Marketing: Emerging Artist Tips 8.0

Continuing to respond to the series of questions I recently received from a new art school grad who needs marketing help, this Q and A or FAQ touches on a common stereotype for artists: being reclusive, quiet, socially inept, weird, anxious, reticent - you get the idea.

Q:
Part 2 of the original question: I'll go right out and say it -- I feel as if my networking skills are completely awful. I'm very shy and I feel uncomfortable approaching people, especially in business situations. I'm at a dramatic disadvantage here. I need to work on this. Overcoming these fears is the area where I feel I could use the most help, I think.

A:

When I started I was very shy; in both business and social situations I was as quiet as a mouse and rarely spoke up let alone be assertive about my skills. No one knew how I was suffering, mainly because I was so quiet and shy that I never could talk about it!!

However, there was a spark inside me that pushed me, over time, to learn about and get over that fear. It took effort, practice and motivation to do this. It still pops up now and again, mainly because it's hard wired into my particular artistic temperament. However, it is VERY treatable and very common. Many people experience anxiety, but only about a third of those who do actually do anything about it.

Today, my clients, friends and family would laugh if I told them I was shy and retiring. I find that a wonderful compliment!

Right now I'm reading:

The Mindful Way through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life by Lizabeth Roemer andSusan M. Orsillo (Jan 18, 2011)

which yet again gives me the confidence and strength to have a great life. There are a lot of "spiritual" and "touch-feely" types of books out there, but that's not me. I'm practical and want to know how to guide myself through life.

Some more business tips:

Tad Crawford is considered a strong, artist-oriented leader for the business side of the arts. Here's a link to amazon.com where you can find all sorts of his books. Back in my day, he only had this one book:

http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Your-Graphic-Design-Illustration/dp/0312712529/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334405203&sr=1-14

which was invaluable. It's probably dated now, but it looks like he has many other newer guides that are specific to various industries:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=tad+crawford

Another older but well-referenced book that taught me more than I'll ever appreciate:

2012 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market [Paperback]

Mary Burzlaff Bostic

The publishers also now have a website: 

http://www.artistsmarketonline.com/?r=amoppc&gclid=CNWawo6otK8CFQHznAod1VUbkw

I used to buy these books every year, read the relevant parts for my field, and then make the cold calls. A huge help that motivated me as well as led me to a lot of contacts and work.

One more piece of experience:

When you make cold calls and you finally get a human, they may attempt to just push you away. If you can tell that's what's going to happen, ask them if they're not buying at the time, could they (please) recommend someone who might be? They just might give you the name of someone else in their company/ad agency, or someone outside their business that will open up a whole new set of doors. Try to get something out of every call.

My artistic influences growing up. That's me on the left, Steve then Ann. Take careful note of the pajamas with feet; must have lost mine that day. We were trouble, with a capital "T". In the living room at our house in Naperville, Illinois. Probably planning an evil deed.

Marketing: Emerging Artist Tips 6.0

Introduction

Recently a young, fresh out of school artist/illustrator in New York City contacted me for advice about how to jump start his career. This is an on-going dialog about how to approach marketing your skills.

Random things can make or break your ability to get an assignment. It helps to prepare and control as much as you can. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but your personal image and marketing methods are often your first, and maybe only, chance to make an impression.

Q:

I'm getting so discouraged about the number of "not interested" responses I get to my attempts to get work. Do you have some more creative ideas for getting clients? I don't care if it takes some work, I just want something to come out of it.

A:

Realize that you will make many, many calls and contacts for every one job you get. It helps to hear this, and this is a hard thing to do, but do not take it personally if you don't hear back. As best you can, keep negative thoughts and emotions out of it. This is just business. You don't need 100 clients until you're ready to handle 100 clients. If you can establish a few well-paying, dependable gems, you're on your way. 

• Keep an eye out for online or print announcements (press releases) about people who are getting job promotions who might need your services in their new position. As in the previous marketing post, congratulate them, and start to imprint your images into their brains.
• Use corporations, publishers, ad and design agency's websites to increase your ever-growing and ever-changing (Potential) Contact List. For example, take this ad agency with offices in New York: http://www.wk.com/ . On their website, go to: http://www.wk.com/people . There's a page full of creative/media people, from their offices in New York to all over the world, some already using illustration on this page, that you can start contacting. Note: these people change jobs ALL THE TIME! They leave for greener pastures, get promoted, get fired, etc. so it's worth it to keep up with them and their changing contact information, otherwise you could be lost in the shuffle.
• Some of this best advice I ever got: develop a VERY THICK SKIN!

Marketing: Emerging Artist Tips 3.0

Introduction

Recently a young, fresh out of school artist (working at Starbucks) in New York City contacted me for advice about how to jump start his career. He'd had some good assignments as an illustrator, but things have slowed greatly recently and he needs help.

His question below stems from my asking him if he is thinking of changing careers at this slow juncture, and finding a more lucrative "regular" job. A lot of succeeding as an artist is having an extraordinarily thick skin, stamina, and patience. It is not for the faint of heart or those vaguely motivated. 

Q:

I am not at this time considering changing careers. Yes, I am young. Yes, I am poor. If either of those sentences changes, then I'll revisit the subject. Until then, I hold firm to something my mother told me years ago, when I first expressed interest in commercial art -- that illustration is the business of the last man standing. If I can just hold on long enough, it will work. I will outlast the others because whenever I pick up a pencil or a paintbrush, I know that this is what I was meant to do. Whenever things get a little dry (right now would be a good example) I always toss options around out loud. I never really mean any of them. I'm here to stay.

