How to Sell Art Online and Make a Living Out of It

As artists, we seldom seek pastures that are confined to the habitual minds. We wander and gaze through the morbid paths that unfolds, exploring potential realms filled with illusions, realities, and fantasies.

The best part of being an artist is that we create our on wicked realities. The canvas and stories that we create have shown enormous potential among avid art lovers. The dynamic world craves for creative artworks. Artworks that could seed and nurture healthy thoughts, inspire people, help connect with the universe, and so on.

 

Canvas Full of Emotions - Now it's Time your Creativity put a Smile on your Face

If you are one of those guys who is struck with the higher calling of creativity? I write this article with due consideration, your passion for art is what drives you, but don’t let the passion took a swing at your quality of life.

Regardless of what drives you forward, in the physical world, you are responsible to fulfil certain tasks. It is important that your passion help you attain financial stability, and promises you a certain standard of living. The predominant reason why an artist fails is that he/ she lacks the wit to create a commercial model for the canvas they create. Let your creativity bring prosperity and happiness to your family.

You may be the finest of all, you may have the best artwork. If the world fails to notice your gifts, what a defeat.

Let me help you build a  commercial model leveraging the digital technologies made available to us.



Start with A Digital Presence

Digital technologies have significantly contributed to our society. With ubiquitous connectivity, the whole world lay bare. Ready for young minds to explore and race for the next adventure. The easy access to the virtual realm alongside the enchanting virtual excitements have lured an enormous populous to actively engage and interact with the internet world. The increasing internet penetration among people has opened a new world of opportunities for entrepreneurs to commercialize their products. Be it a canvas full of emotions (painting) or a Rolls Royce Olympus. 

Establishing a digital identity will help you promote your artwork among digital nomads who are interested in artworks. The digital transformation was a breakthrough, it squashed the geographical boundaries and barriers. Leading to an open market. Every business entity big or small gets a fair advantage to compete and promote their products. With digital technologies you get an opportunity to sell paintings online, sell to people who are located far far away from your reach.

If you are wondering how to layout a digital presence, allow me to explain the detail. 


Build an Online Store

As a fine artist, you create products. Your artworks are products with some commercial value. So it is better if you build an online store that lets you display your products. In a technology driven world, there are a handful of tools and pre-built templates that allows you to create an online store. In most cases, you don’t have to hire a professional web developer or partner with a web-development agency to get the job done.

Search for the term “Pre Built Ecommerce Platform Provides” on Google, I bet you will be overwhelmed with the no: of solutions available. There are a plethora of ecommerce service provider who with their brand proposition has delighted the customers. One small signup and you own an online store. Almost all the ecommerce service provider gives all the basic features that are required to sell online.

The best part about these ecommerce platform providers is that their customer focused strategy allows you to create a trial store on their platform. That means you could create a temporary store on these platforms, then explore the features/ options available, test run the effectiveness, understand the limitations, etc and then make an informed decision whether to go with the platform or not.

Few Pre-built ecommerce platform providers for your perusal

⦁ Shopify
⦁ Volusion
⦁ BigCommerce
⦁ Weebly
⦁ BigCartel
⦁ Wix

All the above ecommerce platform providers empower you to put your artwork in the digital realm and colour your dream with the magical fairy dust. It’s time you tap the wand and give life to your online art gallery.


What to Look when Selecting the Platform Provider

Most entrepreneurs fall for the illusion. They simply look for a platform, not the nitty gritties involved. Allow me to demystify the myth.

An ecommerce store is not just a platform, it's the digital identity of your business establishment. Think about the niche you are into, ART. How could someone ignore the creative part in it?  Your digital identity should resonate with that. Every detail should reflect an artisans dexterity.


Being Prosaic - Nobody Wants a Quotidian Experience

Want to delight your customers. Better understand your customer expectation and create around their requirement. Most business owners fail to understand the customer. Don’t start off with a hunch that everybody you come across wants your product. Dreams, Yes it works well. Not in reality.


What I would advise is to create a customer persona.

Heading back to the point, your platform plays a profound role in convincing the customer. When comes to a pre built platform provider you can start off with the templates available. Try multiples themes/  templates available and make sure that the template is a right fit. Your lookout should be for a customer friendly/ elegant theme.

Don’t opt a theme simply because it has 100 features. Look for the best one that fulfils your requirement. Make sure that the theme loads fast, is mobile responsive, has a good customer review (if possible check how many people have used the theme, how their store looks, what's their feedback about the theme), etc.

Take into consideration the UI/ UX factor of the theme. Check the platform to make sure that the theme will be able to provide a seamless flow of customer experience (the customer will be able to navigate through the platform with ease).

Explore the platform to make sure how the images are displayed on the product pages. What kind of content could be uploaded to the product pages (images, video, 360 degree images, gif, etc)? The quality of the content you display on your product pages are of high importance. In case if you are planning to list/ feature products from multiple vendors make sure that the authenticity of the artwork is verified.

So far so done. I hope now you guys know how to set up a ravishingly glamorous online art gallery.

Setting up an online store is just one step. As any business demands, you need to rigorously promote your online store to attract the commercial value you are planning to engross.

Let me help you with the dilemma. Allow me to help you synergize few online marketing strategies that will help position your products among your target customers.


