The Business of Art: Michelle talks about challenges and Journey

Tell us about your mar­ket­ing jour­ney, how did you start?

I really went into this blindly! I had a bit of beginner’s luck: I was accepted into the first exhibit I applied for, which was really shock­ing to me. At the end of the four weeks, I had sold all but one piece…I sim­ply couldn’t believe other peo­ple wanted my art in their homes. I think early suc­cess is the universe’s way of telling you you’re on the right path. It gives you the con­fi­dence you need to keep trav­el­ing, even after the road gets much steeper and more dif­fi­cult to navigate.

When did you dis­cover that you needed to market?

Shortly after that first show! I thought to myself, “now what?” I real­ized then that I would need a web­site and a blog. Of course, just hav­ing those items doesn’t mean peo­ple will flock to you — I  joined Face­book and Twit­ter when I real­ized I needed to use social media to expand my audience.

Do you have a mar­ket­ing plan,strategy if so please summarize?

This may sound strange, but it’s very impor­tant to me to build per­sonal rela­tion­ships, so my mar­ket­ing plan is to truly con­nect peo­ple with my inspi­ra­tion and my art. I put my work out there because I adore the response peo­ple have to it, and I share the “Story Behind the Pic­ture” every week on my artist blog (and every per­son that pur­chases a print receives a copy of that story to keep and share). I love get­ting to know my cus­tomers, so whether it’s going to art shows as a ven­dor and meet­ing peo­ple in per­son, or get­ting to know the peo­ple I meet via Twit­ter or my Face­book page, I always try to let folks have a true, gen­uine under­stand­ing of me as an artist and person.

What is your great­est chal­lenge as an artist/business person?

There are so many chal­lenges! If I have to select the largest one, it is fig­ur­ing out how to dis­tin­guish myself from other visual artists. Find­ing my unique style and dis­cov­er­ing who com­prises my audi­ence is def­i­nitely the most dif­fi­cult thing.

What do you wish some­one had told you when you started out?

I wish I had started out with a busi­ness plan! I didn’t think a busi­ness plan has any bear­ing on an artist’s work, but obvi­ously it’s incred­i­bly impor­tant if you want to make a busi­ness out of your art. I’ve since devel­oped one, but I do wish I had done so earlier.

What venues do you sell your work?

I sell my work through sev­eral dif­fer­ent venues. Signed fine art prints and can­vas gallery wraps are avail­able both on my artist web­site www.mkcphotography.com
and my Etsy shop www.mkcphotography.etsy.com
and unsigned prints are avail­able through Imagekind

I also have prints and art glass jew­elry avail­able at Artista Gallery
and the Mew Gallery in Philadel­phia.

Finally, I have a children’s book called “Alpha­bet Soup!” that fea­tures 26 of my  whim­si­cal still-life nurs­ery prints and is avail­able on Blurb
Signed copies are avail­able directly through my web­site as well.

Is there a par­tic­u­lar mar­ket­ing chan­nel you have found use­ful more than others?

The most use­ful chan­nel is actu­ally a com­bi­na­tion of all together: blog, Twit­ter, Face­book, and tra­di­tional adver­tis­ing are all impor­tant com­po­nents. No one area has brought me more busi­ness than oth­ers — I think they all work in con­cert together.

Who buys your work?

My main cus­tomer base is 25–65 years old and is evenly split between men and women (much of my black and white work appeals to men, while my softer, more col­or­ful work appeals to women). A large seg­ment of my cus­tomers are those dec­o­rat­ing their nurs­eries or play­rooms, as I have a large body of whim­si­cal work that is beau­ti­ful for children’s rooms. I also have a large base of new­ly­wed clients that have com­mis­sioned me to cre­ate a unique piece of art to com­mem­o­rate the loca­tion of their wed­ding day.

How do you keep con­nected with your buyers?

I pub­lish a monthly newslet­ter that keeps cus­tomers up-to-date on that month’s events and news:

[issuu layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml showflipbtn=true documentid=091103220510-6c7a7801d6f747e79027e974e7418717 docname=novnews username=mkcphotography loadinginfotext=November%20newsletter%20for%20mkc%20photography width=420 height=272 unit=px]