|
Dear Art Lover, This is Part 2 of 4 in a series called “A Business of Art”. You can read the previous parts here. Onto… A Business of Art, Part 2 of 4: A Numbers Game Currently the email contact list I have is about 1000 emails. There are a few that I’m sure aren’t reliable, and my “open rate” is just under 50%, in the 400s, typically. So, for maybe 400 people receiving and opening these emails (forget about reading them, just opening), of those, 22 clients stepped up and bought something during this holiday season. In other words, 5.5% of the people opening the emails are actually ready to invest in original artwork at least once during the year. The Holiday Sale accounted for about 40% of yearly sales. Imagine, for a moment, if 400 people shared with me their email lists (which will likely not happen) … With this fantasy scenario as a starting point, from here, let’s be reasonable. Let’s say each of these 400 people on my list only has 100 people on their list, instead of 1000. So, overnight, with no “work” on my part (dream on!) I suddenly receive 40,000 new email addresses to send messages like this one. Let’s say next year I run a similar Holiday Sale campaign, only now, I’m sending out to 40,000 emails, not 1000. Let’s say my open rate goes down, too, from about 50% to 30%, so out of 40,000 emails, 12,000 people actually open the email. Let’s say, too, that instead of 5.5% of these 12,000 people actually buying art, it’s a modest 1%. Out of 12,000 people, 120 are actually ready at least once in 2024 to invest in original artwork. The average amount of dollars a client spent in the 2023 Holiday was $660, so, again, let’s be less optimistic and say that in 2024 that price in 2024 is $500. With all those shiny new .csv contact files, in this hypothetical 30% open rate, 1% of that buying, at a cheaper price than this year’s average, that would be a $60,000 campaign before tax / shipping. I’ve known this fact for a few years now - that selling original artwork - and selling it sustainably, for life, is much more of a numbers game than it might seem. Of course, I would never expect to be handed 40,000 new emails, my contacts’ contacts, for free, and I’m sure there would be hesitancy (rightly so) on my contacts’ part to furnish such information freely. But, seriously, if you feel like sending me your whole contact list, I won’t stop you. I enjoy the thought experiment - it comforts me, especially in this slow time of the year. What to do, now that it is very likely that of the people who receive my emails, the ones inclined to buy artwork this year already have? Well, the next steps are ones to continue to nudge things in the correct direction - to maintain and build relationships, to use this format as a way to engage with audiences, in ways such as this email embodies - a (semi-)transparent look at the business workings of an art business. I am inspired, in part, by David Byrne’s wonderful book “How Music Works”, wherein he shares pie charts of average earnings for musicians on tour or making albums, what slice of the pie goes to the band, to promoters, to record labels, and how sales of music and merch can make or break the commercial “success” of a music industry effort. Before reading the former Talking Heads frontman’s book, I’d had never seen an artist be so explicit with how the math and the finances worked out at the end of the day, with actual numbers shared. Most “artists” in whatever field are cagey about sharing such data, or maybe don’t see it as having anything to do with their “work”. I see these metrics as having everything to do with the work. Without making some kind of profit or income from my art practice, the art practice will not exist, at least not in a state of health. To be able to produce the art I want to produce, requires that I sell it. Having someone else sell it would actually be a poor investment of my time, especially as the person who will be bar-none the most qualified and enthusiastic about selling it will always be… me. However, if you have a compelling reason why that person should be you, instead of me, I’d love to hear it. All of this framework can be flexible, but in my experience, ownership drives productive, sustained work in a way that nothing else can. There are certain expectations of art-related achievements or accomplishments before the art world will allow an artist to pass through levels of experience or award. For example, a large (formerly) missing aspect of my CV was exhibition history. I saw this lack over the last several years, as almost anything or anyone I applied to required that I demonstrate a history of exhibiting my work in venues, something I just didn’t have or even seek out except for the rare once or twice-a-year opportunity that fell into my lap. How can you realistically call yourself a professional artist if the question “where do you show your work?” Cannot be immediately accounted for, and substantially? Last year I’d been a novice to artist opportunity databases like café.org (Call for Entries . Org), ArtCall.Org, and the like. In July, I began a campaign in earnest to seek out show opportunities, enter work (and pay the often-egregious entry fees) and cross my fingers the juror or jury liked what they saw, my large-scale work reduced and made tiny, off-color, pixelated on screens displaying websites that looked straight out of 1997. I began to enter every show I could possibly qualify for. After all, I have plenty of work, across a variety of scales, media, subject, all of it, and also all fairly recent. I think the oldest painting or drawing I submitted was from 2018, while most everything was 2023 or 2022. I did this mostly just to pass the time between other commitments. Just like applying to grants, or to academic jobs, I figured I was up against thousands and thousands of other entrants for every single show, and that the bar would be exceptionally high, every time. In both academic jobs and other art-related opportunities, the typical rate of success (of getting something, anything…) is maybe 1%. So, 1% of show acceptance was what I hoped for - basically - to get into a show or two, any show, not being picky. What happened instead astounded me, and was not entirely “good” news. — Thus concludes “A Business of Art, Part 2 of 4: A Numbers Game” Stay tuned for tomorrow’s "Part 3 of 4: Industry Standard” As ever, if you haven’t already, sign up for email newsletters on my website, and encourage anyone you think would enjoy them to as well. Cheers, David
|
