| While we're all sequestered in our homes, we're all facing the potential for lost or wasted time. So let's ask ourselves: How can we use this time to get better? How can we be of service and use? I know, without a doubt that great art is being created around the world at this very moment. Perhaps by you! Our entire team is focused 100% on whatever we can do to help you market and sell more art. With that in mind, we're focusing FineArtViews on sales and marketing ideas more than ever before. The following article was selected from our archives as it seems quite timely in the current situation and provides ideas we think you can use to improve your own art marketing.
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There was a time that participating in "daily painting", or blogging about your art daily actually garnered attention just by virtue of the fact it was new and exciting.
Similarly, there was a time when launching an artist website was a big deal. It represented a huge step in your art marketing efforts. And people would come to see it just because it was novel, and there weren't a lot of art websites competing with you.
But times change, and that time is over.
In today's online environment, just setting up a website is not enough.
The End of Artist Websites (Builders)
There are plenty of website builders out there and everyone builds a website. So simply creating one no longer serves you the way it once did. It used to be a game changer, now it's table stakes.
In addition, and to my surprise in 2020, the state of most artist websites is poor.
After being in this space for over two decades, I can confidently say that most artists, who attempt to setup their website with a "website builder", make far too many mistakes. It's not your fault, dear artists, the fact is, "pretty page builders" like SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, Wordpress and others have failed you. Not only that, the bar of what makes a great, or even acceptable, website in 2020 is far higher than it was even ten years ago.
"Website builders" just aren't setup to truly provide what artists need in the modern online world.
It's not really their fault either, they never claimed to be more than a "website builder".
They don't know what you need on your site to sell fine art. They aren't experts. So you're left on your own trying to make a tool designed for your average small business person work for the very, very different use case of selling visual art.
There's a reason art galleries don't design their spaces like Walmart and, similarly, you can't sell (effectively) art the same way Amazon sells sneakers.
But that's what you're doing when you try to shoehorn a modern online fine art selling site into the average "website builder."
Just having a "pretty page" online isn't enough anymore.
And that's why we're declaring the "end of art website builders."
You're using the wrong tool for the job when you turn to these products. And thedismal sales most artists experience on their websites is evidence they don't truly solve the job you actually need done.
So what do you need?
Imagine An Art Marketing Platform
What artists need to be successful is not a "website", but an entire system and platform to market and sell their art. Sure, a website is part of that platform, but just one part. And for your artist website to work, there is a specific way it needs to be designed, and specific features it needs to have. Features most website builders don't easily provide.
Such a platform would also provide email marketing and marketing automation designed to showcase fine art. It would provides multiple tools and channels for you to market your art. It would provide ways for your art marketing to continue, even while you are in the studio. It would provide you with a proven step-by-step playbook to maximize your art sales.
Such a platform would easily provide multiple views of your artwork. It would provide a way for people to visualize artworks in an actual room setting. It would provide a collector-grade zoom. It would provide features so you can segment your best collectors from the looky-loos.
This platform would focus more on how to properly present, market and sell your art and focus less on forcing you to decide what font to use or where, exactly to position every element on the page.
Imagine - an entire platform that supported everything you do around marketing in your art business.
Such has platform has never existed - until now: The FASO Art Marketing Platform.
How Our Platform Works
BoldBrush and FASO have always existed to support artists and to help them not only survive, but to thrive.
And when FASO started, in 2000, we were an artist website builder because, at that time, that was the hardest piece of marketing online for most artists and it was the first piece of the bigger puzzle that we solved.
But we've long ago left being a "website builder" or "art portfolio site builder" behind.
Those terms no longer reflect what we do, or more accurately, they reflect only a tiny portion of what we provide in the service of a much bigger solution for artists.
Instead, we take an opinionated approach to the design of your website. Why? Because we, as experts, have over two decades of experience in marketing and selling art online. We know, better than most artists, how to structure an art website that works for sales.
Your website must be designed properly to maximize your sales, and drag-n-drop "pretty page builders" don't set things up in the right way to do that. Our designers and marketers have designed every FASO template to maximize your sales and poured two decades of learning into each template.
In fact, you shouldn't even have to worry about where to place things on a page, how to link up your products, how to setup a "shop" or any of that. Things should "just work" so you can stay in your studio and do what you do best, create.
Over the years, in addition to the website itself, we've simplified other online marketing difficulties artists face: email marketing, getting exposure when you're first starting, delivering a steady stream of eyes on your art with our DailyArtStream, an artist patronage feature that doesn't require Patreon. Access to articles and videos by the leading minds in art marketing. An online contest and exhibit that showcases your art and generates sales outside of your website.
We've even designed an advertising platform that reaches real collectors, online in a far more efficient way than old school magazine advertising.
How to Overcome the Death of Galleries and Shrinking Print Magazines
You see, art galleries are closing and print magazines are dying. The world has changed and nearly everything has moved online. Those methods of marketing (Galleries and Magazines) were always imperfect. Galleries almost never share the names of leads and collectors with you leaving you forever dependent upon them (And then out of luck when they close.) And magazine advertising is expensive, reaches an ever-shrinking audience and has long lead times.
These institutions represent how art was marketed and sold in the 20th century. To sell art and build an art business for yourself in the 21st century you need a 21st century solution.
Just like software has moved into the cloud, and eCommerce has moved onto the Amazon platform, artists need a modern cloud-based platform.
What you need is an Art Marketing Platform.
And that's what FASO is.
The FASO of today is an entire Art Marketing Platform. In fact, we're the world's first and only Art Marketing Platform.
For my latest thoughts on art marketing, art sales ideas, and insider announcements about new FASO features we are working on and releasing, you should Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. That's where I publish ideas and opportunities in real time. Be the first to know.
Until next time, please remember that Fortune Favors the Bold Brush!
Sincerely,
Clint Watson BoldBrush/FASO Founder and Art Fanatic
PS - How much simpler would running your art business be if you used a platform designed specifically for artists? Let us know in the comments! | 