My name is Kyle. I am going to be completely honest with you… I don’t know a thing about creating or selling art.
But, what I do know is how to SELL STUFF ONLINE. I have been doing it for the last 11 years and I have been personally helping people (including many folks in the art business) for the last 8 years create and grow businesses online. So, I suppose I do know a thing or two.
Art, to be honest, is an EASY sell within the online world…
Perhaps exponentially easier than the offline studio. Unlike when someone strolls through an art studio offline, they are not typically in a purchasing state of mind. They are “looky loos” and a sale is much more difficult to close…not to mention the ridiculous “cut” that a studio gets if you sell your art.
What if you could cut out the middle man and connect with an ENGAGED audience that already has their credit card out and are looking to buy your art? You can. That is the opportunity the Internet presents you, and I am personally going to show you how.
OK, Kyle…how are you going to do this.
You are on this page for one reason and one reason only. YOU want to get exposure to your art and you want to earn money selling your personal “Picasso”.
I am not going to sell your art for you, but what I am going to do is offer you THREE simple steps you can take to get exposure to your art and then I am going to give you some insight into how YOU can sell your art online. Cool?
THREE Simple Steps to Selling Your Art Online
Step 1: Give Your Art a Home (A Website)
The first thing you need is a website or a blog.
This is not just for your art, this is to allow you to engage with your potential customers and will act like the most interactive “studio” in the world. This allows you to engage people in your art, to talk about your art and the art industry in general (whatever you interests may be), and build yourself as an authority online.
And of course, sell your art. You can actually get some really awesome websites for completely FREE these days through services like SiteRubix.com. Literally 10 minutes from now you can have a website that looks like the following, up and running and ready to sell your art.
An example art site you can create with SiteRubix!
Got an idea for your initial website? You can get started with your website as soon as… NOW, and get it up and running for free. This is a fully functional website and gives you access to Wealthy Affiliate, a community that will train you and help you with your art promotions online.
Start building your website right now using the little tool below that will tell you if your free domain name is available.
Or you can go directly to the SiteRubix.com website and start building your AWESOME art site!
Step 2: Getting Your Art Exposed (Getting Traffic)
You could have the best art in the world, but without getting real people to see it, you have no chance of selling your pieces.
In other words, without traffic (people), you have no business. You are in no better position than you are now and that is why the very first thing you should do after you have your website is get yourself training on how to get traffic within the online world.
The Internet will get you exposure like this to your art!
Statistic Alert: There are 2 BILLION people online.
That is a lot of people and that is the sort of potential you have online. Your art can get amazing exposure online and get exposure in a way that no studio could ever offer you. Your website is going to be your foundation for selling, your traffic is going to be the audience that buys your art.
So where do you get this training? If you set-up a website already from Step 1, this will have granted you access to the Wealthy Affiliate community which is THE PLACE that you are going to get this training (included with your website).
If you already have a website for your business and you just want the training on how to get traffic (again this is totally free to get going), you can sign-up directly to the WealthyAffiliate.com website.
Step 3: Keeping Your Online Art Business Progressing (Getting Help When You Need it)
Imagine having 1,000’s of experts within the online world you could rely on if you ever had any quesitons about promoting your art or getting more exposure to your art.
Close your eyes and picture this. OK. Open them.
This is a reality and getting help from ME PERSONALLY is ALSO a reality.
This is where you can get help directly from me! 🙂
This is my profile within Wealthy Affiliate where I help people on a daily basis. At anytime if you ever need a hand with anything, you simply pop by with your questions about your online biz and I will hep you out. 🙂
If you have help 24/7/365 with your online business, everything from getting traffic to your website, to building your actual site, if you need help there will be someone there within the community to lend you a hand.
Got Questions About Selling Your Art?
Then please promise me one thing….you won’t hesitate to ask me questions in the comment area below. I am here to help you out and I would love nothing more than to help you get up and running with the online world and help you create a successful (and profitable) campaign for selling your art online. Hit me up if you need anything and I will be sure to get back within “hours” most of the time.
I look forward to helping you paint your picture of success online!
Kyle
Owner of this website &
Your Personal Online Chauffeur
Kyle – aside from complementary medicine, I also paint and my question is – do I need a new niche or could I use my old, original domain.
Thanks – Raul
You can definitely use your existing domain. One thing I do suggest though is that if you have ever done things like get loads of backlinks, automate content, or done anything that could have impacted your rankings adversely in the past, that you might want to start fresh. But most of the time you can use your existing website and you absolutely will get all the help you need within Wealthy Affiliate if you want to get some exposure to your art and build your brand within the art world.
I am wanting to do affiliate marketing. I have looked at many things online to help me learn, but keep seemingly, to hit dead ends when doing research. I do not have much money to give up for this. What or where do you recommend I find legit information?
I can give you a hand personally David. Head over to Wealthy Affiliate, create yourself a free Starter account, and you will immediately have access to everything you need to create and grow an affiliate marketing business. You can get more information about Wealthy Affiliate here.
To be a successful affiliate, you need a niche, a website, you need to understand how to build content/traffic, and you need access to help when you need it. That is what you are going to get at WA. I look forward to working with you David.
