Entries Tagged 'Marketing' ↓

How to Make Money from Your Blog

My head is literally spinning from all of the new information I have been learning in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been delving into the world of affiliate marketing and trying to get a grasp on the whole thing. You see, in the world of making money online, affiliate marketing is huge. All it really consists of is selling other people’s stuff, but when you put that model online you can do all sorts of new things with it. I mention this because some of what I’ve learned in this process can be used to help you make money on your blog.

First, here are some of the ways that you can make money from your blog:

• Google Adsense
• selling your stuff
• selling other people’s stuff
• placing ads
• selling ad space
• create a mailing list

I put Google Adsense first because that is what a lot of people first think about when they think about making money from their blog. I have also found that it is not a very good method. It is fairly easy to set up, but it provides a low return. I set up a blog for a friend that utilizes Google Adsense extensively. Last month she had almost 150,000 page views and almost 42,000 unique visitors. Even with that kind of traffic, Google Adsense only brought in about $100. Now that’s not bad, but for that kind of traffic you would think that the return would be much higher.

Selling your own stuff is what most artist do. Whether you sell directly from your site or you have links to online stores such as Etsy, eBay, or CafePress, you are probably doing some variation of this one.

Selling other people’s stuff is what is referred to as affiliate marketing. There are entire books, courses, blogs, and more written about this. A common way to do this is to write a post about a certain subject or product that you believe in and then include your affiliate link for people to click on and purchase. When I write about mailing lists, I will talk about Aweber and when you click on that link and then sign up, I get a small percentage of that sale. (Actually, I get 20% which is pretty good!)

Placing ads is what I have just started to do on this site. I will try to keep it minimal and will pay attention to the aesthetics of the site, but I do want to make a little bit of money to help support my habit (blogging). The ad at the bottom of this post helps people to find more information about particular education programs. Many of us like to take classes now and then and when you send for information using that ad, I make some money. The ad at the top of my sidebar is also something that some people will be interested in. Until you can make a living full-time from selling your art, it helps to have another way to make money at home.

Selling ad space is not something I have pursued yet, but may in the future. This is a more consistent source of income than placing ads, but may or may not pay as much. For example, a company may ask to place an ad on my site for a month and pay me anywhere from $50 to $500 for that. I have not pursued this because up until now, my readership has been rather low. Once I started posting a longer content-rich post once a week on Mondays and my featured artist post on Fridays, my readership has been steadily growing. Last month I averaged 36 unique visitors per day and the month before only 5. I am also up to 31 RSS subscribers.

The last thing to talk about is a mailing list and instead of rehashing what I have already written about on the forum at www.YourArtMarketing.com, I will instead point you to that post here.

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

Today I am going to make a departure from my normal schedule and talk about a new way that Diane Clancy and I have found to help all of you artists learn about art marketing and share your own experiences. We have been working and planning for the past month and are finally ready to announce our new art marketing forum, YourArtMarketing.com.

We have both received a lot of questions about art marketing and were becoming frustrated that we did not have a way to quickly help you and also keep all of these great questions and answers for others to learn from. Additionally, many of you have a lot of your own knowledge and experience in art marketing and we wanted to be able to draw on your wisdom as well.

YourArtMarketing.com will be the place where all of us can come together to help each other out. Diane and I will spend a lot of time there, answering your questions and doing what we can. We are pretty excited about this and have come to think of all of you as part of our larger family. Building a sense of community is important to us and we know it is important to you, also.

I ask that all of you go to YourArtMarketing.com and register and then introduce yourself in the “Say Hello” section. If you are unfamiliar with forums, just click on “Say Hello” and then click on the “New Topic” button to add your own post. After you do that, please go to one of the other sections and ask a question… even if you already know the answer! We want to get the forum populated with questions so that new artists coming to the site can benefit from our knowledge and experience.

I look forward to seeing all of you over there!!!

Peace,
Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com
www.YourArtMarketing.com

My target market is the person who wants to make some money from creating art. They may want to make a full-time living or they may want to merely supplement their day job or they may be a stay-at-home parent that needs to create art and wants to make some money from it.

Who is their target market?

A large percentage of the people in this country are NOT their target market. They are the people that work all day and come home to watch tv and go to bed. They live for the weekend and vacation and for buying more toys. If they read, it is only magazines or books that are primarily fluff and are for entertainment and escape only. If they buy art, it is to make their houses look better for company and is very standard.

