THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Today’s episode is sponsored by my free masterclass, How To Sell More Art. Discover the five most common mistakes artists make and the things you should be doing instead. To save your spot, go check it out over at schulmanart.com/sellmoreart.
Speaker 2:
It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist, Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an art world insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now, your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hey there. This is Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration, and you’re listening to episode #178. I’m so grateful that you’re here. Woo, February already. Oh my gosh, where is the year going? Things have been really crazy over here in Schulman art land. I am in the process of selling my home of 25 years. It’s very clean. I’ve never lived in a house this clean, and it’s interesting because I had to completely clean up my studio to make it real estate worthy, real estate show, so you get to actually photograph it. And I also painted all the walls, and by painting, I meant I painted it myself, which I found actually to be very therapeutic and really meditative and helped me unlock a lot of creativity, which I feel like I’m repeating myself. Did I say this on a prior episode? I hope not.
Miriam Schulman:
Anyway, once I finished painting it, I had so much creative energy, first of all, because the studio was so clean and all this creativity blocks that I had suddenly opened up. Those self development experts that say decluttering helps unlock creativity, they’re actually right. I know us ADD artists and messy artists don’t like to hear that, we don’t like cleaning up, at least, I don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t speak for you. But, it actually is true. If you’re feeling creatively blocked in any way, clean up and see what it does for you.
Miriam Schulman:
Anyway, the main thing I want to talk to you about today is I just finished reviewing about 20 or so websites for my new Artist Incubator self study members. It’s one of the many bonuses that they get when they enroll. And since I had been seeing the same mistakes over and over again, I knew that this was the perfect idea for a podcast episode. I boiled it down to about the 10 most common mistakes. You’re going to want to grab a pen and take notes, because I bet you’re making one or more of them. If you are, no shame, but fix it.
Miriam Schulman:
Starting with number one, pop-ups. If you have a pop-up that asks someone visiting your website to subscribe to your email list, and yes, that’s a great idea. Pop-ups do work, which is why brands use them, but there were a bunch of mistakes I saw and people were making the same ones over and over. Let’s go through. This is kind of like, number one, pop-ups, but there’s a couple of things within this category that make it the mistake part.
Miriam Schulman:
The first thing I notice is people putting too much on that pop-up. You want, first of all, the headline to be super short, snappy, and clear, and you want the promise of what they’re going to get if they sign up for your email list built into that headline. A lot of people, it’ll say, “Subscribe to newsletter.” That is not a good headline. People don’t want to subscribe to newsletters. Yes, they want emails, but they don’t want newsletters. Put the promise of what you’re offering right on the top. It could be “Get first dibs on new collections,” or “Be the first to see new art,” something like that. Just one sentence, short and snappy. You don’t have to list everything you may be talking about in the emails with them. Don’t make them choose with the pop-up what they’re interested in. I’ve seen also, where people have a radio button and you have to check off whether you want news about art classes or news about art shows.
Miriam Schulman:
Just tell them one promise that they’re going to get for signing up. If you have art classes and other things, you may want to have different places around your website where they could be enticed to join in your email list with a different promise, but don’t give them more than one promise on the pop-up. One promise is plenty. The other thing is with the button Copy, because words do matter. My favorite is just the simple “Sign Up.” You could also use the word “Yes, Please.” If you have some sort of VIP or inner circle collector, could be “Join Now,” like you’re joining the VIP list. I don’t love the word “Subscribe.” “Subscribe” kind of has a negative connotation in a lot of people’s minds. They want to unsubscribe. They don’t want to subscribe. The “Copy” needs to have a benefit built in. Again, like I said, make it short and sweet. One of the mistakes I saw was too many words, too much there, and you couldn’t even see the fields for the name and email address and the button because the pop-up was so long. You want it super short, super sweet.
Miriam Schulman:
Then, for the fields themselves, you want their first name and their email address. If you try to collect other information like the last name, their mailing address, if you ask too much, think about this as a relationship. It’s like asking too much on the first date. You’re trying to get too much information. The more things you ask somebody, the less likely they’re going to do it. It’s not even that they’ll say, “Okay, I’m only going to put in my first name and email and I won’t fill out the rest,” they just won’t even fill out your pop-up at all. Just get their first name and email, and then one simple button to click. That’s a lot of what I was seeing wrong with the pop-ups. People asking even first name and last name. You really don’t need their last name just to add them to your email list. When they become a collector, when they buy something, you’ll get their full name. But at this stage, you don’t need their full name.
