Bet you didn't start making art just to learn all about marketing for artists...am I right? Of course not! Artists just want to get into their creative zone, start selling art and make some money!

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that art marketing is a necessary evil that comes with the 'make money' part of that statement. You can make money without marketing your crafts, but you'll be doing yourself a major disservice. Marketing is key if you're wanting to make a part time or full time income selling your crafts.

If you're looking to really transform your art hobby into an art career, the first thing you'll want to work on is your marketing plan. Not sure where to start? The first thing you should know is that there are a million ways to market your artwork - and they ALL work.

The trick is to pick a method or two that play to your strengths and that work for YOU! Let's go over some of the ways you can get started building your marketing plan asap to get your crafts out to more of your ideal customers.

The Basics of Art Marketing

If you're anything like me when I got started in my craft business, you probably don't even really understand (or care) what marketing really is. But if you really want your business to grow in this digital age, you've got to come around at some point.

Art marketing is really just a fancy way to say that you need to get your crafts in front of more eyeballs, and, like we touched on earlier, there are a million ways to do it!

Marketing strategies can span over a huge range of strategies, and I promise, Instagram is not your only option. To build out your marketing plan, you'll want to pick one or two strategies max to start with, and then grow from there.

BTW - there is absolutely no need to be marketing on every platform in existence because you'll only end up spreading yourself too thin, burning out, and giving up entirely. Just pick one or two you enjoy and are good at then go from there! Next we'll get into all your different options when it comes to marketing your art business.

9 Essential Marketing Strategies for Artists in 2025

1. Develop a Strong Online Presence and Personal Brand

First thing's first...you're going to want to make sure your craft business looks good online! Making sure that your artist website, your social media platforms, personal branding, and online portfolio are showing off your brand as best they can will help you establish a credible online presence and make you more sales in the long run.

If you have decided to market on social media, you'll also want to keep your branding clear and consistent across every platform so you become easily recognizable. For more details on how to use social media to grow your traffic and make more online craft sales, check out my post, social media marketing for artists.

2. Use Email Marketing to Build Connections

Out of all the ways to engage your audience, email marketing probably sounds like the absolute most boring option...however this is an incredibly effective way to market your artwork! It's also one of my favorite ways to market because if you are the type that enjoys writing and storytelling, it can actually be very fun.

Sending out a weekly newsletter is a great place to start with your marketing plan. You can talk about your handmade products, your process, share sneak peeks, offer coupon codes, and more. It's really all up to you and where you want to take it.

The goal is to get to know your audience on a deep level, learn about their needs, and create products that solve those needs. That's how you grow a raving online audience!

To get started, you'll need to get some email marketing software set up, Mailchimp is probably the most common, but there are other options like MailerLite that are less clunky and better in my opinion. Most of these services are free until you hit your first 1000 subscribers, so there's no better time than now to get set up!

3. Engage at Art Fairs and Local Markets

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have selling art at local craft fairs. This requires you to be front and center with your customers, and I encourage everyone with an art business to at least try doing art fairs a few times because you will learn SO much about your customers and what they think about your products.

Selling at local markets is also an amazing way to get visibility. Many times people aren't buying there, but they will take your business card and buy later, or tell a friend about your work. Also, don't be scared to start a conversation with someone at your craft booth. If they are there, they are interested!

Sometimes conversations can lead to amazing opportunities if you just let them. If you're in a big city there are often scouts for shops perusing the booths as well, so have a line sheet ready if you're wanting to break into the wholesale world. If you're still wondering how to sell at craft fairs, read this post next!

4. Master the Art of Storytelling

A subtle, and rarely talked about marketing tactic for artists that can be very powerful is creating engaging content and stories around your products and brand. As an artist, sometimes it's hard to understand the importance of building this into your marketing.

But think about it like this. The more your customer can relate to you and your brand, the more likely they are to buy and become a loyal repeat customer...why would you not add in this marketing strategy??

Here's one way you can get started creating stories within your brand. Think of one 'thing' you want your audience to associate you with that could help them relate to you. For example, maybe you have a dog. Or you like to garden. Those are things you can repeatedly mention in your newsletter if one of your strategies is email marketing.

You can also mention those things on your website about page, social media posts, and more. This way, your audience starts to feel like they know you, because you're telling stories. They are not just reading your artist’s statement and seeing you sell a product with no context.

So yes, your promotional efforts should always include storytelling! It's a simple yet effective strategy you can start putting into practice today.

5. Leverage Video Content to Engage Audiences

Some of you will not love this strategy, but these days, video content in social media marketing is one of the best ways to build trust and get engagement. When I say video, this could mean anything from YouTube, to Instagram, or even TikTok...pick your poison.

The goal with videos, as well as with any type of marketing material, is to create engaging content that encourages your followers to interact and take the next step (whatever that may be). There are a million ways to incorporate video into your marketing, but here are a few that work great for artists:

studio tours
sharing a work in progress
time-lapse videos of you making stuff
storytelling videos sharing the inspiration behind your art

If you're nervous on video, start with some time-lapse videos that don't require talking and see if you can build your confidence from there. You don't need to show your face to do video, just get creative with how you film :)

6. Enhance Online Visibility Through SEO and Content Marketing

For all the writers out there, this one is for you. If you find product descriptions fun and easy to write, it might be a good idea to start learning best SEO practices.

SEO is short for search engine optimization and it basically consists of adding keywords in when you're creating content, for example, in a blog post. These carefully selected keywords will help your posts and product listings pop up on search engines when people are searching for things online.

