If you have not done so yet, have you determined and set up your art marketing goals for the year 2017? If not, here are 5 relatively easy things that an artist can do to help improve their marketing and branding of their art in 2017.

I believe that if an artist were to schedule and engage in the following activities on a consistent basis, they would begin to see an increase in traffic to their website along with more interest concerning the sale of their art. Let us review what an artist can do to help improve the marketing of their art in 2017:

1. Start a Blog – Artists should consider starting an art blog as a way to attract and direct additional interested viewers to their art websites. An art blog is a great way to expand the artist’s target audience and it is an effective platform to help an artist market their art as well.

Read our article “Top 3 Reasons Why You Should Have an Art Blog” in order to fully understand the power of a well-executed art blog.

2. Use Social Media – Social media is the perfect platform for artists to employ in order to help market themselves and their art. Why is this? In my opinion, it is easy to identify and connect with the art community when using social media.

I also think it is an effective medium because it is a visual and a simple way in which to present your art. Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Linkedin, Instagram and even Twitter provides an artist with opportunities (if targeted properly) to reach viewers who were previously unreachable.

Read our article “Top 10 Reasons Why Artists Fail with Social Media” along with various other social media articles on the LST website.

3. Press Release Marketing – Press release marketing is a low-cost alternative whereby an artist can market their artwork to a wide range of potential viewers. There are many “Free” press release websites which take, publish and market an artist’s press release copy. However, if pressed for time, I strongly suggest that an artist use a “Paid” press release distribution service. LST uses a company called Star One Public Relations and they charge $15.00 for distribution to 70+ press outlets.

Read our articles “Press Release Marketing for Professional Artists” and “Helpful Hints When Writing an Art Press Release” to help guide you in these efforts.

4. Evaluate & Edit Your Website – When was the last time that you went page by page and link by link through your website? If you are like most people (never mind being an artist) it has probably been a very long time! I think that if you were to do this with your website you would find broken links, pages that do not load quickly, graphics, images and other items that have moved, along with pages with misspelled words and similar issues.

Is this how you want your website visitors to see your art? Take some time to make these corrections. Also, if you have pages that do not load quickly due to large image files or due to flash and music features, these items should be corrected or removed as people do not have the time to wait on your pages to load. Otherwise, if not corrected you will be losing these valuable visitors to your site.

Read our article “Art Portfolios – Is it Time for a Spring Cleaning?”

5. Become a Guest Blogger – Another way in which to reach your target audience is to become a guest blogger on other successful art bloggers websites. Target potential blogs that are related to your art niche, are active blogs and blogs that attract a large following.

Active bloggers are always looking for new material, topics, and articles for their sites. Be able to show them any articles that you have previously written in order to demonstrate that you can write well. They will probably only take your articles that have never been published before, therefore be prepared to write new content.

These website owners may have some ideas and topics on what they would like for you to write about. Otherwise, prepare and have some ideas ready that you can propose to them. Just make sure you are not proposing duplicate or similar content that is already on their website.

Read our article “5 Ways an Artist Can Attract Readers to an Art Blog”.

In 2017 vow to make these suggestions part of your marketing efforts, If followed, I believe you will see an improvement in traffic to your website, interest in your art and ultimately, more sales of your art.  As with any marketing program, your efforts need to be well executed and performed on a consistent basis in order to be successful.

Read our article “The Rule of Seven Explains Artist’s Discouragement”.

Good luck and have a successful and creative 2017!