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Marketing Fine Art and Hospital Contracts

Does fine art really sell that kind of change topics here? It can think it depends on the brand depends on your market where you are. I'm in a small town of eighty eight thousand people. Fine. Art doesn't sell a ton where I am. I have to be really honest. I only do a few commissions a year for people, and I feel fortunate to do those I do it mainly for personal work, for competition. I do it mainly for my own personal growth and to elevate my brand, which it does a lot. So do I necessarily do find our commissions know but those things that I do do bring in a heck of a lot of clients and that's the goal. Okay, fine art side effects, it creates buzz in your town. It really will clients see you just a little bit differently again elevating that brand it commands respect, people say, wow, you really know what you're doing, you may not at all, but if you fake it till you make it, you know, I mean, seriously, if you put that out there that you're an artist and you put works out there that em...

ulate that and you know, this doesn't mean leave technique by the wayside. This doesn't mean I don't know what you're doing I mean you need to learn the tactics in the photo shop in the lighting and the color you need to learn all these technical skills and apply them correctly but you don't have to be the greatest artist that ever walked the earth you don't have to be public picasso or jackson pollock or you know rembrandt, you just have to be good for your town where people are attracted to you work and you create that buzz and create that sense of all there is something called the artist mystery if you look at the great artists of the world you could they kind of have this little are about them that's how your mind just thinks differently and it's true your mind does think differently because it's you it's not like them because you're not trying to be somebody else you're not trying to be somebody that people think you should be you're being surely you and using your life experience to create that art which people look and go whoa, how you're different well, duh yeah I'm different I'm not you and you're going to see my work speaking through me and that's a cool thing so it kind of has this little mystery associate which is really neat and of course it does brand you as the best in your town and those stories target your client's hearts they see the symbolism they see the story in your work and they just called and they get emotional about your work and that's exactly where you want them exactly where you want them it does help define your y and it shows your authentic self and it allows you to be you and of course prince competition exposure is huge I think it's an incredibly valuable thing to my at least to my studio has been I've been competing since two thousand nine on both the pp a circuit and just recently on the w p p ay circuit print competition and there's print competitions all over the world people it's everywhere in every country you can possibly matter there's amazing international competitions that have like a million dollar prize jackpots adam it's incredible there's a competition in the dubai every year that I have even bothered to enter it yet but it's incredible farmers around the world enter it okay so print competition when I'm able to show my clients that my peers have evaluate my work and deemed it worthy that makes them go wow okay she must be really good again it doesn't mean that I am good I just happened to beat somebody pretty competition that's all it is but it makes you grow print competition will literally make you see images the flaws and images faster than anything else you khun dio and boy does it make you vulnerable when your print rolls around the screen and their six judges sit in front of it evaluating it, looking at every little single tiny detail and then they sit back and allow like that I mean you're saying you're going don't you feel like don't get me wrong judges air not mean they want to they do things for the benefit of the maker they believe in the industry they lifted up and they always give constructive criticism that says things that are positive about an image and things that need to be worked on they would never insult a maker at all they just kind of break down the image into the pieces that need improvement and let me tell you you start looking and you see what they see and you're like oh yeah I see that durn it missed it ok, but it'll improve the quality of your work faster than anything else and you even this so I have to compete just go watch it's free to watch you can sit all day and accomplishing decision watch these prints go through and listen to what these doctors have to say you'll learn more in one day than you'll learn in any workshop I promise you will learn maurin one day sitting on a print cop and how to see images and break him down and find the flaws and that'll make you not do those flaws in your own work okay so how do you market it I think social media is one of your best friends social media has been changing rapidly over the last few years particularly facebook but how to use it is really important you have to be an artist and austin clear on who is the guy who wrote steel like an artist his second book is called show your work and he talks about how to communicate your work to the world and he is a huge advocate for social media but there's a strategy involved you have to show your process not necessarily the final product all the time people are fascinated by the process you know this because you are too I mean you look at that we all look at that image of the little girl with the butterflies like how'd you do that it's the first thing in your mind you want to know how it was done and when you break down the process and get to see the pieces to it it makes you like wow that's really cool your clients want to see the process not just the finished product they want to see what you're doing behind the scenes share something useful or interesting every day breeze over there going I know I need to do this but I haven't that girl over there sara was the best decision I ever made my social media got to the point where I just couldn't handle it anymore. And so I hired her and she took over for one second I'll get to her in a second behind the scenes stuff teach what you know tell good stories about image is going to come back to sarah in a second tell good stories clients love stories that endears