Top Online Marketing Strategies to Promote Your Online Art Gallery

Quality Content- Same Old Strategy that Delivers Result

For ages quality content has dominated the advertising industry. Content specifically designed to inspire and educate the customers has so far been a fruitful strategy from marketers. In the digital world, content has been widely used as an inbound strategy.

As an artist, you could exercise your creativity and outline a fine infographic that details, the positive vibe a creative canvas brings to the living room. You could educate the customer with images, articles, podcast, vlogs, etc. It’s not that you need to hire a professional content developer to get the job done. You can do it on your own.

Understand what the market craves, create content that addresses the issue, and slowly motivate the readers to revisit your website. When creating an article you need to make sure that the content you create will add value to the end reader/ user. It’s a vapid effort to proceed with a mediocre strategy. Being ordinary makes you weak target. Deliver the best you can.

If its an article then people are investing time to read the content. Make sure that you have an absolute plan set aside to entertain and educate the customer. Do not let the reader leave your website with moderate experience.


Optimize your Website for Mobile   

As mentioned earlier you need to make sure that your online art gallery is optimized to meet the increasing demand from m-commerce. We are advancing to a world dominated by portable devices. Most people find it convenient to stay connected with the digital world. Portable devices are the best answer to it.

The online art gallery that you are planning to set up need to be compatible with the mobile world. The truncated screen sizes should not compromise the customer experience. Making sure that the website is mobile optimized will help solve the puzzle to a greater extent.


Sell Paintings Online using Paid Campaigns

As you are planning to venture into the business world, you need to explore all the options that are available for you. Don’t let the expression “Paid Campaigns” scare you. Sprouting business sought out for investment. Sagaciously making use of paid campaigns will help give an initial boost to your art business.

In the digital world, there are a lot of paid marketing services that could help you drive relevant traffic to your website.

Few options are:-
⦁ Bing and Google Ads
⦁ CPA Networks/ Native Ads
⦁ Paid Social Media Campaigns

As Google is the dominating search engine, let’s start with the search engine and learn how it can be used to drive targeted traffic to your website. The best part of Google ads is “Instant traffic”.

Let’s start.

Google ads give people multiple options to promote their products and services. The best and most prominent being the search ads and retargeting. As a business planning to sell paintings online, you need to make sure that all the available options are looked into.

The user interface of Google is quite simple. Any layman with the least technical knowledge could kick start a campaign on this platform. Search ads mainly revolve around the keywords you select, the bid value you opt, and the quality score of your ad campaign.

When selecting the keywords you need to make sure that you opt keywords that are intent driven. There is a difference between the keyword “Painting” and “Buy Painting Online”. To the least, you could guess that a person who is searching for “Buy Painting Online” has a thought process to buy a painting. As an online art gallery, your store is the perfect place for the online dweller to find the right painting.

The ideal strategy for an artist to pool all the relevant keywords is to create a keyword matrix. An adventure sought to explore the pain points of your customers will help gain significant understanding of the customers. Once you completely understand the customers you will be able to find keywords that help you increase your sales.


Social Media - The Subtle Art of Socializing

Maybe it's time you start practising a new skill “Socializing”. Business happens with people. You need to make sure that you master this skill set.

Wondering why you need to actively engage on social media?

Stats published on WeareSocial clearly shows that the global social media users have grown to 3.196 billion.

Data speaks for itself. There are a lot of digital nomads who dwell on these social platforms interacting and socializing with brands. Sharing your creatives and actively participating in groups and social communities can help anchor authority in your niche.

Since most social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram comes with a torrent of customers, actively engaging on these platforms will help you land on a sale. Don’t fall for the pitfall, and see social media as just a platform to commercialize your artwork. It’s not a broadcast media. You need to come up with a definite plan of action. Engage and add value to people. Slowly let your digital presence influence people's life. Once you succeed in inspiring people with solutions then there is a high chance they would convert to your loyal followers.

Be creative when you address your audience on social media. Let people fall in love with your artwork. Display your proclivity, let them mesmerise the sheer beauty of your work.

Even a simple strategy like creating a caricature addressing the prolonged sensational issue could elevate you to the big league. Social media comes with a huge audience base, outspread reach, and high possibility for content to become viral. When used cleverly this platform could help you sell paintings online and build a fortune.


List your Paintings on Multiple Online Art Platforms - Marketplaces

As I mentioned before explore all the options available. Your primary objective is to find all the options that allow you to do business and sell paintings online.

There are a handful of online marketplaces that allow an artist to list their paintings/ artwork on their platform. The best part of listing your products on marketplaces is that almost all the marketplaces come with a set of loyal followers. There is no need to build a new customer base. The best example will be Amazon. Think about amazon’s customer base (the platform comes with an authority and trust among people). Listing your paintings on these platforms will help you land on a sale.

Few marketplaces to list your products;

⦁ Etsy
⦁ Amazon
⦁ ArtFinder
⦁ Society6
⦁ Displate
⦁ Ugallery

 
Parting Note:- The increasing digital penetration has made it simple to promote your artwork. Regardless of the dynamic changes in society/ culture, art is one domain which remains highly acclaimed and respected. By leveraging the power of digital media you will get an opportunity to build a sustainable commercial model around your passion.

                                          

About The Author

A dreamer with a penchant for outdoor running, content creation is one of Nishant‘s forte. He thrives in challenging environments and is adroit in inbound marketing. His technical education and experience have enabled him to turn creative thoughts into written reality.

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