The Art Marketing Podcast

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New Customer Calculator: plug in your own numbers and watch 10 years unfold, originals only versus a full lineup. artmarketingpodcast.com/calculator
An artist on our team just made a $35,000 sale. I called and asked how it happened. "This person bought a tiny little thing from me seven years ago, and now they just came back and spent 35 grand." That's the business. This episode covers the math nobody taught you, and why it works whether your art is selling right now or not.
You're in this for life. People in their 80s and 90s still ask me how to get their art seen and sold. So stop judging your business on a three-month timeline and start playing the long game. The long game runs on math, not emotion.
In this episode:
Why the desire to create, be seen, and sell never leaves an artist, and why that means you should stop making decisions on made-up timelines
The three ways to grow an art business: new customers, repeat customers, and a higher average order value
The one metric that matters most: new customers acquired per year, at any price
Why a $5 sticker buyer is worth more than you think. It's far easier to get someone to buy a second time than a first.
Collectors: Wyland's definition, and what having a collector list actually does for a new series
The hardware store, the gift shop, and "Do you want fries with that?" What centuries of offline selling teach artists online
Print on demand: how 7 to 10 pieces become a 2,000-item store with no inventory and no minimums
The price ladder, from merch under $100 to prints, limited editions, and originals
The math story: two artists with the same talent and the same marketing. One ends the year with 10 customers to email, the other with 125.
Studying the business masters, not just the painting masters: Wyland and Gray Malin
"I'm a fine artist, I don't sell merch." Fair enough. Then how are you going to win new customers?
What merch is really for: new customers, a low-commitment way for fans to support you, and a spot on someone's coffee mug or phone case
How a visible range of prices ends the pricing panic, plus a simple markup rule for print on demand
"I'm already doing all of this and I'm still not selling." What a Picasso quote really means.
Tens of thousands of works were still in Picasso's possession when he died. You will have unsold work too. It's part of the process.
The loop: make the work, put it in front of strangers, try to sell it, and either way you learn something and make more
Quotes from this episode:
"In the beginning, I did not sell at a high price, but I sold. My drawings, my canvases went. That's what counts." (Pablo Picasso, from Brassaï's Conversations with Picasso)
"Don't price them too high. What matters is that you sell a large number of them. Your drawings must go out into the world." (Pablo Picasso to Brassaï, from Conversations with Picasso)
A collector is someone who buys seven or more pieces of your art over a lifetime. (Wyland)
"The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The next best time is today." (Proverb)
"There is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
"Do you want fries with that?" (McDonald's)
"This person bought this tiny little thing from me seven years ago, and now they just came back and spent 35 grand." (An Art Storefronts artist)
"Tell me the last time you went to a museum that didn't have a gift shop. I'll wait." (Patrick)
"Your own mother doesn't look at your art 142 times a day." (Patrick)
Books mentioned:
Don't Be a Starving Artist by Wyland (also available as an audiobook)
Conversations with Picasso by Brassaï
Three takeaways: own your website and your domain. Get print on demand going so you have the range. Market regularly, because the work has to go out into the world.
This week's homework: open the Customer Calculator and put in your real numbers. How many new customers did you win last year? Then add one rung to your ladder below $100.
Related episodes:
Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055
How to Price Your Art for Q4
Comment on Spotify or YouTube: what's the cheapest thing in your store, and how many new customers did you win last year? I'll answer every one.
Stay Up To Date With The Latest
https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

Let us it down with Jim Lovell, a veterinarian turned full-time painter who picked up a brush for the first time just 11 years ago.
 We'll talk about growing up on a farm in rural Alabama, how knowing animals from the inside out shapes his wildlife and pet portraits, his heavy metal past (yes, really), and what it took to trade the scalpel for the brush.
Plus, he'll Spill the Paint with some honest takes on the art world. If you've ever thought it's too late to start making art, you won't want to miss this one.
🎥 YouTube:
https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/artmarketingpod
🎧 Spotify:
https://urlgeni.us/spotify/GDwR
🍏 Apple Podcasts:
https://urlgeni.us/applepodcast/Qhatu
📱 Instagram:
 https://www.instagram.com/artmarketingpodcast/

