Marketing Your Web Site (And Your Art)
Part I
by Zino Vogiatzis
ou’ve got a great looking Web site, and it’s now live. Now what? Arguably the most significant part of adding a Web site to your marketing tools is not building it, but what you do with it, how you use it to grow your business. Quite frequently small businesses consider Web sites as add-ons, something they have to have just because everybody else has one these days. It is hard to overemphasize their significance for most artists, who are small businesses with no permanent place of exhibiting their work. Your Web site is the only place where all the latest and most complete info about you and your art can be found. No one else can or will do that for you. For all intents and purposes your Web site is your business.
Publicizing your Web site
The primary mission of your site is to promote yourself and your art (see TCR March 2004 Crafts Technology: What Am I Trying To Do With My Web Site?). Your main task as soon as your Web site goes live is to start integrating it into your business activities. Your first priority is to include your URL (the “www.mywebsite.com” part) to your business cards, postcards, stationery, packaging, your booth and even your art. Your second priority should be to promote it through your personal contacts at shows — the most common sales venue for many artists.
Before a show, if you do a mailing, make sure you mention new items and invite the recipients for a preview at your Web site. If a show’s Web site includes links to participating artists Web sites, make sure they have your URL. You would be surprised how many visits you can get at your site before a show. It is always desirable to have prospective buyers well informed and excited about what they can see and buy at your booth. Shows can be overwhelming and prospective buyers frequently don’t have the time to see and appreciate everything. It’s always an advantage if you distinguish yourself early, if you make a good impression on them, they will have a good idea of your work and why they should visit with you.
At the show, make sure all booth visitors know about your Web site when they leave. You can’t possibly show all your work at your booth, so make sure prospective clients know where they can see your complete collection and find out about you in detail after the show. Never underestimate the power of “word-of-mouth”. Art lovers that like and follow your work are your best ambassadors and marketers to their circle of friends. It takes just one click for them to share your work with many others. If you are collecting mail addresses at your booth, try also collecting e-mail addresses to simplify your communications.
With all the spam concerns these days, make sure you have a clear, strict privacy policy that signers can see. Similar steps can be taken with galleries that carry your work. Make sure they know your URL and they are updated regularly about your new work showing at your site. You can also expand your reach by looking for new buyers. It is very easy to look online for new galleries, other retailers, professionals such as architects and interior designers, in your area or anywhere. Having a Web site makes it very easy to contact them via e-mail or mail and bring your art to their attention.
Submitting your Web site to search engines
Another top priority as soon as your site goes live is to submit it to search engines. In the early days of the Web there used to be several search engines of significance. The most popular as of early 2005 are — in that sequence — Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. Of those, Google is by far the most popular and nothing underlines that popularity more than the fact that “Google” has become a verb. More importantly, it is also the only one of the above that accepts free listings. Simply visit their site at www.google.com/addurl/ and submit your URL. Google provides extensive information in its site at www.google.com/ webmasters as to how its search engine works and how you can take advantage of it to make sure your site shows up in the appropriate searches. In a nutshell, Google will store the text of your site in its database, so you want to include in your pages all the words that people may use to look for you. For example, in www.KremerGlass.com, the Web site of glass artist Martin Kremer, the words “Martin Kremer”, “Kremer Glass”, “glass art”, and “fused glass” show up in every page.
Don’t expect people looking in general for your kind of art or medium to find you through Google, or other search engines, given the thousands of Web sites that can be associated with certain search words. On the other hand, you have to make absolutely sure people looking specifically for you can find you easily. To illustrate this consider the case of glass artist Martin Kremer and his site www.KremerGlass.com: the search “glass art” returns over 5 million Web pages in Google, the search “fused glass” over 11,000, but “Kremer fused glass” or “Kremer glass” returns just a few hundred with www.KremerGlass.com at the top of the list.
With the above steps you are well on your way of promoting your Web site and making it an integral part of your business. Keep in mind an important common characteristic of these steps: they are free, they don’t require any expenses on your part, just your own personal attention. It can’t be stressed enough that all these steps require that your Web site is a comprehensive, appealing, informative, and persuasive presentation of you and your work and is updated regularly. There is nothing more counterproductive, for artists who create constantly for a living, than to have an outdated Web site. If I can see a piece of your work at your booth but I can’t find it at your Web site you may as well not have a Web site.
Zino Vogiatzis is a management consultant who works with small businesses on marketing strategy. He holds an MBA and two engineering degrees.