The SIMPLEST way to sell your art online.

So taking your art business online feels really overwhelming because a lot of people tell you you need to be everywhere you should be on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. You got to have your website humming, you got to be like in all the places. And why wouldn't your business feel extremely heavy and overwhelming if that was your approach? Here's the truth. You only need to be on two platforms to start selling your work online, and then you can expand from there. And those two platforms are what we're going to talk about today. My goal here is to help artists that have done sales of their work or made money from their work in their local market take that online so they can build a heartfelt, sustainable business. You know, I've been very fortunate to work with hundreds and hundreds of creatives helping them get billions of views, millions of subscribers. You know, all these things that honestly you don't even need in order to start making money from your work. It's not about the quantity of people that you reach, it's really about the quality. And I want to say that because most artists will burn out before they even start to see results, because they're just trying to juggle all these platforms, all these things at one time. And how in the world can you not burn out, you know, if that's what you're doing? Like, you need to be balancing your life and your creativity and the things that bring you energy. So this all comes from the five ones principle, which is what I base my heart based sales accelerator on. And the five ones are you're going to sell one product to one person, you're going to have one traffic generator, you're going to have one way of converting your person and then you're going to do that for one year. And I know that you might hear that and go, well, wait, one person. Like, don't I need one person? Like if you haven't made any sales online, like maybe just focusing on one person is a good idea. And you're like, oh, but I have multiple interests and all these things. That's okay, that's okay, just chill. We'll get to all that stuff in other videos. But the main thing we're going to focus on today is the idea of having one traffic generator and one conversion method. These are the two platforms that if you just focused on having these things, your art business is going to be so much simpler. And the first is your traffic generator. This is essentially from an online business perspective, either organic, social or ads. Now there are some people out there that are going to Try to sell you on the fact that if you just run ads, you can sell your art for a small percentage of people. That may be true, but there is something that goes into those ads that really matters, and that is your messaging. Right, and what do I mean by your messaging? This is your story. This is, like, who you are as an artist, why your art matters to someone. You know, the story that you want to tell and the way that you want people to engage with the work that you make. You know, if you're watching this, you probably don't want to just make art for decoration. You want it to really mean something more than that. And so I'm going to suggest that your traffic generator is organic social media. So what I want you to consider is what if social media was a place that you were doing, let's call it, your market research, where you were finding content ideas that resonated with your ideal buyer, and you were putting those out there, and you were seeing what worked and then doubling down on what worked. So instead of thinking about, okay, how do I do this? Right. Okay, just asking yourself, what action can I take that's going to get me information?

What action can I take that's going to help me understand what resonates with my ideal buyer so I can put more of that out there. And when you start to just think about social media that way, it actually becomes a lot more fun because you're no longer feeling, you know, this pressure. You can start to just show up and talk to your people and, you know, see what happens. Right? Go from there. So to recap, the first mistake I see artists make is that, you know, they don't treat social media as an opportunity to play. They don't get creative in it, you know, and so that's what I want to encourage you to do is think about your one person, okay, which is your ideal buyer, and make content that brings them in, draws them in. Okay, and now let's talk about the platform you should be on. And we're going to talk quickly about the main four. We're going to talk about Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Pros and cons, Instagram. There are, as far as statistic go, statistics go that I've seen recently. More art is being sold through Instagram than any other platform.

I don't know this to be true, but one of the reasons I think that's happening is because there are more artists on there. So I love Instagram. I think it's great. And if I were you, I would be Focusing on two main things.

Storytelling and reels. Right. So storytelling in both carousel content or things like that, and storytelling in your reels, like. And when I say storytelling, we'll talk deeper about that in other videos. Okay, so the Second one is.

TikTok. TikTok is great for building an audience quicker because the way the algorithm works, it'll get you more eyeballs faster.

