June 12th, 2017

I asked all of you last week to answer the question, "What do you struggle with most?". I am thrilled that so many of you left comments on my blog. Over the next few months I am going to try to respond to all (or most) of you comments. So let's get started!

Here was the first comment:
"I've been selling my art for 17 years. I own a gallery. I have a website. I'm on Facebook and Pinterest. I did give up outdoor art shows, too much work. My sales have been declining for the past few years. Please help me find a new audience and new customers."

To be honest, this comment was the most common of all. It appeared on my blog over and over and over. I think this is a great question!

The honest truth is this ... most artists have no idea who their audience is. So you can only imagine how it is to find your audience if you have no idea who you are looking for.  So the first thing you need to do is look at your existing audience. Who has already bought your art? Who has shown interest in your art. Do these people share any characteristics? Age? Employment, Geographic location, etc. If you don't really know who your audience is then you need to create one. Think long and hard about your art and who it is created for. Who likes your art? Is there an audience that you are very comfortable with? You really need to be serious and "create your perfect customer".  If you are still not sure then just makeup an audience. It's not that hard to do.

Then once you have defined your customer you need to start thinking about where they go and what they do. Only then should you spend any time or money marketing .