Miriam Schulman:
The other thing I just want to share, if you are selling fine art, just telling them they’ll get first dibs on the artwork, that usually is enough to entice them to sign up, especially if they like your art enough that they’ve gone to your website either from an email or from social media, they’ve taken the next step to go to your website. They do like your art, and you’re kind of giving them the idea that they might miss out, people don’t want FOMO. That you is enough. Now, some of the things that I was also seeing brings us to mistake number two.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number two is apologizing when asking for the email. This was actually on several pop-ups that I saw and in many different ways. It was like this. “Subscribe. And don’t worry, you can unsubscribe at any time.” So yes, of course your email list that you use, you need to do it legally with an email service provider that has an unsubscribe link on the bottom, but by putting on the pop-up, telling them that they can unsubscribe at any time, it’s almost like a lot of negativity right up front, making them think, “Well, am I going to want to unsubscribe right away?” Don’t do that. It’s kind of like saying, “You may not want to join. And I won’t bother you.” That was the other thing I saw. A lot of people are saying, “Don’t worry, I won’t send it too many times.”
Miriam Schulman:
Listen, tell them how amazing it’s going to be. If you’re already apologizing, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to send it too many times,” you’re basically telling them that your email suck and they’re not going to want it. Don’t go with that attitude. Go with the attitude that they want what you’ve got. And, of course, they want your email so don’t apologize. I saw this so many times it deserves its own category, also because I saw this not just on pop-ups but in other places throughout the website.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Mistake number three, the menu bar. Now, what I think a lot of artists were doing is they were using some sort of website builder and just sticking with the default labels for that top menu. And the one that I think is the lamest by far, I know it’s a default but you can change the default, so one of the lamest ones is the word “Shop.” Especially if you’re worried about being salesy, using “Shop” as the button on your menu, it’s a little bit off-putting, I think. I don’t even think you have the word “Shop” on most e-commerce sites. I think I’m going to just quickly look and see like what Kate Spade or Anthropologie does. Yeah, they do not have a menu button that says “Shop.” They have a menu that says “New.” They have a menu button that says “Handbags,” but they don’t have one that says “Shop.”
Miriam Schulman:
What should you have as that? Well, you could have “Art For Sale.” That is what I recommend. “Art for Sale.” The other one I find very lame is when you use the word “About.” Just the word “About.” Unless you have tons of tabs, I’m looking at Kate Spade right now. It’s “New,” “Handbags,” “Wallets,” “Shoes,” “Clothing,” “Jewelry,” “Accessories,” “Home.” And by “Home,” they don’t mean the home button. They mean stuff for the home, I believe. They have “Valentine’s Day Gifts,” “Sale.” Unless you have a ton of menu items and your short for space and you don’t want the menu to be on two lines, that would be the only reason I think to use the word “About.” If that’s not the case, what’s better to have is “About the Artist,” or in my case, “About Miriam” or “About Miriam Schulman.”
Miriam Schulman:
I love “About the Artist” because it gets that keyword “artist” in there. It also says you’re the artist. If you don’t want to describe yourself exactly as artist, you could say “About the Maker,” whatever it is. “About the Author.” Whatever it is that you want to use there. “About Miriam” is a great one because with your first name, that makes it more personal. But for Pete’s sakes, please don’t say “About Us” unless there really is an us. That’s another one that is… Really, you’ve got to avoid that. Don’t want to present yourself as a corporation. It’s always a single person, unless you truly are collaborating with somebody else and you make with somebody else and you have a partner for your website.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number four. This is actually related to the menu bar. It’s having a tab called Gallery. Unless you have gallery representation, and if you do, then a tab called Gallery would be fine. I actually would prefer “Gallery Representation,” again, unless you were short on space on that menu. Don’t call the art that’s for sale “Gallery.” Use “Art for Sale.” Now, you can have sub menu items under that. Kate Spade puts their menu items right on top. For you, it’s probably going to work better to have “Art for Sale” with menu items under. Menu items could be under like “Landscapes,” and “Florals and Still life,” or something like that, or “Portraits.” You might want to do that under your “Art for Sale,” but don’t call it “Gallery.”
