Using the Internet to Market Your Work
By Beth Kanter, courtesy of New York Foundation for the Arts
Can an artist Website bring you fame and fortune?
The simple answer is no! Artist Websites work best as an extension of traditional marketing efforts and can save time and money.
If you have established relationships with curators, gallery representatives, or others in a position to help your career, and you want to let them know about new work, the Internet can be a very efficient way to do so. Think about all the time it would take to pull together work samples, prepare snail-mail packets, go to the post office, and follow up. A Website can feature news about an upcoming exhibition or performance. All you have to do is blast out an email with the URL to your list of contacts. You won’t have to leave your studio!
For some artists such as composers or chamber music groups, a Website that accepts credit cards can be a great way to sell more items such as CDs or videos to listeners who may not be able to make to attend live performances.
But whatever the medium in which you work, before you begin to utilize the Internet, ask yourself the following questions:
What are you trying to accomplish with your Website?
Whom are you trying to reach?
What do you want them to do when you reach them?
Options for establishing a Web presence
The options can range from a professionally designed Website with all the “bells and whistles” to a simple electronic version of your business card, with many variations in between. Your choice depends on how much time, energy, and money you want to invest as well as how much creative control you want.
Option 1: Do-It-Yourself
Building a simple Website no longer requires advanced technical skills. Almost anybody can do it. If you are comfortable with using a computer, have the time to learn a Web-design software program, have good design skills, and are short on cash, this approach may work best. It might cost you as little as a few hundred dollars for the software and training. The Web-hosting and domain-registration fees for a simple site could be as little as $15—20 per month.
Your time will cost you the most. Plan on about ten hours or more of design time to sketch out the structure of your site and its overall look and feel. You should browse other artist Websites to gather ideas about how to organize and present your own material.
It will take you longer if you have a huge site, less time for a smaller site. Keep it simple, or build it in phases. You will need to assemble all the content—text, scanned images, or sound samples—out of which you will create the individual “pages” of your site using special Website-design software or a word processor for Websites. If you have not already prepared a résumé, artist statement, and catalogue of your work, you will need some extra time to prepare these materials.
Once the site is built, you’ll need to maintain it. For example, if you decide to include a calendar of upcoming shows or concerts, you will need to keep it up-to-date. This could take a couple hours a month depending how often things change and how much material you put online. In addition, you’ll need to spend time answering email queries from visitors.
Option 2: Hire a professional Web designer to build it
If working with computers is not your unique ability or you simply do not have the time, consider hiring a professional to create your Website, preferably one who specializes in designing sites for individual artists. Try to find a designer who encourages your input and can help you articulate ideas that you want your site to convey. While Website designers advertise in various arts-related publications, a good method for finding a designer is to look at artist sites and get the designer’s name for sites you like.
The cost of hiring a designer to create, promote, and maintain your site will vary depending on the site’s size and complexity. Fees could range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. Some designers charge on a project basis, while others charge an hourly fee. Some might include the Web hosting in their costs, while others will keep it separate. The best advice is to make sure you understand exactly what services you are purchasing and have a formal contract that spells this out. Before you sign on the dotted line, try to get several client references.
Some Web designers will also take care of the ongoing maintenance and online promotion, although they may charge an additional fee. You could learn how to update your own site, which might require some software training, but may save you money in the long run. Be sure that the designer creates a site that is easy to maintain.
Option 3: Get a listing or mini-Website within a larger arts Website.
Many nonprofit arts organizations and for-profit businesses offer listing services, mini-Website services, or online slide registries for individual artists. This is the easiest way to get started with a Web presence and a great way to test the waters before you invest more time and money. Some services are free; others charge a fee. Some services may be juried or available to members only. The best place to start looking for such a service is national, state, or local arts service organizations that serve your discipline or geographical area.
No matter how you end up with a Web presence, understand that having a Website is a significant responsibility requiring constant attention. You’ll need to update your site regularly with new work, your biography, reviews, and articles of interest. A Website with stale, outdated content can ultimately do more harm than good.
Marketing Your Site
Be prepared to spend time promoting your Website. Unless you are vigilant about marketing your work, your Website will never get noticed by people who may appreciate your work. Web marketing boils down to the task of continuously cultivating and tracking your relationships with people who may be introduced to your work either online or offline. These people may subsequently purchase your work or support you in other ways.
There are a variety of tactics that you will need to master. They are not difficult to learn; again, it is a matter of time to make them second nature.
Capturing contact information: Get email addresses for individuals who show interest in your work, whether you meet them offline or they visit your site. The electronic equivalent of asking for someone’s card is to include a guest book or mailing-list signup form. The most basic way is to include your contact information with a link to your email address.
Using email effectively: Once you start collecting email addresses, you’ll need an electronic Rolodex. Keep it organized. Become a skillful user of your email program, particularly its address-book features, and learn how to use your word processing “email merge” feature. This way you can send out personalized messages to large numbers of people efficiently. Your email communication will most likely include brief announcements featuring what’s new with your work, such as upcoming exhibitions or concerts, with a pointer to a URL on your site with more detailed information.
Being present online: A great way to get attention for your work and your Website is to participate in listservs or online forums where the people who are interested in your artistic medium participate. Avoid posts that are blatant self-promotions. Concentrate on helpful advice to other participants’ queries. Include an email “signature” in your email that includes your contact information and brief tagline about your artwork.
Make sure your Website turns up in search engines: When someone goes to the Web to look for information, her or his first stop is a search engine. To guarantee that your site turns up, register it with each major search engine. You will also need to make certain that your site includes “meta tags,” or keyword search words, that help search engines find your site.
Exchange links with other sites: Link your site to local, regional, and statewide arts directories. Also exchange links with related arts sites. Web users often follow links from one site to similar sites.
The Web offers artists lots of possibilities for getting their work noticed, but it takes an investment of time and resources to be successful.
Bibliography
Grant, Daniel. The Business of Being an Artist. Third edition. New York: Allworth Press, 2000.
Packed with real-life anecdotes from successful artists, The Business of Being an Artist provides thoughtful and timely advice on how to develop a career and overcome the pressures that arise when art becomes business.
Michels, Carol. How To Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself without Selling Your Soul. Fifth edition. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001.
This book shares the secrets and reveals the resources that can lead to success in the art world.
Weinman, Lynda. Designing Web Graphics: How to Prepare Images and Media for the Web. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing, 1997.
Designing Web Graphics was written from a visual designer’s perspective, in an effort to teach other designers what’s different about Web graphics.
Williams, Robin and John Tollett. The Non-Designers Web Book: An Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and Posting Your Own Web Site. Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 1997.
The Non-Designer’s Web Book is an attractive, full-color guide for aspiring Web designers. The authors first explain how to browse and search the Web, and discuss how to plan and post a Website. They then get you into the real work of designing Websites, whether for business or personal purposes.
http://absolutearts.com
Absolute Arts is the largest marketplace for contemporary art, international art news, art research, and marketing tools.
www.artadvice.com
Examples of artist Website services.
www.artisthelpnetwork.com
Artist Help Network is a free information service designed to help artists take control of their careers.
www.artistsregister.com
ArtistsRegister.com showcases visual art by artists who are US residents and represented through many disciplines. The Website serves to connect the artists and their work with private collectors, gallery owners, interior designers, corporate art buyers, public art administrators, and art enthusiasts in general.
www.artistresource.org
Artist Resource is an artist Web-hosting service for artists in the San Francisco Bay area, but the site includes a useful list of artist Web resources for the do-it-yourself approach, along with many examples of artists’ sites.
www.artnet.com
Artnet Online Magazine is the insider’s daily guide to the art market. Contains columns and links about news, features, reviews, books, people, international museums, and art fairs, as well as regional reports.
www.itheo.com
iTheo enables artists to show their work to an audience infinitely broader than at a traditional gallery.
www.newmusicjukebox.org
NewMusicJukebox is the online library and listening room that provides immediate access to scores, streaming audio, and vital information about music by American composers.
www.nyfa.org/level3.asp?id=53&fid=2&sid=36
The New York Foundation for the Arts Technology Resources for Artists includes a link to tutorials on how to build a Website and how to market on the Web.
Beth Kanter works as an independent consultant in the areas of strategic planning, curriculum and program development, training, assessment, and evaluation to assist nonprofit organizations in the effective use of technology. For more than eight years, she has been a consultant with the New York Foundation for the Arts technology program, and was a trainer for its Leaders Circles™ program. She works with the Alliance of New York State’s “E-Institute for Arts Leadership,” a three-year-old partnership with Cornell University. She has designed curricula and led workshops for scores of artists and arts educators who want to incorporate the use of technology into their work. She is the author of the manual Building Arts Audiences and Communities on the Web.
Beth is also a member of the Summit Collaborative, a network of people and organizations working to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations, and serves as a consultant for its Strategic Technology program (www.strategictechnology.net). Most recently, she was commissioned to research and write a policy paper for the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNET) on delivering technology assistance to community-based organizations (www.ctcnet.org), and is currently working as content developer for DotOrg Media/TechSoup. She is a project manager for Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network’s (N-TEN) Day of Service project where technology assistance providers from all around the country gather to volunteer their time to help local nonprofits in a community.
Article appears courtesy of New York Foundation for the Arts, www.nyfa.org