If you are a photographer, artist, or designer and you want to take your business to the next level, then I want to share three tips with you that I have used in my own business.
TIP
Do you have an interest in music, photography, graphic design, or art? Are you looking to make a living from your passion? Look no further. Here are three tips that will help your business soar.
Before you get started, it is important to find out what type of artist you are. If you are a graphic artist who enjoys working for others, then go for it! If you prefer the freedom of working for yourself, then keep reading.
TIP 1: Offer a complete package rather than single products
Nowadays there are thousands of graphic designers and photographers who offer “here is my portfolio” or “let me design something for you” services. The problem with this is that they are missing an opportunity to make more money. A better way to market yourself is to offer a complete package, such as designing a website that includes logo creation plus marketing strategy. This will attract customers in droves because they know they are getting all the things they need at once and paying only one price!
TIP 2: Turn your customers into raving fans through social media
Do you have any idea how much Facebook ads can cost? Depending on your niche, the number may be between $0-500 per day (and sometimes more).
Artists are creators of things that delight the senses or touch the soul. We can be either a fine artist, a commercial artist or a designer. Fine art is generally the result of an individual seeking to express themselves through their work. Commercial artists are not just artists who create art for business purposes, they use many of the same artistic tools as fine artists do. Designers combine their talents with visual arts, science and engineering in order to create functional objects which are also works of art.
Taken together, these three areas encompass a wide variety of careers. Three very different occupations that have more in common than one might realize at first glance. That being said, I am going to focus on the marketing aspect of these professions because it is such an essential part of what each does.
The marketing aspect may seem strange for an artist to consider but if you really want to become successful in this field you will have to take a proactive approach and learn how to market yourself and your work effectively so that you can get your products in front of potential customers.
There are many ways to market yourself and your work online and offline as an artist but for today I wanted to share 3 important tips that will help you reach your goals:
If you want to work in the arts, you need two things: talent and business sense. You need to be brilliant at your art form, and you need to be able to market yourself.
The idea that artists should just focus on their art is a myth. It’s as bad an idea as telling someone who works at a bank that they should just focus on banking. No one hires an artist for the sole purpose of admiring her art; she also has to sell it to make money. It’s possible for an artist or designer to have enough business acumen to sell his own work, but it takes some effort and planning.
Big businesses like Apple have entire teams devoted solely to marketing. But even if you have no employees, you can still market your work in a way that will expand your customer base and improve your bottom line.
If you are an established artist, but only want to make a small amount of money from your art, then you will probably want to do that via a combination of sales and teaching. If this is the case then you should be happy with what you have achieved because it is a lot better than many artists.
These two core models are the ones that I recommend most often. The reason for this is that although there are other ways to make money from your art, they are either very complicated or require significant amounts of start-up capital.
Creativity is a great gift. Writing and painting and singing and dancing and playing music, photography, design— all of these things can express your personality, your insights, your experiences.
Gifts are wonderful. But they are also limiting. There’s an old saying that the artist must be willing to burn his (or her) masterpieces in order to create new ones. That is true of any form of creativity; you have to begin by letting go of what you’ve done before.
Tinkering with something you’ve already created is exciting, but it won’t move you forward. You have to be willing to break it apart and try something new. And if you’re going to do that, then the next step is sharing it—asharing all the pieces along the way. If no one knows what you’re doing, how will they know when you’ve done something important?
But here’s the problem: when you share something new with others, especially if it’s a work in progress, people can be really mean about it. They can say hurtful or discouraging things about what you’re trying to create. You’ll learn how to deal with that later, but for now I just want to make sure you know about it ahead of time so you