You can create valuable, engaging content for your audience by incorporating SEO keywords into craft tutorials, artist interviews, behind-the-scenes posts, or detailed guides on art techniques. This is especially relevant if you are wanting to teach your craft (a very easy and profitable income stream!).

Another area you can use SEO is in your online portfolio if you are more in the art world, or if you’re offering creative services in addition to selling crafts. This can help your work get found and lead to new projects and commissions!

This is a very unique type of content marketing for artists that is not for everyone, but that's also a great reason to give it a shot - not many artists bother with it, so there's less competition (yay!).

7. Implement a Referral Program

Here's a simple trick to get new customers quickly and easily once you're starting to make online craft sales. This marketing strategy involves creating a referral program to engage customers to tell their friends about your shop!

This could be created a number of ways, but one extremely simple way to pass on the word of mouth is to include a coupon code for a friend in their email receipt. It's an incredibly easy system to set up, and if your customer is happy with their purchase, they are likely to pay it forward, or even use the coupon code again for themselves.

The easier you can make it on your customer's end to spread the word, the more successful your referral program will be. Keep it simple, provide an incentive, and watch your customer base grow.

8. Collaborate with Other Artists and Brands

One of my favorite ways to expand my reach is to collaborate with other artists. By creating brand partnerships, you're essentially borrowing someone else's audience and getting your products in front of them. This can lead to new followers, new customers, and more loyal fans.

The other great thing about collaborations is that you can make them as creative as you want! You can do a joint project together, write a guest blog for them, or even co-host a live event.

When planning out your collaboration, it's important to keep in mind that you should be providing as much value to both audiences as possible. This is what will get your collaborator's audience to trust, follow, and eventually purchase from you as well. Offer incentives and use your creativity to make it memorable and exciting!

9. Regularly Refresh Your Art Offerings

Another way to bring in new people to your art business: make new artwork. If you've been selling the same 20 prints for the last year, your audience is probably a little bored - show them something new! It's also great for you to always be creating and working on something new, even if only for your own creative practice.

In addition to this, sharing your creative process with your audience is also a powerful way for them to get to know you and your brand better. Share your space, your supplies, and your process so they can actually see the hard work that goes into every piece, therefore making it more valuable in their eyes.

If you're having a hard time coming up with new work, consider working with seasonal themes or creating a series to keep up interest and anticipation with your followers. Selling in collections or sets is usually very popular, plus you're making more money with each order!

Advanced Techniques for Marketing Your Art

We've covered the basics of what many creatives are using to get their art out to the world, but what about more advanced strategies with all the new technology that has been introduced in recent years?

There are so many new art marketing strategies that creatives can take advantage of in this digital world. Setting up virtual exhibitions can allow you to share your work digitally with many people in a unique and curated presentation.

It gives you the opportunity to show your work in the way you want someone to see it. You can price and sell your art, not to mention share the access link so anyone can see your exhibit whenever they want. An online exhibition eliminates the obstacle of time and travel, so your art can be viewed anytime, anywhere, without restriction.

Digital collaborations are another way you can get your art in front of more eyes. The great thing about collaborations is like we spoke about earlier...they can be whatever you want them to be!

Examples of digital collaborations for craft artists might look like linking up with another fiber artist and creating a digital pattern to sell to your audiences. Or putting on a virtual crafting workshop with another artist where you sell tickets and teach a related skill. The options are endless if you can let your creativity fly.

Overcoming Marketing Challenges

Because we are artists, I want to address the obvious - very few artists love marketing. We didn't become artists to learn about marketing (I'm just a weirdo who turned out to enjoy it!). Taking that into consideration, it makes sense that because your marketing will always likely come second to your art that you will end up with a few marketing challenges.

Here are a few common challenges I see with artists who are not doing as well as they could be when it comes to their art marketing plan:

1. They are not consistent

If you're selling your crafts on the internet, you need to stay top of mind. There is a TON of noise and competition out there. Consistency is extremely important in order to keep your products at the forefront of your customer's thoughts. You need to be putting your work out and talking about it on a regular basis, no exceptions.

2. They are not selling enough

Talking about your crafts online is great! That's the first step. But you also have to sell. However, this does not mean you have to be SALESY. Far from it in fact. Showing off your product, how to use it, answering questions about it, then dropping a link in case your target audience wants more info is an easy and fun way to sell online, whether that's through a video, social media, a blog post, etc. Selling regularly is essential to your success! Don't make this mistake :)

3. They care too much what people think

Worst of all, I see many creatives that are a little too insecure about putting themselves out there. This doesn't mean you need to be on IG every day, dancing and saying, "BUY, BUY, BUY!". You don't even need to show your face. However, if you don't share your work, people don't know about it and can't buy it. You have to get comfortable sharing your work and being open to feedback.

If this sounds like you, try sharing your work with your family and friends before you post it online. Take their feedback with a grain of salt, make your own final decision, then post anyways. It will get easier over time, but practice makes perfect.

Your Path to Marketing Success

As you can see, marketing is an essential part of your craft artist journey that can't really be ignored. Yes, you'll occasionally see those lucky people who make something and it just takes off...but even their luck will run out eventually if they are not also marketing to keep up the momentum.

It's not our favorite thing, but you can still make it fun by planning creative collaborations, filming videos about your work, showing your work at craft fairs, and more. Marketing for artists does not have to be boring, but it does need to get done!

Need a little help with your marketing strategy? Reserve your free, no pressure Creative Clarity Call and let's talk about how working together can help get your dream craft business off the ground.

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Marketing for Artists in 2025: A Comprehensive Guide to Selling Your Art