Art Contests – RTFP

Thinking of entering an Art Contest? – Read the Fine Print.

I saw a link to a new art contest in New York from a Tequila company.
Sounded interesting, then I read the rules.
Here is the one that caught my eye:
7. License: Emailing a Submission constitutes entrant’s granting to Sponsor of a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, create derivative works from, and display all or any part of the Submission in whole or in part, on a worldwide basis, and to incorporate it into other works, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed, including for promotional or marketing purposes.

So just by submitting  your art to the contest (repeat, just submittting, not winning the contest) you are giving the sponsor of the contest the  rights to use the art you submitted  however they want (plus modify it) FOREVER, without any compensation!

Read the fine print before entering an art contest.

Twitter Thoughts

When I first read about Twitter what caught my eye was that it was described hyped as the next greatest marketing tool.

I am always on the look out to test something new that could possibly help my sell and promote my art.

So I jumped aboard the Twitter and decided to test it as a tool to market my art.
- Did Twitter bring in a lot of traffic to my website?
- Did links I put in my Tweets get clicked on? How many clicks?
- Did those clicked links turn into sales of art, inquiries from potential customers or galleries? Invitations to group art shows?

As part of the test I set up this blog  just so I could get a “clean” set of  statistics. The only referrals or clicks coming into this blog are coming from Twitter.

After a couple of months of testing and looking what others do with Twitter, my (almost final) conclusion about Twitter?
Twitter is a 140-character limit, Instant Messaging service for people with similar interests.
Twitter is not really effective for marketing one’s service or product.

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Twitter’s basic limiting problem is followers.
For the most part the only people that follow a person on Twitter have similar interests or job. Lawyers follow lawyers, muscians follow muscians, artists follow artists.
So when you Tweet you are “preaching to the choir”; artists talking to artists. Not artists talking to galleries or buyers of art (my buyers of art are lawyers, doctors, dentists, business people – those types won’t follow me – I tried it. I have a second Twitter account).

And of my 1,000+ Twitter followers, I am guessing there are maybe 20-40 real followers who look at my Tweets regularly. The other 960+ followers rarely or never look at my Tweets.
I put links in my Tweets and test the hits I get. If I am lucky maybe 10, 20, 30 out of 1,000 people click on it. (And even though I now have 50% more followers than when I started this link testing, I do not get 50% more Tweet link clickers.)

And keep in mind there are millions of people on Twitter – theoretically millions could click on the link in a Tweet if the saw it.
But they don’t (see it or click on it).
The only way to get more people to click on a link is:
a) Post the same link many times a day and week.
b) Get people to RT it. (But if everyone that follows me is an artist or interested in art the RT never gets out of the artist Twitter world.)

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Twitter is a great social media tool for three groups:
1) Celebrities. Britney Spears and other celebrities can Tweet to million of fans instantly. A great PR tool. (If only I was famous…)
2) A small group of family or friends. Set up a invitation-only Twitter and use it to stay in touch with family and friends. But then one could use IM or e-mail or the telephone for that, too.
3) People that like to discuss and discover new things with other people in their career field or have similar interests.
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I will do further testing of Twitter and keep an eye out for new uses of Twitter, but as a marketing tool?…nah.
There are better ways via the web to get more PR (and sales) of one’s art: a blog, a website, a regular e-mail newsletter….have any other ideas? Please post them for all visitors to read.

Your opinions and comments about Twitter are most welcome.
I do not discount  the possibility that I could be totally blind to the great marketing opportunities that Twitter offers.

Art Selling Goal

Despite the great potential of the internet, the goal of an artist should be to exhibit and sell his or her art in real, brick & mortar venues; a gallery, store, restaurant, art show, office building or other place where people can see  the art.

Nothing is better for selling art than seeing it in person. 99% of the people that have bought art from my internet site have first seen my art in exhibition of some type.

- I would rather have my art in one walk-in gallery, than 1,000 internet virtual galleries.

- I would rather have 1 print  in stock in 100 Ikea or Target stores than 10,000 prints in an online Etsy-type store.

Original vs. Print Price

How does one price limited-edition prints of their original art?
An artist has the original and now they want to make a series of limited-edition prints.
How does one price prints in relation to the price of the original? Or do they even compare prices?

About a year ago I started selling limited-edition prints on canvas of original paintings. The prints are the same size as the original.
The question I and the galleries had was what to price the prints at?
No one had a good rule-of-thumb or idea. Should the prints be 1/10th or 1/100th the price of the original? Or how should prints be priced in relation to the original?

One gallery told me they had the similar problem with another artist. He was pricing his limited-edition (99) prints for $1,000 each; however, the original was priced at  $2,000. A print at half the price of the original? In the end the artist raised the prices of the original painting up to $6,000. He figured a 6:1 ratio was good; but was thinking 10:1 would be better.

Does anybody have a formula or method they use to price their prints? How do you calculate the price of your limited-edition prints?

Testing Twitter

Is Twitter really that effective for marketing one’s art?

All my friends have been telling me how great Twitter is to market one’s product or service. So for the last couple of months I have been testing Twitter. (I even have two accounts!)

Like other artists, I would put up links for fellow Tweeters to see my newest art or go to my Etsy store or other links. My hope is that lots of people would click on the links to see my art and maybe somebody would even want to buy some of my art.

But how many Tweeters were actually clicking on my Tweet links? Would it be  All 500+ of my followers? Or even more counting RT (re-tweets)?

To track links clicked I  found that the URL shortener www.bit.ly offers lots of statistics on links in one’s Tweets; how many clicked, when they clicked and what country they are from.

