Cost-Effective Marketing Materials       

Read the other parts here.

So, you're an artist, that means you've also got a small business (translation: it all gets done by you or your very small staff).

You're passionate about what you do, you make great art (and enough of it) and you'd like to make more money at it. You want to do some marketing online, probably offline as well. How do you create what you need cost-effectively?

In a nutshell, I've got two words for you:  PLAN AHEAD.  That's the big secret (!) and it's huge money-saver, truly. Because when you don't plan ahead it costs so much more (twice, at least in my experience) than if you just did a bit of planning and thinking ahead.

Whether you do it yourself, have staff to do it, or you hire a marketing consultant to guide/advise you, you'll save tons of time and money if you plan ahead by documenting your art, products and services as you go along, as they are created.

By "documenting" I mean keeping a record of it all, high-quality information and images that you can easily find.  Then when it comes time to create, oh, a website, online ads, blogs, printed materials like brochures, sales sheets, postcards, business cards, print ads and lots more, you'll be ready to go.

For products, artwork, anything you create, you'll need professional quality images. No, I don't mean running past the thing with a cell phone and snapping a pic. I mean proper lighting, high-resolution, cropped, color-corrected, formatted and ready for use. Hire a professional photographer. It's your business, your livelihood, you need great-looking images. Do this now, do it as you create your work, don't wait. What you need might not be there in the future, and it will take a lot of time and money to go back and re-create the conditions you had at the time when it was all shiny and new (and in your possession).

Keep detailed descriptions. The stuff you write, or pay a copywriter to write. Stories about your work, testimonials from clients and customers, articles written about you and that you write, all of it. Get it while you can, or, spend a lot of time and money retracing your steps and trying to recreate it or find it all after-the-fact when it may not even exist any more.

Document your work as soon as it's completed. Again, this means professional-level digital photography or scans, and all the information you'll need to document each piece, preferably on a spreadsheet but at least on a piece of paper in a file for each piece with your name, the name of the piece, the date it was created, medium, size, price you want for it, description of the piece including any interesting story about it and you, model releases, and so on.

That done, it's not a big deal to create your website, printed and digital portfolios, print, and other online materials from your high-resolution images and information. Everything, and I mean everything, starts from great images and good information. Get it done while you can, at the beginning. Keep it organized. You'll need it later, not only for marketing, but for copyright, trademarks, and patent applications as well.

Remember, printed pieces required very high resolution images (large digital files). The web is different in that it requires very small digital files that still look great. Once you have high resolution images, you can create what you need for printing and online.

Many of our artists have us create their printed and online materials for them (they remember about opportunity costs). They know how cost-effective it is (we're fast and use great online printers) and then they end up with professionally-designed pieces to use over and over and adapt for future needs.

By the way, when you create your marketing materials (or someone creates them for you), be sure to add those digital files and printed samples to your collection of images and info. You'll thank yourself later!

All my best to you and yours!