The following advice applies to eBay auctions, your eBay store, your Etsy store or any other online art venue. Your title is your headline, make it a compelling “grab ‘em” offer. If you have a subtitle, load it up with your niche’s keywords. Make your content more than just a bland description of your product. Use the keywords and phrases that your niche is looking for and make it clear how their problem will be solved by buying your product. Use the same considerations as you would for your website.
For example, if I wanted to sell photographs on eBay, I would not just list some of my better prints. Even using the extras, such as the gallery picture and a border, they are probably not going to sell. When I do a little research, I see that most of the photographs selling are either vintage photos or photos from photographers with an established name. The others are a mix of erotica (which always seems to sell) and informational photos. I found a listing for a photobook of pictures of the Mississippi coast, before and after Hurricane Katrina.
Photography is every bit as much an art form as painting, but for some reason you see far more paintings in personal art collections than you do photographs. Since we are focusing on selling our art, let’s talk about what will sell. People are hungry for information. I would research and define a niche that had a specific problem or need and then create a product to fill that niche (sound familiar?). The photobook of the before and after photos of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction definitely targeted a niche. Most of the people buying these photobooks are people that were displaced from their homes and felt the destruction on a personal level. Sure, they lived every day with memories of before and after, but they had a psychological need to have that documentation in their hands.
Erotica fills another psychological need. One example I found was a man selling photographs of his wife’s feet in black fishnet stockings and stiletto heels. I’m sure this would offend the sensibilities of some people, but that’s not who his niche is. The people in his niche are buying these up!
The possiblities for niches and needs are endless. Look at your current work and think about what you might create and think about possible problems and needs that you can satisfy. Spend a day brainstorming and writing ideas down and then sift through those ideas for what you connect with. Research what is selling on eBay and all the other venues. Stay creative and several possibilities will come to you.
Chris O’Byrne
http://OnlineArtsMarketing.com/blog