What should the modern creative do?
I received this message yesterday:
“If there was only a easy way to sell Art, I’m still wondering what the best way is Galleries make it expensive for the buyer straight out commissions are good but will my name for more work get out there! Frustrating”
My response:
There’s never been a better time in history to go around the incumbent structures, build a raving fan base and sell to them directly.
This is what I would do:
1) Build an Authority website – This is your digital home. Have your ideal customer in your minds eye and design the experience around them. Your website should illicit the same experience of someone walking through your workspace. Show them the beautiful outcomes, the work you put in, your creative process.
2) Have a way to sell your work – Squarespace have a $12 per month plan that enables you to host a store that can accept credit cards. Put at least 6 pieces of work up. Make them expensive.
3) Create daily content showing the creative process – videos, rich media, pictorial. Show them everything. The best chef’s in the world have cookbooks showing exactly how they make their signature dishes. It add’s to the mystic when someone can’t replicate it themselves.
4) Amplify this content across key social channels – I would start with Instagram and Facebook as they are visual platforms and you can enter real conversations with prospective fans.
5) Double down on the items that are selling/popular – create a limited edition run of each and make it available to a wider audience at a lower investment level.
6) Create a super premium commissioned service – make it EXPENSIVE and an EXPERIENCE for the buyer. Prepare a scrap book for them showing the whole process from start to finish. Hand deliver it.
7) Create a case study on the commissioned experience showing the whole process.
You are now a creative who has direct control of your sales, a direct line into your fans and multiple ways of serving them.
You don’t need to be an artist to execute a variation of the above. It will work for any freelancer or expert who wan’t to become a true authority in your market.
The only thing stopping you is your belief that the above isn’t possible.
It is. Do it.