A:

Being young and unencumbered (forgive me, I don't know if you're married and/or have children, I'm just guessing you're not) is the best way to start building a career in illustration. Your mother is exactly right - it takes almost unlimited perseverance at first. There will be weeks and months (and of course, weekends) when you have so much work you won't have a minute off and yet you can't afford to turn anything down; and then a dry period will test your commitment and make you get back to marketing all over again. 

The harder you work, the better you'll think, the freer you'll create, the more confident you'll become, and the more likely buyers will trust that you will do a terrific, professional job on time and on budget. They will trust you to make them look great.

You sound very self-aware of how you feel about being an illustrator. That's essential, because if you can't convince yourself that what you're doing is worth it, you won't convince anyone else.

The National Institute of Health contacted me years ago, wanting samples of my interactive multimedia cardiovascular work. I quickly put together this sample containing simple contact information and captions describing each project. This mailing was sent with a cover letter and resume; if I recall correctly, at the time it was quite risky if not impossible to send such large files online. Note that each sample shown is specifically geared to the heart and cardiovascular system. I got the job.

Marketing: Emerging Artist Tips 2.0

Introduction

• Recently I was contacted by a young, fresh out of art school "artist" who specializes in illustration. I put "artist" in quotes because he's currently working at a Starbucks in New York City and trying to succeed on the side. A hard-working, very talented person who just can't seem to break into the field, and finding that the information given in art school just wasn't enough. 
• Although it's been many years since I've had to start out attempting to become a successful artist, and though the tools have changed, the basic principles remain the same. I'm still marketing all these years later, so I'm going to occasionally post edited versions of the questions asked, along with my responses. 

Q: 

• "I get overwhelmed by how to go about getting clients and remembering who I contacted and when. Things keep falling through the cracks and I feel like there are opportunities I'm missing because of it. How can I get my act together and start to run like a business not a class I just need to pass?"

A:

• You need software or some kind of formal note taking to help you keep track of names, titles, addresses, phone, etc. It's the kind of thing that will tell you what you mailed to someone, and when, so you know when to make a follow-up call to the mailing to see if you can open a door or elicit a response. You MUST keep this updated. You'll be amazed at how quickly people change jobs, titles, cell phone numbers, etc. There is expensive and dedicated software out there to do this, but I have found that just setting up a table in Word or getting a program like Filemaker pro works just as well. 
• Whatever software you get, you have to use it to make it worthwhile! I would force myself to cold call, say, five or ten contacts a week (minimum) unless I was so overwhelmed with work that I wasn't getting any sleep. This is something that I had to do throughout my career. Cold calling and being more extroverted is not fun or easy at first, especially if you're shy and/or reticent. Believe me, I know, as that describes me to a "T". Often, it's the way of artists. For more information, I'll get into how to recognize and deal with this in depth later on.

A sample sheet from 2000 when I was marketing for medical illustration work. Life moves on! Every bit of contact information on this page has long since changed!

Marketing: Emerging Artist Tips

• Recently I was contacted by a young, fresh out of art school "artist" who specializes in illustration. I put "artist" in quotes because he's currently working at a Starbucks in New York City and trying to succeed on the side. A hard-working, very talented person who just can't seem to break into the field, and finding that the information given in art school just wasn't enough.
• Although it's been many years since I've had to start out attempting to become a successful artist, and though the tools have changed, the basic principles remain the same. I'm still marketing all these years later, so I'm going to occasionally post edited versions of the questions asked, along with my responses. 
Q: "My marketing strategy at this time is what I would consider bare-bones, but definitely not unknowledgable. As soon as I graduated from art school, I set to work gathering a long list of potential clients. I started at the magazine rack at Barnes and Nobles, and moved on from there to the internet. I find mastheads wherever I can, I grab the names and addresses for Art Directors, assistant ADs, Creative Directors, and so on, and I add them to the list. I do this whenever and wherever I can. Every three or four months, I then mail postcards with my work to everyone on this list. I feel strongly as if I need more diversity in my marketing strategy. I do not email because I can't be convinced that it's remotely effective or even worth the time that it would take to gather the few email addresses I could find (people seem to protect these better than their mailing addresses). I also believe that it's too easy to automatically get sorted into junk folders, whereas with a physical mailing, at the very least there's a good chance that someone will take a look at what I can do, at least for a few seconds. If I can grab their attention in that time, I win. If not, at least I had that shot."

A: Gathering contact information whenever and wherever you can is a great start, as is creating and mailing postcards. Your take on emails is correct; they're often lost, forgettable and viewed as somewhat lazy and intrusive.

• I have known people who've spent a large amount of money on creating show-stopping, die cut, expensive mailers. I'm not convinced that's a good investment. If you're already getting some calls from your mailings (and they're not mega printing dollars to do) then your talent speaks for itself. 

• From my experience, the same goes for purchasing (what are often hugely expensive) ads in the big advertising books like the Black Book. Before I would do anything like that, I would talk to some illustrator agents, art directors, other illustrators, etc. to try to judge whether the investment is worth it. I've spent thousands of dollars on ad books and sometimes gone for a long time with no results, although some claim consistency of your message (over the years) is critical.

• The world has changed a great deal, but you need to start doing cold calls. Mailings are not enough; they're too passive. You need to constantly get to the front of people's minds, and you can't do that if you don't talk to them and happen to connect with them the moment they have a need for your work.

• Here's a sample of one of my early marketing pages which was published in a specialized medical art marketing book: