I've decided to write a regular blog, but why?
“Not another blogger!”
I can imagine many of you saying. I would be tempted to agree.
You're probably thinking something along the lines of...
“Yeah great, just one more person telling their story and giving their opinion about this that and the other...who cares?!”
Well firstly I care, even if nobody else does, which feels like a good start.
But why do I care? and more importantly why start a blog? What's my intention?
As a professional artist, there are various reasons. Hopefully this post will help to explain my intentions and maybe even encourage you to start your own blog (If you haven't all ready)
1) A Useful Marketing tool
For a creative professional the often taboo subjects of making money, running a business and the dreaded marketing, are absolutely necessary.
To answer the question 'why a blog?' as a marketing tool for a professional artist, we need to quickly touch on why marketing, and relevant marketing, is important in the first place.
Points for me to consider:
I want to paint on a daily basis because I love it. To do this I need to fund it.
I also have a certain lifestyle I would like to live. This requires money. Not vast amounts but a reasonable amount.
I know there will come times in my life when others may rely on me financially and I would like to be able to have this covered as best I can.
Based on the above, running a business that is not profitable is not an option
So after plenty of resistance I 'got over myself' and now have no problem saying that as full time artist I run a business......an Art Business.
To do this I need to generate income..
To do this the business must grow in various areas.
One area that seems relevant to my business is an online presence.
One potentially very useful tool to grow my online presence could be a blog of some sort.
A blog allows me to give insight into my paintings, the ideas behind them, the process, me as a person and a behind the scenes look at the business side of things.
All this is adding a face and a personality to my business, and adding validity and value to what I do.
In particular validity to the online presence of my business. An aspect which can be a little faceless, especially in contrast to my 'real world' presence where so much of my business is based on face to face interactions with people.
Important things a blog could allow me to do:
Reach a wider audience
Target smaller niche audiences that are physically far away from where I am
Build new relationships and gain new followers
Keep connected with existing ones and build relationships further
A maintained blog will show that I am active, consistent and that I do what I say I do. In turn this gains trust and confidence from new and existing clients, and buyers, alike.
Regular social media updates combined with an up to date website helps to keep people in the loop and shows a business that is consistent and moving forward. (i.e. Adding validity and value which in turn gains trust and confidence)
A blog could not only be a great addition to this but will also allow me to go more in depth than I would do on my website or social media (Platforms where we are generally looking to give people quick short hits of info)
I would consider a one important part of successful marketing is simply sharing what you do with people.
A blog allows a deeper level of sharing
(which happens to be reason number 2 for writing one. Please see next blog post for this)