Successful Art Business, Planning and Marketing Tools and Techniques You Can Use

What does your brand say about your art business?

What Are People Saying About You, Your Art, Your Business?

Your brand is one of the most important things in your art business and will have a large impact on your overall success and direction. Other people will define your brand so it is imperative that you develop and manage its perception and reality.

Brands are everywhere, you have seen them; Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Ford, Mercedes, Dollar Store, Neiman Marcus, Oprah, Martha Stewart, PBS, Fox News, Prada, Walmart, Bic, Mount Blanc, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Louvre, and the list goes on and on. Each brand name has an experience and expectation associated with it.

Here are a few names that you might not associate with a brand; Picasso, Andy Warhol, Christo and Jeane-Claude, Henry Moore, Salvador Dali, Richard Avedon, Ansel Adams, Jasper Johns, Robert Mapplethorpe, Georgia O’Keefe, Jackson Pollock, Norman Rockwell, and the list goes on and on. Each name has an experience and expectation associated with it.

The above examples are brands, some are businesses and some are personal. For many personal brands it may be hard to separate them from the business brand.

The Traditional View of Brand

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The business planning process consists of four basic questions

Every business needs a plan including businesses in the arts! A plan will help you organize your business and give it a much better chance to succeed and grow. Many successful artists and galleries have told me that when they started their business they now wish that they had spent more time to create a formal plan. They felt that having a plan would have enabled them to grow faster and make fewer mistakes – take their advice!

Whether you are starting a new art business or have an existing one, make sure that the planning process is a part of your business life. A major benefit of the planning process in addition to the plan itself, is developing a way of thinking about your business and the environment it operates in. You will begin to see things differently and uncover opportunities and threats before others see them

Most people spend more time planning their vacations than they do in planning for their businesses – don’t let this happen to you. Set some time aside for planning in your normal course of work – planning should be a normal part of your work!

The Planning Process

In keeping with the “planning your vacation or trip” theme, planning for your business is quite similar. The planning process is really quite simple and consists of four basic questions. Finding the answers to these questions is a little more complicated and will require some time and effort on your part. The basic questions in the planning process are:

1. Where are we now?
2. Where are we going?
3. How are we going to get there?
4. How will we know when we have arrived?

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Every art business needs money to operate and grow and yours is no exception. You don’t need to go to business school to understand the basics of business financing – learn the basics and you are well on your way to keeping your art business viable and growing.

Why you may need financing

There are many reasons why you may need to finance your business. You may need extra capital for a short time or your need for financing may last many years. A few examples are:

• Purchase a new studio or building
• Purchase new equipment or supplies
• Fund living and travel expenses for a new project
• Pay back high interest loans
• Provide working capital for operations such as marketing, rent, employee expenses, etc.

The Two Major Types of Financing

There are many ways to look at business financing and one of the basic ways is to categorize financing into two groups: Your Money, and Other People’s Money (OPM). Most every business starts with using the owner’ or founder’s financial resources. As the business grows and this may be sufficient but for many businesses outside capital is needed.

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If you define your goals first then plotting your business course becomes much easier!

In working with creative individuals I have found that it is hard for many of them to define what success means. “I want to be a successful artist working in my studio” seems to be about as far as many of them can go in defining their success.

When you ask other entrepreneurs what success means they will describe their success in terms of being a market leader, capturing market share, developing new and innovative products, their distribution chain, market capitalization and the financial rewards. Thinking in these terms is not so easy for many creative types.

Success for many creatives is simply being able to pursue their passion – not a bad measure of success for any business. In some respects many businesses have to work hard to instill and keep passion thriving with their owners and employees. Passion for one’s work will get you a long way but it is not a guarantee of success.

One of the first steps in developing a business plan for your creative business (or any business for that matter) is to define the enterprise’s Mission Statement. Those who have gone through the business planning process or attended business school know that the Mission Statement is the starting point in defining goals and developing strategies.

The mission statement serves as a guide for the organization’s overall strategic and day to day activities. It defines what the company is or aspires to be, what products or services will be provided, which customer groups are served or targeted, and its values with regard to stakeholders such as owner, shareholders, employees, customers and the community.

What Does Success Mean To You?

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Social Networking or Social Media – Seven way to get the most out of both

If you are a part of Colorado’s creative sector (or even if you are not) you should be using online social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to build your brand. These tools will help you expand your business reach, keep in touch with customers and prospects, and grow your business.

I have used these online tools for several years to get the word out about my photography business, and the results have been very good. As I began to develop and teach my Artrepreneurship course at the Center for Innovation (MSCD) I expanded my network to include people and organizations in the arts and other creative enterprises. I did this for a couple of reasons, to learn more about what was going on in the creative world and to develop contacts which would benefit me and my students.

