me what do you do?”
  44. Get the Hemingway App to polish your writing skills.
  45. Make it a point to help others. Payback is a beautiful thing.
  46. Learn to ask politely for referrals.
  47. Do something fun, spontaneous, random and totally unexpected for someone you love.
  48. Work on your personal backstory. You are more interesting than you believe.
  49. Work on using your personal backstory to help write backstories for you art.
  50. Consider creating a premium brand, such as larger pieces, more time, unique finishes, more elaborate framing, free shipping.
  51. Be grateful. Thank your buyers publicly. Send them unexpected gifts. Put a pack of notecards in with your shipment.
  52. Create 6” x 9” postcards and give a stack to your friends and family. Ask them to help you spread the word about your art. Even better, make an open studio date and ask them to invite their friends and family.
  53. Join and become active in a local cultural group.
  54. Offer risk reversal in the form of money back guarantee.
  55. Pay it forward. Share this post on social media so other artists can learn from it as well. Helps me, too. Thanks!

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