Miriam Schulman:
Now, if you have one of those websites where they don’t let you have a choice of editing those menu buttons, consider choosing a different website builder. And there’s one actually I have in mind, I actually don’t even remember the name. Not that I would badmouth another company anyway. But the one that I have in mind, they don’t actually let you change that. And that particular one, I don’t even think they have e-commerce built into the site. It’s actually is for artists who have gallery representation and they don’t have really the prices and how to buy the art as part of the website. Those types of websites should definitely be avoided.
Miriam Schulman:
By the way, I wanted to make sure you knew that I have a free training for you. Here are some of what you’ll learn in that free training. So, why social media is an overrated time suck as a promotional tool for getting your art sold and the much easier way, the more profitable way to use instead that will generate real sales consistently? Also, the places and platforms you need to be using right now to get the most exposure with the least amount of time commitment so you can spend more time in your studio creating what you really love, and you want to go beyond the starving artist mindset to uncover what’s really sabotaging your success. We’re talking a lot about some of those things that might be sabotaging your success today, with a lame website, but I’ll give you some more ideas during this free training. To save your spot, go to schulmanart.com/sellmoreart. By the way, we’ve just added new times and days. There should be one that works for you. Now, back to the show.
Miriam Schulman:
All right, mistake number five. I kind of hinted at it in mistake number four, but this was seen way too many times, and that was way to purchase the art. Now, this sounds so obvious, and I wish it didn’t even have to be one of the 10 things. I wish I didn’t even have to put this in here, but there were so many websites that didn’t have a shopping cart or e-commerce enabled. Listen, people, boys and girls out there, this is 2022. So, unless you’re using your website as a portfolio because you are licensing, in which case the transactions happen through contracts and it’s completely different, you need a way for people to buy from you. No fair complaining you don’t have art sales if you don’t have a Buy button on your website. And also, not having that, it just makes you look like amateur hour and you’re putting obstacles up to prevent sales.
Miriam Schulman:
Don’t do that. It’s so easy to get a website with e-commerce already installed. Shopify is a great one. That’s what I use personally for my art. Squarespace is another one where you can quickly put it up and will have e-commerce enabled. No excuse. 2022. Have e-commerce on your website. If you’re not sure what e-commerce means, that means it’s a way for people to pay you electronically. Please don’t say, “Email me and I’ll send you a PayPal invoice.” No. No. People don’t want to email you, and they don’t want to call you. Think about yourself. You don’t want to have to call somebody to buy a dress. You don’t. In fact, a lot of people hate making phone calls. Phone phobia is real. Don’t put up additional obstacles that are going to prevent a sale.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number six. This is related to not having a Buy button. These are the people who did have a Buy button, but the process was too complicated. I saw this on a lot of websites and now I’m trying to decide whether or not I should tell you which website I didn’t like with website builder. It wasn’t Shopify and it wasn’t Squarespace. Those I recommend. This is another one I don’t recommend. One of the website builders gives you too many options, too many options. Do you want it this size? Do you want it that size? Do you want a metal? Do you want it on fabric? Do you want it with a frame? Without a frame? Here’s the thing. A confused mind never buys. Recently, I wanted to get an athletic bra. I went on Athleta, and no joke, there were literally 150 athletic bras to choose from Athleta, and I did not buy a single one because I get overwhelmed. If there’s too many choices, I don’t want to shop. I just can’t make a decision. There’s too many decisions to make.
Miriam Schulman:
As the artist, you want to be the curator of what you’re selling. Even if you do use the website builder that I will not name here, that lets you have all those choices, what you want to do is ask the artist curate what you’re selling. You make the decision for the buyer how your art should be presented. Maybe if you want to give them a choice, never give them more than I would say two, three at the max. Two or three choices, but not multiple two and three choices like layered choices. Maybe just a choice on size, and then you decide if it should be on metal or canvas. Don’t get them so many choices. I know your website might be able to offer that, but your buyer doesn’t want to make those decisions. They don’t have the vision to know what’s going to look good.
Miriam Schulman:
Another example I want to give you, in my Artist Incubator, I’m always pushing my artist coaching clients to be paint bigger and many of them, so it’s not just one but there’s one gal in particular who was asking me how to present her art because she made a series of 12 x 12s. We discussed that she should really offer these as sets. Abstract art, usually, it doesn’t sell well if it’s just a small piece by its own because it’s not commanding and the perceived value is a lot lower. So, to make more of a statement, you can offer these 12 x 12 as a grouping, so three in a row, or two over two. And then, the question my client had for me was does she let the buyer pick which ones, or give them the option to buy just one. And I said no, because when you give them too many decisions and too many options, they will shut down.
