Most of Your Art Marketing Will Fail. Keep Going.
Carolyn Edlund

This month, I'm working on a number of different projects. Editing and launching a new art business course. Talking with art organizations about potential workshops. Implementing a new email campaign series for the nonprofit I run. Reaching out personally to a hundred prospective customers.

Most of my efforts will fail, but this is part of the reality of business. Marketing and sales is a numbers game, and any good salesperson can tell you that if you close 10 - 20% of your prospects, you have done well.

The vast majority of attempts you make to market and sell will result in rejection, and as an artist, that might be hard to face. But as you gain experience, you will toughen up, be able to hear "No" without flinching, and move on to the next opportunity. To be successful, you must be willing to keep going despite difficult days, slow months and long droughts. It happens. Amazing opportunities also happen, and sales you didn't predict. Those sales might seem like gifts, but you actually earned them. You earned them through persistence and professionalism and simply not giving up.

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Summertime and the Living is... Busy!
Marisa Morgan

What starts with a 'C', ends with a 'T' and puts some 'EZ' into your summer? You got it: contest! Make that plural because we've got two cool ways to play! You're breaking a sweat everyday, working offline and on, to grow your business and boost your bottom line. Check out our revamped Affiliate Referral Program & our Sweet Summer Share-To-Win Contests!

Revamped and Smokin' Hot

Now, earn $10 for every Pro member you refer to us! That's twice as nice as it used to be. Go here for more.

Cool New Custom Flyer

It's hip, colorful and customized with your affiliate number! Easy to print. A breeze to hand out. Every time someone signs up using your number, you earn $10 and your referral receives $5 off membership! Get it here: Affiliate Tools

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Take Product Images Like a Pro

Your detail image should be able to stand alone on its own merits.

No matter what aspect of the work you are choosing to place at center stage, the detail shot should be visually compelling, and well designed. Ideally, a good detail image is also a superb composition with great colors, and formal pictorial qualities. Think of all the formal properties of a good painting. The detail image should be an eye-catching image that exists independently of the full view shot, even if it is not projected.

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Improve Your Social Media Outreach

Most of you probably already have a pretty good idea of what type of content you should be posting on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, so today's lesson will focus on strategies you can use to manage your social media platforms more effectively and on some brand new ways to improve the content you're sharing.

Ready to make your social media outreach work better for you? Then let's get started by looking at what you should be doing with Facebook and Twitter on a daily and weekly basis below!

Streamlined Social Media Logistics for Food Truck Owners

It's natural to spend a lot of time on your Facebook and Twitter pages when you're first getting started because developing a strong social media presence is an incredibly important step for new food truck owners. However, as your business progresses and you start finding yourself with less and less free time each week, you need to step back and examine how much time and effort you're investing in running your social media pages-and how much value you're really getting in return.

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Overcoming Stage Fright

Whether you play for tens of thousands of people every night as part of a world tour, or 20 people at a backyard barbeque, most of the mental anxieties musicians experience while playing live are the same. In almost every case the negative little voice in your head is centered around fear (fear of rejection, self doubt, etc.). We all have experienced some level of fear or nervousness when playing live at some time or another. You may have felt a fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of what the audience will think of you, your music or your band. Have you ever asked yourself questions like:

"What if I make mistakes?"

"Am I even good enough to be playing on a stage?"

"What if the crowd doesn't like the band, the music, or me?"

"Is this show going to be a disaster?"

Here are some things to think about before your next gig (they definitely work if you use them, especially if you put them all together in your thoughts).

How to Write an Effective Artist Bio

John R. Math

An effective artist biography (bio) is necessary information to have as part of the artist's presentation to any viewers and interested parties of their artwork. A well written and composed artist bio serves to help a reader to connect to the artist and to the artist's artwork.

An artist bio, when written and created correctly will provide the reader with a greater understanding as to the artist's art, the artist's motivation for creating their art and finally it will provide a guide or a means for a viewer to interpret the artist's art. In these terms, the importance of an artist's bio cannot be stressed enough!

What should be included in an effective artist's bio?

1. Anyone or anything that has influenced the artist's artworks.

2. Any education or training in the field of art.

3. Any related experience in the field of art.

4. A summary of the artist's artistic philosophy.

5. Any artistic insights or techniques that are employed by the artist.

Life on the Road

Following the festival circuit across North America can be an exciting adventure, after all how many jobs provide a built in vacation environment.

