Following up on yesterday's thoughts about marketing Alchemy Stones online, today I've spent some time updating several pages on my website.
I have to admit that I'm not entirely proud of myself when I realize that there were pages there that had not seen the light of day (been updated) since 2019.
On one level, it was an interesting experience to realize just how much things become out of date in the course of just five years. Life moves swiftly! My entire tone and attitude towards things was considerably different before the COVID pandemic!
Even though I consider myself to have been taking my art somewhat "seriously" for more than a decade, one of the things I recognize about much of the way I have been presenting my work is that I basically tend to "unsell" myself.
"Unselling" is that thing we do where we have something, but are almost apologetic about mentioning that what we have is actually for sale.
Unlike many people who are very comfortable pitching themselves constantly, I'm pretty much the exact opposite. It took me a number of years to even reach a point where I was willing to admit I was often unselling.
Maybe this is a particular form of subtle entitlement that strikes a fair number of artists and creatives. We're very wrapped up in creating what we do, but we operate under this strange illusion (delusion?) that somehow "people should just find us and buy our stuff", of their own accord.
Maybe that holds true in some strange version of the universe, but the bottom line is that it's not how the "real world" actually works.
With that last statement, comes also the realization that we can't expect the world to operate how we feel it should. And so, what we have to be willing to do is work with the world as it IS, rather than try to constantly work against it and then complain that things aren't turning out the way if we want them to!
I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to do to improve my online sales.
However, I'm pretty sure that it's going to involve some kind of highly targeted marketing or targeted advertising, likely using big social media.
It's not that I like "big social media," but the benefit you get there is that when an organization or a website has hundreds of millions of subscribers, it allows you to target an extremely fine granularity in terms of reaching a specific prospect with your advertising.
Another positive from yesterday's call was that it made me think about — in very specific terms — who my customer is and whereas I can't specifically market Alchemy Stones to them, what I can do is put photographs in front of them and hope that the same positive results we see when we put the stones in front of people at fairs and events can also happen in the online environment.
How effective that might be remains to be seen. However I have to do something, since sitting still and doing nothing and then complaining that nothing's happening is certainly not going to be the answer to the problem!
When I pause and have to be objective about some of the relatively commercially successful artists I know, one of the things I'm well aware of is that I get their email marketing annoyingly often. And yet? I don't immediately unsubscribe because what they send me is interesting and beautiful and I might want to buy something one of these days.
This also means that I have to "get out of my own way" in terms of finding it distasteful and annoying to have to promote directly. So I need to do a much better job of both collecting a mailing list and subsequently using it to reach the people who have expressed an interest.
One of the suggestions that came up yesterday — particularly keeping in mind that we enjoy a good success rate in face-to-face settings — is to always have a drawing for some very nice item at every show we do and have part of the "sign up to win" process being that people have to leave your e-mail address as a contact point, and that you agree to get mailings from us.
I know there are even ways to collect email addresses directly at events, perhaps having people signing up electronically via a separate laptop by the prize... although we rarely have room enough in our vendor space for that.
There is definitely much to be done!
I appreciate you coming to visit and please do leave a comment if you feel so inclined!
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
Because I am trying to make some semblance of income — a part time living, even — I now add this footer to all my posts, in the hope that someone, somewhere, might decide to take a further look at my work, and perhaps consider supporting independent art.
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration and support!
My Alchemy Stones Patreon appeal
Alchemy Stones web site and blog
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Thank you for supporting independent art!
2024.05.31 AS-TXT-264/234