them to you so if you could tell a good story you will get a lot of attention on social media people will share your stories I mean I posted an image once of a mama her baby was holding a little dove that had the the birth date of her rainbow baby of her baby who passed away right after birth hey was born at twenty weeks he didn't survive and she the next baby was born on the ray on the deceased baby's due date okay and so we put the little dove on the chest of the newborn and told the story on facebook with mom's permission of course and that story everybody I mean people went nuts over it they were like oh my gosh that's just I mean they love to hear the story behind the image so share that okay? Especially if it's an emotional one you want hearts not eyeballs looking at your stuff and that means on facebook and google plus and pinterest and all those things as well you want to tug it peoples heartstrings not just give him something pretty to look at okay this is just a little comparison of why I think sarah is the cat's me out like this january two thousand thirteen my organic reach was three people isn't that awful father it's true I mean those are my stats right there in april of two thousand thirteen my organic reach was eighteen hundred look where I hired sarah okay she in the course of a month started posting daily on my page and all of a sudden I was reaching so many more people organically everything on my facebook page has been organic we have not paid for one like ever thanks to that woman right over there okay yes I have two pence she's like okay I'll be here on tv are under that she's amazing okay and I say that because I couldn't have done it myself and there's such value to outsourcing things you need to outsource its worth the money and that created such a buzz in my studio overtime now where we just hit twelve thousand okay organically this is not paid likes people I'm a huge advocate of doing it riel and so now the buzz has grown so much in our community and because our reach is so great everybody start looking our stuff our client seeing their feeds constantly and people do hire us based off that now do they see the facebook post and go yes hire her no it's a branding thing they see us kind of they know of us. They see us. They season another place that sees at the hospital, they get a gift card wars like oh, yeah, that's a studio. You see what I mean? It's like we touched them in so many areas that now all of a sudden jewel images if you live in bend, oregon and you don't know what jule images by the time you're a month's pregnant, then you're blind. Okay, seriously. So how do you market it? How do you market fine art? You display it in places that you can control. We just launched something called the baby. Brief dot com. You can go look at it. It is a website. A resource for central oregon parents. Okay, it is every baby business I can think of and google search for in the central oregon area listed as a resource for new moms, every single business is on there for free. It is a philanthropic service that I provide two new moms in central oregon. We started advertising in the new parenting magazine that's coming about and now we're starting to have other businesses come around and they go, oh, we want to be on to great all of a sudden, we're building up this camaraderie of baby focus businesses in central oregon who can all cross market together this is going to become my plan is for this to become the go to place for baby resource is in our town because there was nothing and it has everything from articles doula versus midwife which the best how do you choose a photographer? What do I really need to register for from my baby shower because you don't need everything okay, but the media world seems to think that you should okay bye everything it has resource is parks and trails exercise doulas chiropractors places to go for retail products used supplies everything that has to do with baby if you're pregnant this is a resource you're going to want to tap into if you're pregnant centre oregon and I did this because for free number one I wanted to be philanthropic and there was a need for this but number two it is a little self serving we are developing a postcard that every business who and I'm gonna pay for this every business who is on our site can come to us and get postcards and I'm going to start cross marking with all these people and dominate the baby market event I already do but I'm going to freaking drive the nail in straight okay, so but that's all I want is the newborn market I don't care about the other stuff they families, seniors, weddings let it like the other doctors have I don't need it okay I really don't want all that stuff because I don't want I don't want to do it but I do want the baby market which will allow me to raise my prices, increase the value of my fine art and become this exclusivity type thing in my community were only the best that it can afford me and it becomes a status symbol to hire me makes sense so other ways hospital display this is me and my boy in the same hospital room that I labored very special to me so st charles hospital community is a he's the main hospital e the only hospital in central oregon and there they own all the hospitals within a two hundred mile radius pretty much on the east side of the cascades and it took me three years to get into the hospital family birthing center it was not an easy project but we did get in and once we put seventy campuses in the birthing center huge forty inch campuses and then about a year later they asked us to the revenue facility. Now we're signing room into the matter's facility and the private facility which is about to get remodeled is going to get our stuff in another year or two and I have exclusive rights to be in that hospital for years with instant renewal should I desire it okay so if you could get a hospital contract, get it and solidify it it's not easy to get what she wanted. I mean, I paid for this. I paid for it out of my own pocket, but eighty percent of my business comes from that hospital. The hospital has made me so much money and the response I get as a philanthropic measure for donating it is incredible. Saint charles loves me. I go to their fundraising every year for the nick. You we spend lots of money there and the, uh, the number of people who come up to me and say, I just loved walking through your hallways when I was in labor, it just made me feel so good, and it was so calming to see the images of the babies and that