Your friends back home are jealous that you have seen the four corners of the country and everything in the middle - you spend hours showing them your trip pictures and home movies - trying desperately to separate one highway from another and what state park you saw a specific national monument, luckily you have your notes.

For those of us who have traveled thousands of miles, spent time in big and small communities, lived in hotels and motels for months on end and can write a book on fast food and clean restrooms in North America, the lifestyle of constantly being on the move, being a road-warrior, is not for everyone. We miss our families and friends back home, and we don't always eat properly.

We have all made friends on the road, our traveling family. People that we continually meet at different venues, we know their first names; recognize their cars, trucks, and RVs. We can spend hours of time catching up; how we spent our winter, where we have been, the price of gas, problems encountered, where we are headed, our venue plans and who should be the next president.

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How to Engage Your Art Website Visitors

Getting website traffic is step one. Now, keep those visitors in the loop and coming back. Here are a few tips on increasing engagement with visitors to your art website:

How to Email Sponsors and Get a Response

Event sponsors can mean the difference between organizing a profitable event, or not. Sponsors can add uniquely valuable experiences to event attendees, and they can signal to industry stakeholders that the event your organizing is legitimate.

Objectives

When writing a cold email to possible event sponsors, make sure you keep in mind your end goal: to start a conversation and ultimately schedule a meeting to discuss the sponsorship opportunity. You cannot expect to secure a deal just by writing the email alone. You're starting a conversation, not signing a deal.

The email should focus on value, an articulation of shared objectives and audiences, and should include a tone or language that elicits a feeling of partnership.

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Why Corporations Collect Art
Carolyn Edlund

What are the reasons corporations collect art? There are definite benefits to the company, their employees, clients and the community, as well as to the artists represented in those collections.

• Art in the work environment improves the quality of life for employees, many of whom may spend most of their time in that space. Studies have shown that art in the workplace also increases employee and corporate productivity and creativity.
• Art can stimulate conversation, networking and ideas. When choosing art for work spaces, the curator may choose pieces that are energizing or thought-provoking in key meeting areas.
• An environment filled with visual art creates higher rates of employee satisfaction. This leads to increased motivation, and lower workforce turnover and disruption.

Straight from the Source: Marketing Your Event

First up in our Straight from the Source series is about pre-event marketing. Getting a huge crowd to your show directly affects the success of the artists, crafters, musicians, and vendors there. Naturally, folks who have been in the festival/event circuit for a while have seen plenty of marketing tactics that have worked and those that have failed. Here are some tips that come directly from our very own FestivalNet members on what they hope to see and not see.

- The bigger the crowd, the better! Don't skimp on the promotion part of event planning - not only does it determine the success of your own event, but for everyone who is booked as well.

- Give them promotional materials. You'll want the vendors, artists, and performers booked onto your show to reach out to their own fanbase to drum up more attendees - give them the tools to do so! Put together a welcome kit to send when confirming a booking that includes things like printable fliers, button ads, social media links they can share, etc. Putting a little effort into these materials can really help your bookees help you.

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Why You Should Start an Art Blog

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5 Music Industry Myths That Hurt Your Music Career

Want to build your music career faster? Stop believing these music industry myths:

Music Career Myth #1: You must be young to make it in the music industry.

Reality: Your age matters very little to bands and companies in the music business. There are thousands of professional musicians in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s in every area of the music industry. Your age won't be an obstacle unless YOU make it one.

The music business is like any other business. When you have value to offer and possess drive, determination and work ethic, you can become successful at any age.

Learn what music companies really look for in musicians and develop these skills (more on this below). This makes you highly attractive to everyone in the music industry.

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7 Essential Features for Marketing Your Art on Facebook
the writing team of fidelisartprints.com

The Facebook Fan page continues to be a viable tool for building an audience and engaging with fans of your art. If you haven't build a Fan Page, now is the time to invest a morning (1-2hrs max.) to get one set-up.

To help you get started, here's a list of features that are essential for marketing your art.

1. Cover Photo: The largest change is the physical look of the page. Timeline provides a large placeholder for a single photograph or image. This is a particularly great feature for visual artists, as it provides an opportunity to feature a specific artwork. Feel free to create a collage of several artworks (in Photoshop) or feature your most popular piece.

Tip: Images for uploading need to be cropped to a panoramic format. Feel free to overlay text with your copyright or embed your name, however, do not include pricing or a call to action (This is no permitted by FB and could get your Page blacklisted).

