Who are my potential customers?
Have you ever asked yourself this question?
If not do it now. Think about the customers that you hope to sell to.
O.K. You’ve done that. What have you come up with?
Rich people; people that buy art; people that are buying new/decorating houses;art lovers;cultured people; interior decorators, etc.
If that is what you believe you are onto a loser!
It is a false premise that if you are creating your work for the greatest and broadest range of people that you will find your audience. Take my word for it – if you try to sell to everybody you will in effect sell to nobody.
The word “niche” has become a buzz word recently, but the best way for you to sell your artwork on a consistent basis and for the best price is to find your niche and then dominate it. Once you realise your niche it becomes much easier to market your work.
Your Own Brand.
Now I am not suggesting that because I want you to think about your niche that I expect you to sell out. Just the opposite. If you look at your work and analyse it you will most probably find a common theme. This is the beginning of your niche. You are now thinking about your work within a niche, within confines. This is not selling out. You are not saying I must produce this photograph of a mountain to satisfy my niche and therefore my public. You already work within the landscape niche, you just probably didn’t think of it as your niche. Most of us work from our own environment.
Let me give you my development within my niche.
My wife is a botanist and so there is always a garden of colour and organic shapes for to stimulate my creativity. Let me say from the beginning that I am in no way interested in flowers. When people come into my studio and ask what such and such a flower painting is of I have to go and ask my wife. What interests me is the colour relationships and the organic shapes, especially in close up.
O.K., what do I paint? Answer – flowers. Correct, but not a lot of use in developing my niche. There are millions of flower painters. I need to narrow it down somewhat.
I could chose to paint only one species of flower. There are, for example thousands of people who love poppies. I love colour, so I can develop a series based on the colour relationships of a poppy. I can look into the centre of the poppy and work on what I see there. Am I painting poppies? No I am painting about red. Is my target audience people who like red? Possibly, but I am more likely to sell to people that like poppies. People will say,
“Have you seen that guy that paints poppies”
Is that selling out. I know that I am not selling poppy paintings, but colour field paintings. They think that they are buying poppy paintings. I can put up with that, everybody is happy and art history will eventually tell the truth.
You could, of course, narrow your niche even further and take magnified close ups of the cell structure of your chosen flower.
The short answer to who are my potential customers is:
The people in my targeted niche. The niche that I control so that I do not sell out my integrity.