So I started using bit.ly shortened URLs to test the number of clicks.
On my 500+ followers (and the millions of other people on Twitter) only 12-20 were clicking each time I put up a link. Not impressed.

I had other Twitter friends test the link clicks and they found the same thing – only 1-4% of Tweeters were clicking on their Tweet links.

Hmmmm…..couldn’t I get more clicks to my links other ways?

What is your experience with Twitter? How many clicks on links in Tweets do you get?
Has Twitter helped sell you your art or networked you a new opportunity to exhibit your art?
Please add your comments and experiences below.

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A concern I have with Twitter is that one is limited by one’s followers (and do they really even read my Tweets?).
My goal is to sell more art. But who is following me on Twitter? Art buyers or other artists?
From what I have seen on Twitter, people follow people with the same interests: Lawyers following lawyers, dentists following dentists, artists following artists, photographers following photographers and so on.
So all those links of “look at my new art and please buy it” kind of fall on deaf ears if it is just being read by other artists who are writing the same type links.

If they only had a group called “buyers of art” that would follow me on Twitter

Test Market

Test, test, test.
Test everything thing you do to see what brings in the most sales and visits to your website.

Test new headlines on your e-mails, blogs, Tweets, or product descriptions to see if they bring in more sales.Test bigger photos of your art; show more than one picture of the painting -3, 5, 7 or more? Does more photos sell your art better? Test it.

Test free shipping. Offer it for a day or week or month and see if it brings in more sales.

Test a new social networking service to see if it brings in more sales or opportunities.

Test a new design on your website: Change where you put the link to your shop on the page: top left, top right, middle or where best does it get the most clicks.

When exhibiting your art, test if framing sells more or test different types of frames or sell your art with no frames at all. Does one way help sales?
One time I was showing art at a restaurant;  no sales. So I put little signs on each painting: “You can buy this art and take it home with you. Please ask your waiter”.  Suddenly the art started selling. Test new things, you would be surprised what suddenly heats up sales.

At our art show booth, we would stand in the booth and wondered why no one was coming closer to see the art, so we stood outside of the booth to the side and people suddenly started coming in. We realized people saw us as a gate blocking the entrance and felt intimidated. If things aren’t working, try something new.

Most blogs and webs services offer statistics on your website; use them to check how many people are visiting your website before and after your testing.

Always test everything you do to see what brings in more traffic and more sales.
Do you have an example of trying something new and it helping your business?

Prices on Website?

Should one show the prices of paintings on one’s website?

If you also exhibit your paintings in a galleries, then I do not recommend it.
The  gallery will not like it – it appears you are in competition with them.
Also there may be a difference in prices between the gallery price and your web price and this could cause problems.

Showing prices on paintings can also cut off interaction between potential customers.
My experience shows that the more I interact with the potential customer the better chance of a sale. On my website I post a link with “Want to know the price and availability of the painting, please e-mail me.”

When they contact me I can then write them back the price, plus send additional information about the painting and/or more photos of the painting. I can also offer them a print of the painting if they can’t afford the original or another alternative.
Any interaction or starting a conversation with a  potential customers is good; putting up a price can be a big STOP sign to any interactivity or sales.

Test it and see what brings in more sales. One month put prices on your paintings in your website, the next month not and see which works best for you.

Also see my other post on showing prices here: “Show and Sell”

Show & Sell

RE: Galleries that complain that they don’t like you selling your art from your website.

I used to get lots of whining from galleries because I sold my art via my website. Originals, prints, art objects. I had a PayPal type shop on my art website.
The galleries would always complain that I was taking business away from them. Or when I would go to find new galleries, they would check out my website and say either:
a) Oooooh…a “self-representing” artist. No thanks.
b) We don’t work with artists that sell their own art via the internet.My first reply to that was “So if selling via the internet is so good, why don’t you have a shop on your gallery website?”
Actually the first reply was usually: “Why don’t you have a website? “

Anyway, to get around the “living in the pre-internet world” whining from any galleries I had an idea.
Have two web sites: One under my name to show my art. Another website under a different .com domain and name/organization to sell my art. No more sales conflicts with galleries.

I use one web site as my showcase of my art and the second one as my store.
The first website is under my name “The Art of Me”. (Not the real title.)
The second website has its own domain name and title, such as: “Zambootz – The Amazingly Great Fine Art Store”. (No, that is not my art shop name.)

On my art website I list the galleries where my art is sold and the exclusive on-line website (“Zambootz – The Amazingly Great Fine Art Store”) where my art is sold. I even link my etsy store off of it.

There is no more selling from my art website and no more complaints from galleries.

Art contests

What is the deal with art contests and one must enter “35mm slides”? Who takes non-digital photos anymore? Or has a 35mm film camera.

Makes one wonder if art contest people even know one can view photos on a computer…or they even have computers.

And how about lowering the entry fees on art contests? They want $25, $35, $50 to enter up to three photos of paintings? (On top of that, they want a 20-50% commission on anything sold.)

And do they refund the money if you don’t get selected? LOL.

Gallery

I received an e-mail that posed the question:
Do you ever get the feeling that galleries think that artists from further away (another city, country) are better than the local artists?

For the most part, yes. However, a couple of galleries have told me they prefer artists that live out of the local area, because they are afraid local art buyers would see the art in their gallery, then buy direct from the local artist.

I commented that might happen – local buyers contacting the local artist, but with the internet and Google one can find any artist anywhere and contact them to buy direct. (I don’t think a lot art galleries understand how the internet has changed things.)
Galleries should concentrate on selling what art is in their gallery, giving buyers the “gallery” experience, promoting their artists (and taking commissions for artists), rather than worrying about the outside world getting in contact with the local artist.