You sent the email. You posted the painting. Crickets. Your art isn't the problem. Nobody saw it. This episode is about the one idea the pros live by that almost nobody outside marketing has heard of: being everywhere at once.
Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar
We picture the world stopping for our message. The email gets read, the post goes out like an emergency alert, everyone visits our profile. Reality is a crowded inbox and a warehouse full of posts. Once you see that gap, saying it again stops feeling annoying. You're finally being heard. Stick around to the end: there's a big announcement.
In this episode:
Mind the gap: what we think happens when we hit send or post, and what actually happens, across email, Instagram, and Facebook
A flood warning, twenty stucco workers, and John Wick: what a real "everybody gets the ping" moment looks like, and why your post isn't one
The spotlight effect and the Barry Manilow T-shirt: why we badly overestimate how much anyone notices what we do
Nobody sees the frequency: real numbers from the Art Storefronts email program, and why sending more didn't drive people away
Everybody big has always done this: a London ad man in the 1880s, Coca-Cola "within arm's reach of desire," WWII war bonds, and how movies get launched
Effective frequency in plain English: more than once, more than you think, spread out, in a bunch of places
Spread beats cram, and why three noticed exposures takes far more than three sends
Messi alone versus the whole team: you already have a roster of players, you're just leaving them on the bench
The full roster: every player an artist or photographer can put on the field, online and off, including the ones you forgot you had
One message, every surface, each platform in its own voice, and a simple staggered launch week
Find Your Team: the free prompt from this episode. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Grok. It interviews you about what you have to work with, online and offline, shows you every player on your roster (and which ones are sitting on the bench), gives you creative ideas for each one tailored to your art, and lays out your first week. No marketing experience needed. Get it here: artmarketingpodcast.com/find-your-team
The big announcement: the Art Marketing Podcast finally has its own email list, just in time for the show's 10th birthday. It isn't a "new episode is out" list. It's built to be one-to-one, not one-to-many. Join at artmarketingpodcast.com/join
This week's homework: count your oars. List every surface you own, online and offline. Then pick one piece and put it on all of them this month.
Related episodes:
Q4 Prep for Artists — why now is the time to get this right
A Greek Warship, a Horse Named Sally — a full multi-channel sale, start to finish
The Artist's Guide to Instagram Live — one more player, even if you hate being on camera
The Long Game — Why Your Website Will Still Be Working in 2055
Comment on Spotify or YouTube: how many players did the prompt find on your roster, and how many were you actually using? I'll answer every one. Nobody saw it. So say it again, somewhere new. Your art will thank you.
Stay Up To Date With The Latest
https://linktr.ee/artmarketingpodcast

No scripts. No polish. Just artists being real.
On the Art Marketing Podcast, Art Storefronts sits down with working artists and photographers to talk about what actually happens behind the work: the wins, the flops, the pricing decisions, the slow months, and the moments that changed everything. Unfiltered conversations for artists who want the truth about building a creative career.
🎥 YouTube:
https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/artmarketingpod
🎧 Spotify:
https://urlgeni.us/spotify/GDwR
🍏 Apple Podcasts:
https://urlgeni.us/applepodcast/Qhatu
📱 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/artmarketingpodcast/

You've nodded along to the story lesson all year and kept firing the art gatling gun. So I'm done teaching it. This episode, I become it.
Want to join Patrick for a live webinar? He hosts one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Register here: asf.today/webinar
I've never recorded an episode like this one. Three proofs that the art doesn't change, the story does. Then I run the experiment on myself, on you: the mini life story I've avoided telling for nine years. At the end, one question. How much more do you have in common with me now than you did forty minutes ago?
In this episode:
The two failure modes after every "yeah yeah, I get it": nod and revert, or one post and revert
The art gatling gun. Art, art, art, one shot fired forever. What I see when I open your profile
My hedge: the artist who did the exact opposite of everything I teach, to the tune of $347K, and the softball story about copying a fence-clearing home run
What happens on a webinar when one artist opens with their story instead of their awards: the whole room asks for their Instagram
Mona Lisa: respected, not famous, until a Louvre handyman walked out with it in 1911. Story added, value explodes
Banksy: signed originals at $60 from an unmarked Central Park stall. Eight buyers all day. Story removed, value collapses
Joshua Bell: a $3.5M Stradivarius in a DC Metro station, 1,097 people walked past. Context removed, excellence disappears
How Elon Musk interviews: "Tell me the story of your life." Your art is the résumé. The story is the interview. Every collector is Musk
I asked AI what my listeners actually know about me after nine years. It's embarrassingly thin
Then the story: Hawaii, Pearl Harbor from a front yard, Boston Latin and MIT, Janis Joplin as the backyard band, an IBM under the Christmas tree, a john boat off La Jolla
Scott and the nametag, the dog you end up walking, and the claw machine: every facet you surface opens another lane to your art
"But I'm not interesting." Rare lanes are small, common lanes are enormous. Painting at 5am in half the garage is a bin with millions of people in it
This week's homework: make the list. Every facet of your life someone could glom onto, the mundane ones included. Pick one and put it in front of your art this week. You don't know what's going to work. You do know art, art, art isn't.
Resources mentioned:
Hello, My Name is Scott by Scott Ginsberg — the nametag guy
Banksy's Central Park stall, October 2013 — go look at the picture
Related episodes:
The Artwork Didn't Change. The Story Did. — where this year started
4 Prompts That Pull Your Story Out — if you need help making the list
The Coffee Shop Test
The Algorithm Doesn't Care About Your Art — memes are the fuel, this is the sorting machine
When a Buyer Asks for ode