Today I would say that most arts organizations are using some form of online tools with Twitter and Facebook being the most popular. How effective they use these tools and their overall social strategies are what this article is about.

Social Networking vs. Social Media

I have noticed a change in how these tools are referred to and how they are used. Originally they were referred to as Social Networking and the idea was to build a network of contacts much in the same way as you would do it in person. Your network should include customers, prospects, suppliers, media, industry influentials and others who you find interesting or benefit to your business. If you cultivate your social network, you will grow your brand, increase sales and probably make a lot of new friends along the way.

Social networking is increasingly being referred to as social media and you can see it in how many organizations and individuals employ these tools. I guess that it was inevitable that when a bunch of marketing folks equated Facebook and Twitter with free advertising that we would end up with social media.

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When scanned with a mobile device this QR Code will lead you to www.creativesandbusiness.com

What is a QR Code?

You have probably seen them and if you are a technology “early adopter” you may have even scanned one using your mobile phone. QR Codes or 2D barcodes are like product barcodes on packaging in that a series of lines or squares (in this case) can represent information.

QR Stands for Quick response

The QR barcode was developed in 1994 by Denso-Wave a subsidiary of Toyota as a way to quickly scan a larger amount of data than a typical barcode could store. It is now a worldwide standard and its uses have grown from its manufacturing and inventory control roots. A QR code can:

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This is the final article the series Websites for Artists.  If you would like to read the entire series you can start with Website Basics For Artists – Why You Need A Website and follow the links to the other articles.  The reasons for having a website are so that your customers can find you and new customers or prospects will be exposed to you and your work. Just like your business you will need to promote your website to generate traffic or “visits”.

One of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your site is to include your web address on every marketing piece you produce. Don’t forget to invite your audience to visit your website – any good advertisement has a call to action! Here are some easy ways to generate traffic by including your web address on:

• Business Cards
• Brochures and flyers
• Press Releases and other announcements
• Advertisements in magazines, newspapers, radio, TV
• Directories and other listings both printed and online
• Poster and signs
• Invoices, estimates and other business correspondence
• Emails in your signature line
• Postings on blogs or comments you make on other websites
• Product labels / tags
• Any other thing you can think of that has your business name on it

Online Advertising

Online advertising is where you pay to have your business message “served up” to a particular online audience. This type of advertising allows you to target your audience and quickly get your message out. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, online advertising offers interactivity with your audience such as an easy way to find out more (clicking on your link), chatting with a representative or request a follow up for more information. There are many forms of online advertising and the most popular ones include:

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In the first two articles Website Basics For Artists – Why You Need A Website and Website Basics For Artists – Elements Of An Effective Website we took a look at why you should have a website and the key elements that make up a successful website.  Now we will explore the various options open to you to develop a web presence. You can build a website yourself or have somebody else do it for you. You can also spend a little money to develop an effective website or you can spend a fortune. Before you do anything make sure you have a good understanding of why you are developing a website and who your target audience is – you can always add new features as your business evolves.

Build it yourself

As web development technology has evolved it is easier than ever to develop you own website. Gone are the days when you need to know computer coding or HTML or develop a website (unless you choose to). Some of the options available to you include:

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In the first article Website Basics For Artists – Why You Need A Website we took a look at how important it is for you to have a web presence for your art business.  Just like any marketing activity such as advertising or public relations your website needs to cover the basics. An effective website includes the choice of your website address, a strategy for your content and key design elements.

Choosing a URL – Your Website Address

Your website address can have a large impact on your overall web success. With millions of websites it should come as no surprise that the really good website addresses such at “www.theartgallery.com” are already taken. Here are some tips if you are in the process of getting a URL or thinking of adding a new one:

• Make sure that you don’t infringe on other’s trade names or trademarks
• Ideally the name should be descriptive and tell something about your business
• Keep the name short as possible but long enough to identify what you do or who you are.
• I would stay away from URL extensions such as .net, .info, .biz etc. as most people expect a .com extension.
• If you can stay away from cute suggestions like adding “the”, “my” or “a” to the front of an existing web address. Don’t do this unless you have a real good reason to do so – like it is the name of your business. These remind me of businesses in the yellow pages that start their listing with “A”, “AA”, “AAA”, “AAAA” etc.
• If you are looking for a new URL you can use free services such as those provided by Godaddy.com to search for and then purchase your website address.

Content is King!

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These days having a good website is more important than ever before – the key word is good! Without a website your customers and prospects may not take you seriously and you may not appear professional. From a marketing perspective an online presence is imperative as media moves from away from traditional forms such as newspaper, magazine, television, radio and some forms of direct marketing. Even your local hot dog stand probably has a website.

What you are up against

There are millions of web sites with billions of pages on the internet. Thousands more websites are being added every day. If you don’t implement an effective web strategy you may find yourself at the bottom of this huge list never to be found.

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