Hi Kyle
I love your web site and what you stand for. As for myself I have an arts web site up and running showcasing my art direct to the public. My work is purely digital only I have not made it available through art galleries. Your views regarding the success of following this format would be very helpful.
I have taken note of your wealthly affiliate support profile programe and I will explore that as a means to improving my prospects of selling my artwork. Your reply would be greatly valued.
Keep up the good work.
All the best
Alex
We can definitely help you out Alex, there is so much opportunity to extend your reach globally and you will learn all about that at Wealthy Affiliate, but also realize other opportunities within the art niche (or even outside of it if you are interested). I am here to help if you ever have any questions, but the best thing you can do is to get a Starter account at WA as there is no cost associated to that.
Such a great read, a little bit of humour makes the world of a difference when trying to learn more on online business. And I learnt a lot. Thank you 🙂
Cheers,
Karina
Glad you enjoyed it Karina, what is life without a bit of humour. Also, when you can create content (regardless of your niche of choice, art or otherwise), the more natural you write the more successful you will be. It is all about connecting with your audience.
As far as Selling prints of your work, there is etsy, cafepress, zazzle, and deviantart. Etsy for me is too much of a hassle b/c I need to actually handle the shipping and printing and everything. Personally I use SMugmug.com as a printer and shipper of my work. they give you a whole gallery option and pricing plans. They have their bare minimum prices, and you keep anything over that amount. Say it costs them $2.30 to print out and ship an 8×10 print. if you price it for $12, you get 10 bucks.
Here is an example of my smugmug gallery.
http://obilex.smugmug.com/Art/Obilex-The-Artwork-o
Hope this helps, and keep up the hard work!
Sam
Thanks for your insights Sam. I hadn’t heard of smug smug, but this will definitely help out my readers here whom are artists (give them another option). Nice prints BTW!
I love the idea of not just selling your art online, but engaging with the people who are buying it. Not only is it a great way to build relationships with your customers, but those customers are more likely to become repeat customers.
Plus, you can still sell your art offline, but it’s more important than ever to also be found online.
Looking at art online is a great idea. I myself have done this in the past. I also love the idea of more than 2 billion people online! I do have to say that I never bought art online but did buy it in an art gallery. That doesn’t mean that people don’t buy art online. I am sure many do but I prefer to buy it the old fashion way and engage with it in person. The energy of the piece then speaks to my soul.
For original art absolutely you have to see it in person. Often times people see a piece in person and they go online to purchase it and A LOT of people go online seeking out a particular type of art, particular colors, etc.
If you are in the art business as an artist or buying and selling art and you don’t have an online presence, you are truly missing out and you should be considering it…starting TODAY!
The one thing that’s awesome about doing things online is scale-ability. You can reach people all over the world with your work which would take an exuberant amount of money by any other means.
Plus, you get to exercise great control over the “face” you want to present to your prospective buyers. You can design your website however you want and the beauty of it is that the internet is so vast that you can easily find an audience to appeal to, and this goes for any “niche.”
2 Billion online WOW that’s a huge marketplace. Tap into even 0.01% and your business will take off like a rocket to the moon. It amazes me that any business can be helped with an online presence. There are so many ways to work the traffic to offer services, advice and get your brand name out there. Great advice for any artists looking to improve their networks.
Yeah, if you could tap into 0.00001% you are doing very well. To this day and 11 years later, I still find this very exciting about the Internet. Every day I wake up knowing there is endless opportunity online, whether you are an artist looking to sell your paintings online or whether you don’t have a product and you are looking to create a business selling others’ products through affiliate programs.
You can definitely fit more people into a website than into a room!
Any artist without a website is clearly missing out on opportunity. If your goal is to make money by selling your art, you need to take advantage of every possibility. I mean, you can even by fine art on Amazon, so obviously there’s a market for it.
And with a bit of social media work on top of your main site, there’s bound to be a small group of people, somewhere in the world, that will pay some amount of money for your work.
Just looking at the statistics, if .0001% of people you meet will like your art AND pay for it, then you need to meet more people to see more art. And the internet is an awesome way to get connected.
An artist with a website has a competitive advantage over one without a website and understanding how to leverage the internet to get traffic from all of the world to your “art” will break down all the local barriers that many struggling artists suffer from.
Too many are stuck within the constraints and financials of their local economy when the art market is so vast and lucrative if you understand how to tap into the global art economy.
Love your statement as well Nathaniell, “you can definitely fit more people into a website than into a room”. This should get any artist excited.
As a former artist and current online marketer, I know how difficult it can be for artists to sell their work in the offline world. It’s a damn near dog eat dog business.
Having said that, what is also true is that it’s significantly easier to do this online. If you have a website, a following and the knowledge to create a following, selling your art and making a name for yourself becomes exponentially easier. Great post Kyle.
Absolutely and perhaps if you knew more about the “online” world when you were an artist, you would be a thriving artist to this day. Like you said Vitaliy, all the artists that I have worked with over the years has viewed the offline world as a total dog eat dog world and as sounds as they found the online world, it was like a breath of fresh air.
No more art shows, no more studio fees, and the ability to connect with people directly (and all over the world) that were looking for their specific type of art.