I was having a conversation with a friend about artists and our resistance to doing the work we have to do in order to build our audience. Many of us view the audience development/marketing side of our businesses as boring and that “thing” we “have” to do that takes our precious time away from creating our art. Yet, if we want a following, time and effort must happen. However, my friend and I thought of three solutions for us artistic types to make friends with audience development:
- Know your strengths and weaknesses. If you truly do not have the time or the desire or the ability, hire someone else to do the audience development work for you.
- If money is an issue, find an intern that is eager for the job experience, yet has enough knowledge about connecting via social media and email marketing to do positive work for you.
- Or, learn to make this part of the business fun for you. I know of an artist that created a board with the names of the people that have purchased her artwork. It’s artsy and functional. She will, according to her time plan, choose one of these people to send an email or note to in order to build a relationship with them. Over time, all of the people on her board have been connected with. There are many other ideas for incorporating your art into a business task. You can use your creative brain to come up with solutions to help you accomplish your business tasks while keeping in mind your desire to be artistic.
If there is a will, there is a way. You only have to decide if you want it bad enough. “It” being a successful arts business!
Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana
Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
https://www.buildmyaudience.com
“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart
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