Get the answers to your most burning questions
March 4, 2010I’m kind of on the DL this week (that would be the Disabled List for those of you who aren’t into sports). I have a knot in my shoulder blade big enough to require a name, and it’s been sending late-night scouting parties north to make me grind my teeth in my sleep. I’m not in the best of shape at the moment, so until I get myself fixed I’m trying to stay away from the keyboard.
Instead of limping through a half-baked post, I have a question for you. Actually, I have a few questions:
- What are your biggest frustrations when it comes to marketing your work?
- What drives you crazy about trying to create as well as run a business?
- What are your biggest questions about selling?
Since my goal is to help you make your marketing as effective and painless as possible, I’d like to hear your most burning questions about your marketing and your creative business. Tell me the things you want to figure out and the issues you want to take care of. I’ll get busy writing articles for you, starting next week.
(You don’t have to stick to the list—that’s just to give you a few ideas.)
If I don’t get any questions I’ll just make something up, but I’d really love a deluge of queries, suggestions for posts and rants about the things that have you tearing your hair out.
You can leave a comment below, or visit the Contact page if you’d rather send an email behind the scenes.
Over to you: Fire away!
My biggest frustration in marketing is finding new customers and building name recognition. My ‘social networking’ only seems to connect me to other artists. My work is sold through galleries that won’t share the names of my buyers.
I get advice like “define your ideal customer” What the heck does that means? My ideal customer is someone who buys lots of work. Ok. Now what? As far as I know none of my customers have anything in common with each other except they are willing to purchase art work on occasion.
I enter juried art shows. I win awards. I have ads in magazines. I show at 7 galleries. I send emails to the few people who sign up for my emails (mostly artists). My work sells well. I want my work to sell better. I want name recognition.
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Tyler, those are good points. Thanks for the question, K. Your customers have certain shared traits. Their taste in art, for example. Next time you’re in a gallery that sells your work, put on your detective’s hat and look closely at the customers.
I have at least one post cooking thanks to your question. Stay tuned.
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Hey there Ms. Henderson. It doesn’t look like you sell any work on your website. Have you considered adding that option so that people who are interested enough to learn about you online have a way to buy your stuff without going to a gallery (it looks like all but 1 gallery you show at is in the SW).
If the galleries don’t provide the names of the customers that buy your art, can you at least do some of your own “high level” analysis on the galleries themselves? Each one probably caters to a certain type of customer.
Maybe you can look at the demographics that your top selling galleries serve and draw some conclusions about who your “target customers” are.
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I actually searched your blog a few days ago for posts on writing an “About Me” page….HELP!
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Oh, Kathy, the dreaded About page. Well, you can visit mine, but that’s mostly about why I’m here. Or take a quick look at the blog header. Are you writing a straight bio, or is it an About page for your website?
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Kathy G Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Both.
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 10:25 am
As usual. there’s not one answer. It will depend on the site and the intention of the bio/About page. Okay, working on that one, Kathy.
[...] were a couple of responses to my call for your most burning questions that point to an important part of marketing and personal branding: [...]
My biggest frustration is getting out the message to people to help them understand what I do. It’s not JUST web design or copywriting. It’s combining both of them into something that moves your site (and your business) forward by leaps and bounds.
As far as running a business — I’d say everything else that doesn’t directly involve designing, writing or helping others in some way. You know.. like accounting and anything to do with numbers. Bleh! The right side of my brain (or is that the left?) goes on strike whenever I even entertain the thought of doing something like taxes or balancing my checkbook
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I think a lot of people are baffled about what to do with their websites. Design plus good writing makes the difference between a bland site and a truly engaging one.
I wonder who on the planet actually enjoys bookkeeping. And a lot of it has to do with the truly awful software that is so utterly unintuitive and clunky.
Um. You actually balance your chequebook? Sherice, you’re my hero.
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I just feel overwhelmed. I am a solitary person in real life, but I can’t be solitary online if I want to spread the word about what I do. What is your advice for using social media? That is the toughest part for me. It seems so noisy in that space, and you have to be very, very persistent to make yourself heard.
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Kathleen, I’m also a solitary type, but it’s not an impossible task. Check out this post:
http://www.thestudiosource.com/accidental-networking-on-twitter to see my take on the 140 character social candy store.
My advice: give yourself time, and focus on quality connections rather than big numbers for their own sake.
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Stacy. I love to brainstorm and play around with process and ideas. But what drives me crazy every single day is my inability to focus these ideas, prioritize goals, and follow them thru in order to produce a final product . I start out of the gate OK, but quickly loose momentum and then get confused. I do live with a chronic illness and injury. Symptoms include daily fatigue and pain. This has actually taught me how to be disciplined, and take good care of myself, but I continue to struggle with with focus. Any ideas?
Thanks.
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Stacey Cornelius Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Here are my suggestions about focus: jot things down as you go so you don’t forget. You would not believe how many great post ideas I lose because I tell myself I’ll remember them. And of course I don’t.
The other thing is to stop before you wear yourself out. You probably know when you’re becoming tired, so quit while you’re ahead. If you write down (or draw, if you’re more right-brained) your ideas, you make the most of your brainstorming time. That should also help with the frustration.
Sound good?
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[...] got an email in response to my call for your burning questions: how do you get the right people (curators, dealers, buyers) to find you on the [...]