As you may recall, last fall MyArtClub.Com conducted a market survey to assess the "5 Ws" about the art market, meaning the questions "Who", "What", "Where", "When" and "Why". We felt compelled to learn more about fine art clients for the large part because the answers for many important questions to help artists and art venues build solid business plans are not readily available. Our report, soon to be released, presents a concise set of findings to assist all participants in the art market. It brings together demographics and personal interests to focus on understanding client preferences to help you target your art markets most effectively. Key findings include reasons for optimism! A whopping 98.9% of participants purchase fine art an estimated 1.4 times per year. A huge 78.2% of these clients buy on impulse simply because they love the work. The highest customer preference at 71.2% is to buy directly from an artist to better know the artist and support the artist financially. The full report is to be out in Fall 2008. As a member of MyArtClub.Com you will have full access to the findings. An interesting summary presentation is also being prepared, with specific actions you and your art groups could take. We would welcome an invitation to present our findings to you and your group in future. This article first appeared in the My Art News Letter #24 read more ...

Knowing what, where, and how other artists earned their art business income during 2011, we believe can help you make more informed plans for your efforts to market and sell your art in 2012.MyArtClub.Com has launched a 15 minute online survey to help you learn what you need to know. We plan to compile all survey submissions and publish the aggregated results on our Art Marketer's blog, www.MyArtBlog.ca just in time for spring art sales.Please act now, survey closes Feb 14, 2012. Simply come to www.MyArtClub.Com/Survey and fill in your answers. We do the rest.If you do join our survey, please review our definition of "art business income" which we hope will serve as a guide: "Art business income" is any income from your work as an artist is the source of income for your art business. Please do not include commissions paid to galleries or agents, and do not include money earned from salaried positions (such as being an art gallery administrator, or say an art school teacher). You can however include income such as grants or sponsorships etc. that support your personal art business.Your personal submission details will be kept confidential. We believe your own answers will give you insight to your own business story. If you would like a copy of your personal submission, and to be sent a full report of the findings, please enter your email at the end.We hope you will find this of interest, and if so, would ask if you could please pass this along and encourage your artist colleagues to join in. The more details we gather, the better our results will be for all.Thank you for being with MyArtClub.Com, we look forward to helping you succeed in 2012Cam Anderson and Peter Newell,Webmasters of MyArtClub.Com read more ...

Xanadu gallery of Phoenix Arizona has posted their first results of their artist survey and they are very interesting to review. The blog provides some share opinions of artists of many types, and geographic base, who want to know where they stand compared to other artists regarding income levels and production levels. Early results show that those artists with more production correlate to higher sales. Skim the comments too, as there are some are very interesting stories from individual artists. As Xanadu provides more details, we will keep you posted. MyArtClub.Com is also conducting an art industry survey which is still open for your submission at www.MyArtClub.Com/Survey. The focus of both surveys are similar, but do ask different questions we expect will provide additional marketing insight for artists especially concerning channels to market. The MyArtClub.Com survey is only 15 minutes, and open to all. If you provide your email address (optional) we will not only send you our report, but as well a copy of your own submission for comparison purposes. Other wise you can read the results on this blog. read more ...

Many thanks to the 187 artists who took the time to complete the survey. There is a lot of interesting information I am analyzing for this blog entry and likely several more blog reports to come. Individual requested comparative reports for those who signed up will be sent out in the coming 2-3 weeks. Charts to illustrate the findings presented below, with much more detail, are available to download here. Please open this Artist 2012 Sales Survey Report 1 (If you cannot open see the Adobe Reader download link below) First a caveat: Everything presented here is opinion. Do not base your marketing efforts solely on this. You must do your own planning in context of your own business. With a healthy sample size of 187, we do hope to provide you with some reasonable sense of how artists are seeing the art business, and what they plan to do. The findings are: Half the 187 responding artists spend 20 or more hours per week. Page 2 Half see their art business as somewhat or very important financially. Page 2 A segment called ">20h-$NB" is defined to be those 70 artists (37%) who reported that they spend 20 or more hours a week, and the income is somewhat or very important to them. (NB is taken from Nota Bene which is good old LATIN for note well, aka 'important'). What I am looking to do by showing results for ALL in comparison wth those artists in this segment, is to show how this particular segment of the responding artists think relative to how the whole group thinks. I picked those who are able to and do spend most of their working time - you might call them "full timers" - and married with that those who are somewhat or very dependent on the income from their art business. In other words these artists have some skin in the game from a business point of view from both time spent and money needed. You will see that sometimes this group shows some interesting differences when compared to the overall group. Page 3 Market outlook is positive for 2012 by all artist respondents, and is even more positive in outlook by the >20h-$NB art business operations. Page 4 Group art shows came out overall on top as best way to get income, but the >20h-$NB artists rank commissions first, and then galleries, solo shows and group shows. Page 5 Promotions that worked in 2011 were # 1 direct selling to clients, then dealing with galleries/agents and media promotions as the most productive avenues, especially for >20h-$NB segment. Page 6 Artist spent about 53% of time producing art (Page 7) and over 73% want to increase that time. Page 8 Original art works sales were 72% of all income, with instruction generating 11% and copies or prints of originals generating 9.4% for all respondents, totaling 92.4% of all income sources. Page 9 The implications are: You can see where you fit in for hours per week, and review how other artists see the market from that similar perspective. Prices and sales units are seen to be going up. Artists should not lower prices, rather should at least hold prices steady and increase if their pricing analysis permits. A review of pricing benchmarks would be a worthwhile effort. The >20h-$NB segment is even more positive about sales opportunities. Seeing is believing! Don't let this very positive opinion sway you too much. You can feel some heart warming positive thoughts to be cautiously optimistic about marketing efforts you undertake this year. Commissions may be the best way to earn income, be sure you are promoting this or considering how to build this part of your business, if applicable If direct selling is the most successful, what are your promotions to contact and engage with your clients? Draw up a plan To increase the amount of time creating art means either having assistance with other time consumers, or getting more time to spend. A way to off load or save time doing admin and set up looks desirable. Could increased learning be done in tandem with creating? Income sources from originals is already so high it is hard to imagine that increasing as a percentage of your art business. Copies on the other hand do represent a way to reach a lower cost market segment. Our Art Market survey indicated clients buy as many copies as originals. Instruction while logical and lucrative needs to be balanced in time commitment if you want to increase your time creating and learning. Offer instruction as a block of time – say a weekend retreat – vs several weeks of once a week classes - to retain your maximum time availability. Anyone who would like a spreadsheet (CSV) copy to examine the detailed survey submissions immediately is most welcome. Email your request for the "Report spreadsheet", to [email protected] We will continue to report on our findings in upcoming blogs, and hope you find this of help. Please comment below to indicate / pass along your thoughts, comments and suggestions! Download Adobe Reader software here read more ...