Their target market is the person who is educated, reads, travels, identifies themselves as spiritual, has had a few different “jobs”, thinks a lot, is a creative themselves, and is concerned about the enviroment and politics (to some extent). With so few people falling into this category, you would think that it would be more difficult to present your art to these people. In fact, the opposite is true. If you were to try and appeal to the masses, you would have to pay thousands of dollars for television commercials, billboards, and radio ads just to reach that broad audience. With a narrower market, it is much easier to “meet them” where they go. If you are thinking about advertising, you can now focus on the magazines or newspapers or websites that this sort of person would read or visit. You can speak to them on their level with their interests in mind.

It is very helpful to imagine a specific person that fits your idea of the ideal customer. Create an actual person in your mind that has those characteristics and give them a name. Think of this specific person whenever you are doing anything to market your art. If you are creating an ad, write copy that would appeal to that one person. If you are writing a blog post, address it to them in your mind while you are writing. Believe me, how you are feeling and what you are consciously and subconsciously thinking will come through in your writing.

So far we have identified the very general market that would be interested in your art and created a specific person to address that fits the ideal, but we still need to talk about need. In a very general sense, here is how it works. There are two very broad ways to get somebody’s interest. One way is through their curiosity and this can be addressed through telling your story. This is not a very strong method, however, because satisfying their curiosity is fairly low on their list of needs. A stronger and more effective method is to make them aware of a specific problem that creates a need for them that your art can satisfy.

You know that your art has value and that it will satisfy some specific need or needs that certain people will have but what need is that? This is the hard part, the crux of the whole matter, and only you can come up with just the right answer. As an example, you might show your potential customer that art brings depth and layers to their life. It opens windows to deeper spaces within and its daily influence brings joy and lasting satisfaction. Remember, you don’t want to appeal to the general masses, you want to appeal to your ideal customer.

As I have said, this is the key step in the whole process, identifying what problem or need that your art solves or fills and then letting your market know about it.

Next week we’ll take this further and show how this ties into the past two posts about surviving as an artist. If there is a particular direction you would like me to take with this or a specific topic you want me to make sure I talk about, please let me know in the comments.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

.

Here is some information about art education:

.

I just read yet another article about the “dos and don’ts” of art marketing and it has me in a tizzy. Why? Because it is about the same old thing, image instead of substance. Their advice is always the same and it is always about your brand or image and how people perceive you. They ignore the deeper and more important stuff which is how to really connect with people.

You cannot just advertise and get the word out about you and then sit back while the orders come pouring in. You may be able to sell a little bit this way, but it is without substance and skips the important stuff. You want… you NEED to connect with your potential customers. You have to be real, not just a storefront somewhere with cool stuff for sale.

How do you connect? I think you already know this. Have a blog. Write to connect with people, not to talk them into buying from you. Tell your story. Be alive. Your newsletters and emails and postcards should all be about connecting with people, not pushing sales. Your gallery site should tell a story about each and every piece of work.

So what place does advertising have? Use advertising as the means to get people to the places where you connect. If you put an ad in a magazine or other print medium, send them to your blog. Meet people online and really talk to them. The point is to connect with people, not sell, sell, sell.

Make sure, however, that people can easily purchase from you. Make it easy for someone reading your blog to then make one click and go straight to your online store. It’s not all about selling, but that doesn’t mean that you should make it difficult to do so. Encourage it, in fact.

Okay, enough ranting for one day. Thanks for listening and see you on Friday with my newest Featured Site!

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

.

Here is some information about art education:

.

Last week was a good introduction to the idea of surviving as an artist, especially the idea that you need to take control. But you need to do more than just take control and think of the business side of things. You need to think in terms of multiple streams of income and how you can make enough money to survive. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art in galleries, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Not very many people can make a lot of money from selling their art online, but almost anyone can make a little bit of money that way. Think in terms of all of the ways that you can make even a little bit of money. There are a lot of them, are there not? Now if you add them all up, you can probably make enough to survive as an artist.

Let’s look at a few:

• Sell online
• Use Adsense to make money from your art blog
• Teach
• Do online classes and coaching
• Sell at galleries and shows
• Sell cards and prints
• Sell to businesses/offices
• Have your own show
• Add your art to other people’s projects and create joint ventures
• Create information products (articles, books, audio, video… )
• Create a community-based project that garners media attention
• Promote your own line of products
• License your work
• Take people on art tours (locally, nationally, or internationally)
• Live simply

These are just some of the multiple streams of income that you can create and use. Some of them may take some time up front, but most of them can be automated so that you have time to actually work on your art.

Next week I will start to look at some of these multiple streams and go more in-depth on a few of them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

.

Here is some information about art education:

.

This question has been asked of me more times than I can count: How can I survive as an artist?

It is the dream of many artists to spend their day creating and not think at all about the business. I’m not sure if anyone is blessed in such a way and if they are, they must be extremely rare. Even the person who has an agent or a manager cannot just let the business side go completely, there are too many decisions to make.

I often hear the artist say, “I just need to get into a couple of decent galleries and they will do all of the work for me.” That only works if you meet a very specific set of criteria. First, your art must sell well to the target market of the gallery. If not, the gallery will not spend much effort marketing your work for you. Who’s art is featured prominently on the gallery’s advertising? The big shots, the ones that sell a lot and make a lot of money for the gallery. Second, the gallery owner must have decent business sense and understand marketing. Too many gallery owners just have this dream of owning a gallery and do not have what it takes to make it in business. They must be constantly marketing aggressively. Third (and this goes hand-in-hand with number two), the gallery must be successful. Even if your art fits the market and even if the owner is an aggressive marketer, if the gallery does not sell a lot of art, you are not going to make much money.

There are far more than three criteria for a successful gallery, but that is not the point of this blog post. This only shows that you need to take control of the business end of your art because no one has more invested in the business than you.

I cannot give a complete description in this post of how to survive as an artist. That could easily take up an entire book and is actually what this whole blog is about. What I WILL do, however, is give you a blueprint:

. 

1. Take control of your business.

This is a mindset that I am talking about. You will know when you have it. I mean much more than just selling your art. To take control of your business, you have to think like a business person. Put your equipment away, dig out a pad of paper and something to write with and turn off the phone. It’s time to write a business plan.

(This next part was borrowed from another web site, but I can’t remember which one!)

Business means structure
Owning an art business (aka being an artist), means you must structure and supervise your working days. Many aspects of running a successful business are essential, notably marketing, administration, accounting and law. Learning these skills (through courses, books or even on the internet) is essential to be able to make a living from art.

Here is a list of some things you should be able to (or must learn to) do:

• Write a business plan
• Promote your artwork to potential buyers
• Effectively negotiate contracts / price your work
• Finance your projects (apply for grants & awards)
• Keep track of your income & expenses (basic accounting)
• Protect your copyright

.

Come back next week for part 2!

.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

What is an online social network? An online social network is any site where you can communicate with other people online. (Yes, it’s that easy.) The first ones that come to mind are the big ones, MySpace and Facebook, but there are hundreds more. Do some Googling and see how many you come up with. Don’t forget places like Flickr and YouTube or any other site where you can add content, use tags, and leave comments. Did I mention StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us? There are also blogs, forums, chat rooms, groups, and many other ways to meet people online. You could spend 24 hours a day on nothing but social networking and still not get to them all!So, where to start…

Make Friends

You know, this should be at the top of any list. The “new thing” in sales (which has been around for several years, now) is what they call relationship marketing. You have to work at establishing a relationship with your potential customer. Act as if you really do want to make friends. I do not mean that you should be fake, but that you should develop a real concern for who your customer is and what their real wants and needs may be. You want this relationship to last and you do that by being authentic, honest, and helpful.

Making friends online can be a relatively easy task. Go to their blog and read it and leave useful comments. Join a forum and help answer people’s questions. Be friendly and be yourself and do not push your work. Simply use your web address in your signature and people will check it out if they like what you have to say. Go to Yahoo Answers where you can help people and leave a link to your site at the same time.

I have given this advice to artists before and they almost always nod in agreement and most actually get online and visit a few sites… and then most stop completely. I do not understand this! How could they possibly think that they could make one or two comments and expect anything to happen from this?

Have a Website that Grabs Their Attention

If you are going to make friends and send them to your website, you should have something worthwhile for them to look at. Have samples of your work, a gallery, and if you sell online, make it easy to buy from you. Have a detailed About Me page that tells your story. Have a blog that you update once a week or once every two weeks or, at the very minimum, once a month. You can definitely have an online presence without your own web site, but it is best to have one place where people can go to learn about you.

Do Not Spread Yourself Too Thin

At what point do you become too spread out and it becomes too difficult for people to grasp who you really are? If you try to send people to all of your websites and social media sites, it becomes too confusing and they will just shut you out of their mind completely. I would suggest that you have one website that is your main online home. This is the place where you send everyone that has an interest in your art. Now, you may choose to have one or two online stores, depending on which services best suit you, but you still send people to ONE site.

Your Online Store

Obviously, if you are going to sell your work, you need an online store. If you just have a store on your website that does not connect anywhere else, you’re missing out on some powerful social networking possibilities. With Etsy.com, you can put images from your store directly into your own website or blog and clicking on them will take people directly to your store. People often browse through Etsy.com looking at whatever strikes their fancy. You can add any store to your own list of favorites and see who else has added that store to their favorites. It’s a good way to build community and sell your art at the same time. eBay is also worth your while. Millions of people go to eBay to look for art and you can not only sell to them directly, but if you have a well designed About Me page you can send them to your website and capture their attention and hearts in many more ways.

The point, here, is that you can have any old store on your site, even just a few PayPal links, but if you ignore the more community based online stores, you will be missing out on the attention of thousands of potential customers. Take advantage of the social networking capabilities of sites like Etsy and eBay and accomplish far more than a few “Buy Now” links.

Okay, this post has gone on long enough. I know I barely scratched the surface here, but it gives you an idea of how to get started using social networking to sell your art. Good luck and feel free to ask questions.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

Continuing my review of this ebook, “Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook” by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo…

This book does a great job of introducing you to many of the ways that you can use the new social media aspects of the web. This includes blogs (writing your own and participating in those of others), social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, etcetera), microblogs (such as Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku), wikis (and Wikipedia in particular), virtual worlds (such as Second Life), and more. Much of the focus is on blogs (about half the book) and I think rightly so because blogs are still the most prominent form of social media out there and have the most options for anyone involved in marketing (or just communicating).

There is a section on risks or things that could go wrong and they address what I think is the biggest issue: It Doesn’t Get Off the Ground. So many of us have tried to make an impression on the web and have supposedly done everything right and have done the blog, Facebook profile, photos, videos, etcetera; only to find that nothing happens. We even contact other bloggers, join various groups, and have tons of friends on our Facebook account and nothing much happens. This section of the book addresses that and gives some useful suggestions.

My overall impression is that this book is a great start. I highly recommend it because so many of us simply do not have a good grasp of what has been going on with online social networking and how to get started using it. I immediately saw a need for a second book, one that gives you even more specific tools and ideas. For example, what are the all the different kinds of posts you can try on your blog (contests, top 10 lists, and so on), what sorts of things do you put on there, what additional plugins and features can you add… the list becomes very long. [I am currently putting together a toolbox of all the various online marketing tools you can use and this will become part of my upcoming paid membership site. Just the section on blogs alone is expansive.] I look forward to the next book from these two!

(Question for Darren and Julie: do you have an affiliate program set up for selling this book? Have you looked into ClickBank?)

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

This book was impossible to just plow through because they kept giving so many interesting examples and websites that I was constantly setting it down to go check things out (damn Baitcar.com!). My first “oh, yeah” moment was when I read the section “Get Linkable”. I have been designing websites for artists for a couple of years, now, and almost everyone wants one of those pretty Flash-based gallery sites. The problem is that you cannot send someone a link to just one of those pictures and say, “hey, I really like this one.” The best you can do is say, “go to this page and then click on the 12th thumbnail over and that is the picture that I really like.” In this new age where more is happening online rather than offline it is vital that you make everything on your website linkable. How does a blogger send someone to their favorite painting of yours if they have to explain it in terms of navigating a Flash site. They don’t. They will end up not even bothering because you’ve made it so difficult. So in addition to my motto of “make it easy to buy from you”, I add a new one: “make it easy to link to you!”

Along these same lines, they suggest that you make it easy for people to embed your images into their website. A great way to do this is to upload your images to Flickr. (I am already picturing a remake of one of my websites where all of the art images are only in Flicker and I simply use their code to embed them into my website.) Another great benefit of this method is that you can tag your images in Flicker which makes it even easier for people to find YOUR picture! (For those unfamiliar with the term, a “tag” is simply a “keyword”.)

My next post will wrap up the review and give you my final recommendations.

The website for this book by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo is www.socialmediaready.com. They are also run the company Capulet Communications where they offer web marketing services and truly walk the walk. From Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, they now live in an old farmhouse on the island state of Malta (south of Sicily).

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com

Boy, that sounds bad. But actually “Getting to First Base” is the name of a book by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo on social media marketing. I just requested a review copy, so hopefully I’ll get that and can give you a detailed review so you can decide if you want it for yourself. It sounds like a great addition for what we do! I’ll keep you posted.

Update:
Within mere minutes of my request, I had heard from Darren and received my review copy. He even subscribed to this blog! I just printed it out and should have a review up for you in the next few days.

P.S.
Their website is at www.socialmediaready.com.

Chris O’Byrne
OnlineArtsMarketing.com