Your audience is more important than your product or service – especially if you are an artist.
As entrepreneurial creative person, it doesn’t matter what you are selling, making, or offering. If you are trying to make a business from creative endeavors, whether as a side hustle or a full time income, you absolutely have to have an audience that is willing to buy your work. With no customers or clients, you are a hobbyist.
This is a hard pill to swallow for most of us artist types.
I’ve tried and failed a lot of times. More fails than successes, and some successes that faded away because I didn’t do enough to build and retain a pool of willing buyers.
Most of my failures happened because of my audience – but I’m not blaming them. I failed because I had a clear picture in mind, but my “ideal customer avatar” isn’t who came knocking. I answered the door, got confused by who was standing there, and failed to engage them while I chased after the clients I dreamed of. OOof.
So I want to share with you some of my learnings:
Fail at Building an Audience
- Use social media. No matter what platform you use, it’s full of other people also desperately trying to build an audience. Some are good at it. Most are failing. The algorithm is not your friend and your chance of going viral is very small.
- Send a newsletter. A mailing list is a great tool when you have a body of customers, but it’s pointless if you only have a five people on your list. Later on when you have dozens of people to communicate with, a newsletter is a good choice.
- Write blog posts and online content. It’s important to have content that people can read or watch, but even with decent SEO your audience is unlikely to find you with a Google search. Use your website like a portfolio and business card.
- Analyse too much. While it is helpful to have a good picture of who you will be selling to, you can go down the rabbit hole of building your ideal customer. You will be surprised by the people who are drawn to your work; they may not fit your “customer avatar” profile at all.
- Start a Patreon, Kickstarter, Onlyfans, etc. Without a strong and eager audience, these are unlikely to go anywhere.
- Rely on marketplaces. For example, Etsy is the original creative market; Fivvr is known for services. By all means, sell through the ones you like, but don’t expect buyers to find you amidst a sea of other options.
These are fine resources to use when you already have a group of people who are interested. But if you are starting out or want to grow your audience, they are not so helpful.
Here is how you actually do it: with your feet on the ground in the real world.
Gather an Audience (for real)
Always start with your family and friends. They are your ready-made supporters. Sometimes that support comes in the form of sales, sometimes critique and advice. It is a wonderful friend who recommends you to someone. Friends and family want you to succeed!
But they can’t support you endlessly, so…
You need to move beyond people you know. How can you find people you don’t know? Put yourself out in the world:
- Vend your wares at an event someone else organises.
- Sponsor an event that someone else organises. Get your logo on the poster.
- Teach your skill to a group at an event someone else organises.
You may be noticing a repeating theme here. You can’t do the organising. If you host an event, you are mostly reaching your group of friends and family. Join someone else’s activity and you’ll reach an audience of strangers.
- Get an article in the local paper. A profile written by someone else makes you the star. Send a press release or two to get their attention.
- Write an article for the local paper. That makes you the local authority! Turn a one-off article into a column so that your name and knowledge are regularly in front of people.
- Get yourself a guest spot on a podcast. Again, you are reaching someone else’s audience.
- Go do your thing in public. What that looks like depends on your thing. For example, make friends with cafe owners, then perform or display your art.
- Volunteer at the center of your choice. You don’t have to do your thing, it’s fine (in fact, better) to stuff envelopes or sweep floors. Get to know people that you can add to your expanding audience.
- Provide prizes for events and school fetes.
- Join the local chamber of commerce or its equivalent and participate in their activities.
- Network. Join two networking groups: one whose members are peers in your industry and one whose members are potential clients.
Who is my audience for this article? It’s me! I needed to remind myself to go do the challenging work of building a network of people who will support me. And my best tool for self-reflection is writing. Making it public encourages me to follow through. One of the 12 people who read this will ask me how it’s going.
If this resonates with you, too, then know that you’ve got my support. Go be part of the world and find your audience. Welcome the ones who knock on your door. Come knock on my door and let’s talk.