Miriam Schulman:
You are the artist. You show them which ones are going to look best together. If they really just want one and don’t want all four, they will contact you. Believe me, they will. And then, of course, you can let them purchase it separately, but more likely they will take your advice and buy them together. Most people do want to a set. About 10 years ago, I had made a series of 12 x 12 dragonflies. I had so much fun with these. They were so gorgeous. It was watercolor on canvas, and the dragonflies were black and different colored backgrounds. I offered all them sets, either three in a row or two over two. And I sold a lot of sets this way and even commissioned this way and completely sold out.
Miriam Schulman:
There was actually one that was a best seller on Imagekind. It did trends like this, it had a time where it, and then it peaked. But at one time, this was a best seller on Imagekind. It was one of them, but because it was a print on demand, people were ordering them larger so it could make more of a statement, and also this wasn’t an abstract so people do enjoy smaller images of representational art. But for abstracts, I definitely recommend that you group them and or paint larger. We went off in a little tangent about how to present, but really the key of number six is clarity in your offering. Don’t give them too many choices.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number seven has to do with shipping. The shipping needs to be clearly stated, clearly stated at checkout when they buy so they can buy it without contacting you. And if you do offer free shipping, you need to let them know that. Let them know up front. “Yep, shipping’s free.” You offer international? Let them know that. If you say, “Contact me to discuss shipping options,” you will lose the sale. When shopping for a luxury item, you usually are counting on them to complete a purchase based on emotion and impulse. And anytime you put an obstacle in their way, you’re going to sabotage your sale. Estimate the cost of the shipping. You can add it into your price, which is the best practices right now in 2022, because we are so used to free shipping because of, thank you, Amazon. I say that kind of facetiously. You can estimate the cost of shipping and add it into your price. That’s a great way to do that and offer free shipping.
Miriam Schulman:
You don’t have to offer free shipping and you certainly don’t have to offer worldwide free shipping, but you do need to have that automatically added to their checkout when they checkout. Not “Please call me to find out.” They don’t want to call you to find out the shipping. They don’t want to email you to find out the shipping. They don’t want to have any conversations with you until they’ve determined that they can afford what you have. They don’t want to be shamed by contacting you and finding out they can’t afford it. Do you see that? Think about people who work with me, they don’t want to be surprised about what something costs. If you have items listed on Etsy that encourages you to do free shipping, you’re going to want to offer free shipping everywhere. If you do have free shipping and the person picks it up from your studio or gallery, instead of having it shipped, it’s still the same price. You don’t have to discount it.
Miriam Schulman:
Just know when somebody comes and picks it up, sometimes, they can spend 30 minutes to an hour of your time chatting with you. At least, I find it hard to move a customer along when they’ve come to pick up, especially if they invested a lot of money in an artwork. I don’t give discounts if they pick it up because it involves more of my time. And there’s also that added service of being able to talk to me. And of course, there’s the shower factor. Meaning if someone comes to pick it up, it means I have to take a shower and put on a bra. That’s built into my price as well. Number seven was make sure your shipping prices are super clear. And I guess the bonus advices offer free shipping.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number eight is having outdated information. It’s great to have your upcoming events and shows on your website, but if your last one was before the pandemic in 2019 and you haven’t updated your website since, that doesn’t look good. Yes, we do understand that there may not have been shows in your area and you haven’t been doing it, but just take that stuff off your website. Another thing that is really harmful to sales, if you are offering an online class, and this I actually saw. It wasn’t one of my clients who was guilty of this. She was participating in a group class and the organizer of the group class hadn’t taken down the early bird specials. It was like “Sign up by December 24 to get,” whatever it was. I was reviewing her website in January.
Miriam Schulman:
Listen, when you have something like that, first of all, it’s a terrible idea to offer some sort of bonus going way on a major holiday. Because, when you have a bonus going away, you’re going to want to email people to remind them, “Hey, this is the last chance for that bonus.” And you can’t really email them on December 24. A lot of people are busy with the holidays. I mean, I’m Jewish so I’m not celebrating Christmas but actually that’s my birthday, so I’m celebrating that. And plus, I’m home with my family because everybody has a day off. So, even people who don’t celebrate Christmas, it is holiday time. That’s a terrible day to offer a bonus going away, and also because the day the bonus disappears, you want to take it off the website. So, December 25, do you really want to be taking something down? I was giving all this advice to my poor client, and then I realized, “Oh, wait a minute, this wasn’t you. This is that group class you’re participating in.” These are bad practices.
