For the artistic freelancer, treating your craft as a business is more important than ever. In a time of infinite content, more people than ever are trying to carve out their creative space and turn their passion into a means of profit generation. Unfortunately, many fail for the simple fact that they approach their attempt at business management with the wrong mentality. Areas like marketing are dismissed because it seems crass. The opposite is true: marketing is simply finding the people that want what you create. That means that for the creative freelancer, marketing is a service that puts your creations in the radar of those that will love it. If you want to get more from your marketing, here are some suggestions that could transform the way that you promote your art.

Knowing Your Customer

Whether you draw comic strips and post them online, write novels, 3D print cosplay armour, or any other creative output, you aren’t going to sell much if you don’t who your customers are going to be. Many artists claim that their art is for everybody, and that’s almost exactly the same as saying that it’s for nobody.

You need to know your target audience, and in the digital age, that means using data.

When it comes to business intelligence, data is the key to audience segmentation, which is going to be vital for the growth of your creative brand. Learn as much as you can about gathering, storing, and using data, and read as much as possible about the process of data governance. The more that you know about those that love your art, the easier it will be to find others that will love it too.

Reaching Customers

Once you know more about who your customers are, you need to think about the best ways to reach them. This is where your data results will start to prove their value. Look at the platforms most commonly used by your existing fans, and their preferred ways of interacting with the artists and creators that they like. Promotion on social media is obviously vital, and for creatives, that means more than Facebook and Instagram. Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit should all be looked at, depending on the age of your preferred audience. You will also need to consider:

• Email newsletters
• Blogging about your process
• Attending conventions and creative events
• Paid advertising

If you are going for platforms like Reddit, you may have to ensure that you get upvotes on your content. Promoting any content on social media sites requires constant likes and support from other users to reach the greater population. Another thing that could improve your outreach is the timing of the post since it can depend on how many people are online using the platform at that particular moment. The best time to post on Reddit could be in the morning hours when people are out and about traveling to their offices while checking their social media accounts.

While digital marketing is all about emails, blogs and YouTube videos in 2020, there’s nothing quite like selling art at a comic convention or making a book sale at a literary festival. Business intelligence is all about finding the maximum profit, and if you adopt even a small percent of that mentality, then you could make more money than you think. However, reaching your customers is only half the battle. Once you have their attention, you will then have to engage with them, and that is where the real value of social media lies. Start engaging, and you will start to build trust in you and your creative brand.

Marketing is time-consuming, and the results are not going to be immediate. You need to market your art if you want to turn your creativity into a revenue stream, but you need to be prepared to put in the work and let your audience reach grow more organically. Treat your marketing as a vital service and one of your most important tasks, and you could achieve more than you ever thought possible.

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