I’ve already written about how to blog when you sell products in my Commerce Blogging 101 post, but what about if you make the products you sell? What if you’re an artist, craftsperson, or studio professional? Then what? Is blogging harder? Are sales harder? No and no: blogging is easier—way easier, in fact—and so are sales.
Process, Not Product
Whenever you create objects by hand, the thing to remember is that it’s not the object you’re selling at the end of the day… it’s the stories behind the object. What’s important isn’t the object, but the process. And there’s nothing better than a blog for documenting this process. A lot of creators learn in school about the importance of process, but when it comes to their web presence or to the business side of their work, they seem to forget this.
The object you create (the product) is a symbol of the process (the story) that went into its making. And it’s that story that’s really the important part. You might think the aesthetics of the object itself are the most important, but they’re not, simply because taste is so subjective.
How to Document the Creative Process on your Blog
On the one hand, what I’m about to tell you is really simple. Absurdly simple. What’s hard about it is remembering to do it in the first place. You have to have a “documentary” mindset. Here’s the thing: you don’t know what others will find valuable, so just document and let others sort it out for you. This isn’t complicated:
- Take pictures as you work through a piece, and take notes about why you’re doing what you’re doing, and what is the story behind that.
- Shoot video in the same vein. Better yet, if you can get someone else to hold the camera and ask questions, the better. Otherwise, get tripod.
- Make a time-lapse video of you working on the piece (setting it to some appropriate music is a nice touch).
- Write about what you’re going through, thinking, and feeling as create a piece.
- Tell the stories of where everything comes from in a piece, especially the sourcing of materials and ideas.
Why This Works: Storytelling
Why does this work? In a word, storytelling, though it’s actually more than that. When you document the process of creating an item, the people following that become part of the story—or at least, they feel like they do, which for our purpose is the same thing. As they follow the creation of the object, they become more involved in the story, more invested in it.
When the object is about to be finished and sold, people who invested themselves in the story of its creation will experience a tension and a dissonance: if the object is sold to someone besides themselves, it moves out of their life, and they are no longer a part of its story… unless they’re the one who buys it, of course.
Buying the object makes them part of its story, relieving tension and fulfilling a fantasy of how they view themselves. They incorporate the story of the object into their own lives. The stories behind what we buy are becoming more and more important. Look at the explosive growth in the organic and ecological products/food sector for all the proof you need. The story behind our food so we can feel good about buying it (and even paying a premium price for it) is paramount to success in this new landscape.
Customers Are Subscribers
Getting subscribers for an artist’s blog is just as important for any other kind of blog. Anyone who ever buys anything from you needs to be on your list so they receive blog post updates from you. Why? Because if they’ve purchased your work in the past, they’re disposed to to purchasing it again. And again. And again! Their purchasing has shown you they like your work enough to spend money on it. That means these are the people who need to know you’re working on something new. They will be drooling as you’re documenting.
What you’re looking to accomplish with this is your readers contacting you privately to buy a piece before anyone else can. That’s reallyhow you know you’re “doing it right.” Make a separate list of these people, because they are gold. Make them your “first contact” or “inner circle” list and give them first dibs on new work.
Make subscribing easy: use Aweber or FeedBurner to let people subscribe to your blog by email. Put the sign-up form at the top right of the page (like how you see it on Remarkablogger).
Close the loop: invite your customers to send you photographs of your work in their homes or offices and post these on your blog, along with whatever nice things they have to say about how much they love your stuff.
You Never Have to Sell
The best thing about this is you never have to feel icky about marketing or selling. You don’t have to sell in the way we normally think of selling. You can sell without selling. By documenting your process and your thoughts as you create, you are in fact creating a powerful “sideways” sales letter that works in installments to build up desire in your patrons over time to own the finished piece.
But You Still Have to Make it Easy to Buy
You don’t have to act like a greasy used car salesman, but you still have to make your work easy to buy. Use PayPal, build a button, and paste the button code into your post when you’re ready to place the item on sale. If you want to auction your work, use eBay. If you want to be really old-fashioned about it, you can try to have the gallery showing your work to sell it for you, but most galleries don’t have a clue about how to sell online. This severely limits you, but you can make a go of it.
Unless a gallery has a great website, its reach usually extends only to its local area. Like many other industries, the art world is going be completely crushed and remade by the internet—but we’re not quite there, just yet.
Once a piece has sold, go back and edit the posts about it to remove the buy button and to state clearly in bold letters: SOLD. People need to see you’re selling and you don’t want to receive inquiries about pieces which have already sold just because there’s no clue on the site about it.
Site Specifics
What should an artist’s blog look like or have on it? Here are some suggestions:
- A gallery or portfolio page with a slideshow. This is easily done using the Headway theme, with its built-in photo gallery and the ability to create an animated content carousel.
- A page for commissioned work if you take it, where you describe how that process goes. Either add a form onto that page or link back to your contact page so you may receive commission inquiries.
- A contact form on a contact page. If you take commissions, say so here (not everyone will see your commissions page)
- An about page for biographical information about yourself as an artist. Include a picture of yourself.
- An about page for your process and medium, where you describe what kind of work you do and how you do it.
What should artist’s blogs avoid? Here’s a list of major sins:
- Splash pages that force a visitor to “enter” the site. Even more horrible if they consist of a flash animation or a gigantic image which takes forever to download. You may as well just have the page say “Go Away,” because that’s exactly what most visitors will do.
- Using pictures as words. This is about SEO, rather than accessibility. It also slows down your site loading time.
- Using your own artwork as background images. Keep backgrounds plain and simple, like a gallery wall.
- Putting up crappy pictures because you’re afraid someone is going to steal them from your site. Don’t put up over-optimized images because “no one would want to steal those.” You know what else people won’t want to do? buy your art, because they can’t freakin’ see it. Watermarks are okay as long as they don’t detract from getting a good look at the artwork. When it comes to pictures, the more, the bigger, the merrier. Include lots of close-up and details. This stuff matters.
- If you have a designer doing your site/blog for you, don’t argue with him or her about what you like. It’s not about what you like, and you’re not a web designer, although I know many of you will do your sites yourselves. At least after reading this post, you’ll know more about online marketing and artist blog web design than just about everyone else. So, what should your site be about? The best way to showcase your work and your story so that you have buyers. What you personally find appealing does not factor into that. I know it’s tough, but get over yourself. By the way, the same thing goes for every business owner and CEO on the planet, so at least you’re not alone.
Don’t Make it Harder than it Is
This isn’t rocket surgery. Don’t make it into something it’s not. Don’t make it harder than it is. Your website is your window to the world: you look out, the world looks in. It’s your virtual studio and gallery all rolled into one. By simply documenting what you do, how you do it, why you do it, and how you feel about it, you completely bypass all of that gross selling crap. Just make sure you put the buy button on there. Make it easy for people to contact you and buy your stuff. They won’t hang around if they don’t like it, so it’s not like you have to kill yourself or sell your soul to move some art.