Miriam Schulman:
Another thing that that group class had was a, I think not only was there an early bird bonus, but the price went up after a certain date. Like maybe, “Sign up by January 5 to lock in the savings,” and here it was January 12 and the price had gone up. Here’s the thing. If somebody visits the website for the group class on January 11, they don’t want to know that they just missed out on a cheaper price on January 10. It really puts the person in a bad mood and they’re likely to not buy because they feel like they missed out on something they can’t get back and they didn’t have the opportunity to do it. It’s a great idea to have bonuses going away, prices going up, all those things, but you just want to take down that outdated information once it’s over, because it’s a huge turnoff if you don’t.
Miriam Schulman:
Mistake number nine has to do with pronouns. Pronouns. And I’m not talking about gender pronouns. What I saw was a lot of switching back and forth between first person and third person. And in case you don’t know what I mean grammatically, first person is when you say, “I am Miriam Schulman,” or “I am a watercolor painter.” And third person is when you say, “Miriam Schulman is a watercolor painter.” I saw people putting both on the same website. Truth is the whole website really should be written in the first person, especially the About page, which brings us to mistake number 10, the About page.
Miriam Schulman:
There were several mistakes on the about page. Clients who go through the Artist Incubator coaching program, they get a whole lesson on how make a really great About page, but there’re some tips I can give you right away. First of all, there should be a big ass picture of you on the website. There was one website I reviewed where she had her father’s picture on the website because her father was also a sculptor and that was inspiration. It was so confusing because I got confused. Who’s the artist? Is this man the artist? Is it her? I didn’t know. Some people put their mothers or their teacher. Put a current picture of you on the page. The hair color needs to match. By the way, ladies, if you had brown hair pre-pandemic and now you’ve let it gone gray, by the way, good for you. Good for you, by the way. But, your hair color in all pictures should match. If you were brown and now blonde and vice versa, same thing, because people will get confused. Who is this? I don’t know who this is.
Miriam Schulman:
You also want to make sure the picture is fairly current. So even if your hair color is the same but you look like you’re 20 in the picture and now you’re 50, not a good idea. Sometimes, I’ve been guilty of this because if I’ve been a little bit heavy handed with my Photoshop. I can make myself a little bit too young. It’s really better to show your wrinkles. Make yourself look like a person. And preferably, this should be a picture of you making your art. You don’t have to actually see the art in this picture, but you add an easel where it’s zoomed in on you. That is the perfect type of photo to have here. Again, the whole About page needs to be written in the first person. And here’s the biggie. I’ve kind of said this before. No apology. Write the About page with confidence.
Miriam Schulman:
If I told you that the biggest factor impacting your ability to sell your art was your confidence, would you believe me? Deep down I bet you know that’s true, which is why it’s baked into every aspect of the Artist Incubator coaching program. When you present yourself and your art to the world, you need to do so without apology. You need to have the attitude. “This is my yacht.” Not “I have this rowboat. It might leak. You’re not going to like it as much as the rowboat. And don’t worry, you can get out of the rowboat at any time and swim to shore.”
Miriam Schulman:
Don’t apologize. You don’t want to come across as being, “You don’t really want to ride in my rowboat.” You want to be like, “This is my amazing yacht. Amazing. And here’s how much it cost and here’s the Buy button, because I know you want it right away.” Not “Oh, here’s my rowboat. And in case you want to buy it, you can call me. Maybe. Then, I’ll tell you what it costs and maybe what the shipping is, but I’m not sure how you’ll pay me because there are no buttons.” See what I mean? That’s not very sexy.
Miriam Schulman:
Let’s recap the 10 things that you need on your website. Number one, too much stuff on your pop-ups. Number two, apologizing. Number three, a confusing menu bar. Number four, not making it clear where and how to collect art. Number five, no way to check out from the website. Number six, too many choices. Number seven, shipping costs not listed. Number eight, out-of-date information. Number nine, not presenting yourself in the first person. And number 10, the About page missing a picture of you or your art. All right, my friend, thank you so much for being with me here today. Don’t forget, if you like this episode, you’re going to love my free masterclass, How To Sell More Art. Again, you’ll have major ahas happening there. Go to schulmanart.com/sellmoreart. All right, my passion maker, thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart, and of course, on schulmanart.com.
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