was so rewarding for me. I mean, that's incredible. And what a service you're doing for your community when when you're doing something that can be a lot of red tape. But if you can get into a hospital for for birthing centers. It's excellent to dio if you do it, do it. Release the news release. You know when you can say in your headline local photographer donates sixty thousand dollars fine art displayed to support newborn babies and burning mothers at st charles that gets covered in the news, okay, um, some birthing centers have a budget for art. I wanted it so badly that I was willing to pay for it so I just said I'm not going to ask him but occasionally places will have a budget for art and you can ask me what that is to help offset the cost do it right do not skimp when I moved in there the woman before me had sixteen by twenty is on the wall it looked it looked awful because they were so small beautiful images but they were so small nobody even noticed him so if you're going to do it do it right okay the other thing that I want to bring up is there is lots of red take you have to find somebody with hospitals you have to get in and really did come down to luck I happened to meet a client walked through my door who had some power in the hospital and that's eventually how I got in but again chance favors the prepared mind I had been working on this for the three years prior meeting people connected people in the hospital getting to know people getting involved the nick you doing all these things that got me in with them and then when the other photographer dropped the ball went out of business I was in there to take it okay so you have to do that because no other photographers doing that so if you have the persistence on the plug away out attitude to just know that eventually you'll get in that's the one who's going to get it cakes that there's got to be art there at some point getting exclusive long term contract make it very easy for them okay making a piece of cake insists that you're marking materials in your logo be displayed my logo is on every single print in that hospital and they just two years ago right after I installed made a policy in hospital that no art could have marketing on it and I got grandfathered in, so make sure your market that's crazy policy I don't know why I even the my contact the hospital he's like it's crazy they're not going to get anything if they think they can get away with this because that's half the reason that I want to put my stuff in there so people know it's me so our brochures are every twenty feet down the hallway so people can see us here which we cost etcetera, etcetera. Andre also are about to implement a baby's first portrait program. The one mistake that I made is I didn't get exclusive rights to shoot in the hospital, so another portrait company came in and started contracting out to local photographers to shoot first portrait programs in the hospital there contract is short limited so eventually when I'm rewriting everything, things will change they may not I'm not even sure if I want to take that on it's a big project but if you want to shoot in the hospital to get those rights as well because it's a little strange because there's this beautiful fine art stuff on the wall and then contract and shooting burner photographers are coming in to shoot it and all the clients all the patients ask oh is that your work on the hallways and they have to say no it's not and vice versa so keep that in mind it's a little awkward at times um okay see here ofcourse get the birthing classes to st charles puts on birthing classes and I have exclusive rights to advertising market the birthing classes so every mom who takes a birthing class through st charles gets a gift card from us so another way to touch them and get them to come to you as well. Okay. And then of course, baby sit the display often any display even if it's a nobody way in office a doctor's office family photographers if you really want to shine, go into the pediatric offices in your town and try to get those instead of the hospital. Yeah, the newborns are older but talk about a great baby plan sucker inner for lack of a better word word okay that's a great place to go physicians, physicians, offices places where families hang out you know there's all kinds of centers and kids play centres and stuff like that if you're r is really fun and bouncy and happy, why not go to the we have like a place called bouncing off the walls which is like a blow up these huge playthings and the kids get to go inside and jump on him I mean, why not put your art up in a place like that really fun place for parents are going all the time okay? Charitable event another great way teo too get yourself out there and display fine artwork in a way that you want teo way didn't do it this year but every year we do a mani mingle and it's a at this place called baby phases which is the only new like new product baby store in town it's owned by a local a local woman who my dear friends with shi on and I put on and ben moms for mom's which used to be owned by sarah it's a mommy forum in town we would put on this this thing called the mommy mingle and molly would clean out her store and all these vendors would come in that serve new mother's pregnancy resource is we have a little party all kinds of companies would donate products bob would donate a stroller there be a crib be all kinds of really cool products that moms could raffle off for there was just a need event and we would display there, and it would allow people to see us, etcetera, etcetera and those are great events to take pardon and of course, the proceeds khun donate he donated to positive things which puts you in good light in your community. Neonatal intensive care units, child health programs, teen pregnancy organizations of food bag, child abuse prevention. Any organization that means something to you and targets young children is probably a wise, a wise choice. Event types you could do fashion shows, information fairs I did a girls night out one time at my studio with a group called women for wine, so these women who got together and drink wine every month would be hosted by different businesses around town. I hosted one of those events we did. Facebook face lifts. They could get a free facebook profile picture. I got a couple high school seniors out of it, and it was a great event. Okay, so school silent auctions are typically good. You just have to know how to donate to them. Charity dinners, etcetera, etcetera.