This Post is by Lori Woodward Simons, Regular contributing writer for FineArtViews.
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A popular 1970's book,
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, told a short story about a extraordinary seagull who broke away from the crowd by soaring higher and diving faster than all the other seagulls. While in Acadia Nation Park this month, I think I must have happened upon Jonathan L. Seagull's great grandchild. As I observed this Acadian gull, day after day, it occurred to me that this bird is truly a marketing genius.
Perched on a stone wall, next to the pavement on the Park Loop Road at Otter Cliffs, there is a solitary seagull. I'll call him Jonathan. While he's not any more attractive or talented than all the other seagulls, he's perhaps a bit smarter, or at least smarter at creative marketing techniques. Each time I drove by this particular roadside stone wall, he was there, entertaining park guests at driver's side car-window height. As I waited in the traffic jam he caused, it became apparent that this gull had gained a captive audience by standing on the flat top of the stone wall just out of reach of the driver. Each car stopped; photos were taken, and when no food morels followed, Jonathan spread his wings and did a little dance.
Although I never saw anyone actually feed the bird, I am sure that his purpose in being there was to get goodies from park guests. Jonathan didn't demand food, but offered an attractive seagull dance to all who would stop.
Side-stepping the Crowded Competition
About a decade ago,
Seth Godin authored, "
Permission Marketing, Turning Strangers Into Friends", and this book changed the way the world advertised. Essentially, the book said that instead of putting out ads on TV and billboards that talk to everyone, why not find out who is interested in what you have to offer and ask their permission to market specifically to them. This is the whole idea behind the email newsletter. Clients sign up for your newsletter - giving you permission to "bother" them with images and words about your newest work. They actually want to receive it, and they don't have to sift through an entire list of artists to arrive to your work.
If seagulls could read books, I would suppose that Jonathan would be a Seth Godin fan. This bird broke away from the crowd of gulls who compete for food around fishing vessels, and happened upon a situation where there is virtually no competition. Furthermore, the folks in the cars were delighted to photograph and possibly feed just one gull. If there had been 20 gulls, they'd be nothing but a nuisance. The tourists gave Jonathan permission to take their valuable vacation time because he offered something fun and made it easy for them to stop and take possibly the best pics of a seagull in the park.
We can learn a lot from a seagull - when it comes to marketing and getting fed by an audience who wants to spend time looking at what we have to offer. First of all,
we have to make it easy. This gull was perched where cars could stop and at eye level of the driver. Because he was on a wall, he would not get run over by a tourist bus. I'm not saying that this seagull planned this process in any way, but Johnathan happened upon a good situation, he definitely stayed with it long enough to give him a great return for his time.
Art is Sold Person To Person
Art has always been sold 'person to person', but the ways it gets seen and purchased is changing fast. There are many venues in which to sell our work these days - through agents (galleries), websites, outdoors shows, invitational shows and competitions, and occasionally to people we meet while living our daily lives.
Watch For New and Unexpected Opportunities
Like Jonathan, we artists need to
recognize unexpected opportunities... things we can in no way prepare for. Well.. maybe we can prepare by making our art/craft the absolute best that we can. I'm keeping my eyes and mind open - looking for that stone wall at eye level where people who will appreciate my work will wait in line to share a few minutes with me.
Instead of competing with the crowd and trying to establish your work in an already competitive situation - the answer may be to creative your own situation. Just like Brian Kliewer created his own email marketing idea around offering
100 paintings in 100 days at $100, we too can come up with novel ways of getting our work to the right people.
Get Creative With Your Marketing Ideas
Nope, not gonna give you a list of creative ideas here-
these have to be your ideas... ones that put you in a unique position to market to the people who now love and
will love your work. We're all different in what we produce and therefore, our audience may be slightly different. Remember the Beatles? They were told by American Record producers that "guitar is out" and "kids aren't listening to stuff like yours today". Well, those darned Beatles... they sidestepped the gatekeepers by offering something unique - something that didn't compete with everything out there... Something novel, beautiful and downright fun. They were true entrepreneurs!
Likewise, as creative beings, start thinking about how to specifically reach and court potential collectors - one at a time- those who will love to spend time with our art for the rest of their lives?
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