2. The profile picture is now placed within the Cover photo. Just like the previous profile or page, this is a great place to feature a photograph of you. If you are using a business or gallery name, use this placeholder for a logo. Profile images need to be cropped square and sized at a minimum of 180x180 pixels.

3. There's also a feature called "Views," found directly under the Cover photo. This is where you'll find your photos, events, Likes and apps.

4. Under your Profile picture, is your "About" content. This will need to be carefully crafted as it is now placed front and centre for your viewers. This is a good place to include your website link and contact information.

5. The Admin Panel (seen above) is a new feature located at the top of your Page. Here is the place you can connect with your audience. Read client private messages, see who's been active on your Page in the Notifications and New Likes. When you have 31 Likes you also have the use of collecting user data through Facebook Insights.

Building Your Event Management Team

The number of people involved in organizing an event depends upon the size and scale of the event. While organizing a small party may require only one or two people, organizing a very large event like the Olympics may require several thousand people.

An event management company can have following event professionals, and each have their own, unique job to do. In order to get all the gears running smoothly, it's imperative to cover all aspects of the event management team.

1) Event Manager/Event Planner

S/he has following responsibilities:
1. S/he is responsible for planning and producing the whole event.
2. S/he is responsible for procurement management and resource management.
3. S/he formulates, prepares and implement risk management plan (risks related to event planning and production).

2) Event Coordinator

It's often hard for someone starting a food concession to know WHERE to start. I believe they should start with EVENTS. Before they plan and design any other part of their concession business they should research and become familiar with the type of events they plan to do business at. This is important because, operation-wise, different concessions are more practical and successful at different types of events.

I'll explain, but first let me start by clarifying some lingo:

Food cart - does business from a fixed location such as at a food pod or parking lot. On a day to day basis a food cart serves a steady clientele and operates much the same as a regular storefront food business. A food cart starts by pursuing the ideal permanent location for its business. With a good location found, that job is done.

Food concession - does business at various short-term, albeit sometimes multi-day, events and venues such as special events and county fairs. Concessionaires must pursue multiple locations (events) every event season.

That's all simple enough. But for concessionaires; here's the hard part:

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Source: http://www.foodbooth.net/

Seven Top Tips for Selling Online

• Establish your ecommerce strategy. Just like any business venture, to sell online well you need to work out what your strategy is and stick to it. This includes your ecommerce business structure - are you online only (just selling via the website) or do you also have a physical store? You'll also need to decide on the product range you're going to stock - are you a specialist in one thing (like trampolines) or do you sell a wide range of goods tailored to your customers' requirements?

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The Struggle Against Obsession

The cursor sits there, flashing impatiently, daring me to fill the page with words that mean something. I have a vague concept in my head, but it shifts when I try to see it more clearly.

I start writing and get a few lines down, then backspace to delete them. They weren't quite right. I repeat this process a few more times. Nine, to be exact.

I drum my fingers against the desk again, frustrated. I'm tempted to move on to another topic, or to stop trying for the day. This is what I do. I write. So why is it such a struggle today?

Because I'm obsessing over it. I'm so focused on finding the best way to start the article and the most logical way to lay it out and the ideal story to include that I'm not making any progress. I'm getting in my way and preventing myself from accomplishing the task at hand. It's frustrating. Moreover, it's difficult to overcome.

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The Pain and Power of Tough Criticism
Carolyn Edlund

We all love to get wonderful compliments on our art. But sometimes we get feedback that is hard to take. It might be the best thing you could hear.

How to Build Vibrant Online Event Communities

Know that social media is not necessarily community building

Just because someone on your team is tweeting, snapping, and posting does not mean that they are actually building an online community. Contrary to popular belief, a social media manager and a community manager do different things and "doing social media" is not the same as bringing people together via online networks.

That means that as you develop an online community building strategy it may look quite different from a social media strategy that is usually designed to increase brand awareness or increase event registrations. In fact, it is possible to have two separate strategies that involve the same networks but aim to accomplish different goals.

Online community building strategies

When it comes to building a thriving online community, you have many different tools at your disposal. To select the right tool for you, it's important to understand the target audience. Which social networks are your target audience most likely to use naturally? Which sort of connections are these people most likely hoping to establish (friendships, business connections, relationships with industry influencers?) What social media platforms are integrated with the event networking app you are using, if you are using one. Here are some different community building strategies that can be implemented on different social networks.

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