We have, I personally have clients that are selling quite a bit of work because of TikTok. But you know, much like Instagram, it goes through a lot of changes. And so when it comes to just connection based platforms, I think that Instagram outweighs TikTok in that way. So, you know, you may have the opportunity to reach more eyeballs, but you're not going to connect as easily, I think, as Instagram because Instagram has, you know, with stories and all these other things and we could get, if you guys want like a deep dive on like platform specific strategies, let me know in the comments. And I'm happy to do a video on that. But you know, just at a, at a high level view, TikTok doesn't give you the same tools that Instagram does. I used to be a big lover of TikTok. I don't think as highly of it now. That's just me. Facebook has really grown again in organic options. So Facebook reels is uncharted territory when it comes to artists like being able to utilize it. And you'll see in your own Facebook feed now that you're being fed new content. So that means that they're bringing in things algorithmically the same as what they have on Instagram. This is really good. So same sort of things, as I would tell you with Instagram is like focusing on storytelling and reels. So if you have an Instagram strategy, why not use it on Facebook now? Hear what I'm saying? I'm not saying like overwhelm yourself. If you can only handle one, just do one. That's totally fine. Okay. And then finally my favorite, which I'm leaning back into this year, the one that you're on, which is YouTube. YouTube is really great for a few reasons. Number one, you have YouTube shorts, okay? So if you're doing reels, you're doing TikToks. You can do YouTube shorts and long form content. Long form content is a great way for people to get to know you.

It's just awesome in that way. And so I love YouTube.

And when people spend more time with you, they feel, you know, they're more likely to buy from You. And that's really, really valuable. You know, the YouTube strategy is quite a bit different. It does require some more skill sets. So, you know, if you're just getting started in it, I would consider just starting with YouTube shorts so you don't have to think about titles and thumbnails as much. And that way you can also post those things other other places as well. So if I was to rank them in order, my favorites are YouTube number one, Instagram number two.

And then I'd probably put TikTok and Facebook kind of tied for three for me personally. But where should you be? Wherever you feel the most comfortable. And I know that it's like one of those things where you go, oh, my gosh, Lennon, seriously, like, if you just got really good at one thing, you know, one platform, then that's a great place to get you started. And so I have clients that use all those platforms. I have clients that just use one of those platforms. And, you know, I don't know anybody that hasn't made sales on any one of those platforms. So I would say consider it all opportunity. And that should be your get out of jail free card, right? Your opportunity to, like, just say, okay, screw it, I'm going to pick one. I'm going to lean into it. So platform number one is your traffic platform. Platform number two is your sales platform. And your number one sales platform should be your email list number, not your website.

I know this is crazy, but people don't like to be sold to on social media. They prefer, you know, email. And here's the great thing, right? You're selling your work. You draw up like a really beautiful email. You get images in there and all those things. You don't even need a website. So, you know, let's break down, like the customer journey so you can see what I mean. And I can kind of prove this point. So when I teach artists how to sell, I do it this way. I say, okay, you're going to want to first draw in eyeballs and build trust with people. So this is your social content. The main purpose of your social content is to draw in eyeballs, build trust. And once you've done that, then you say, hey, here's this thing that I make or I have made, and I'm going to sell it to you if you want it, right? So if you would like this thing, this piece of art that I've made, then let me know and I'll put you on my email list. And so we put them on an email list. We call this a priority list. Okay, so this is really cool because now you have gotten permission from this group of people to make them an offer. And so this is how you don't feel slimy when you're selling because you just like say, hey, you've asked. So here you go. You have the opportunity to send those people on your priority list to your website. But you know, the way that I teach this in my heart based sales accelerator is like, you don't even have to do that. You can just send them a Google Doc, you can just send them an email, you know, so if you're in this place of like all the overwhelming things, simplify, simplify, simplify. And if you want to know, if you want me to do like a deeper dive on like email and running an email list as an artist, let me know. Because your email list shouldn't just be you selling, you know, or telling like people about your process. Like it's more than that. It should be for them. It should feel exciting. So if you want, I can do a whole deep dive on that. Just let me know in the comments below. But if you just focused on these two platforms having a social media account somewhere, you know, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and you just focused on getting them on your email list and then making the offer there, that's all you need to get started with your business. You can really, really, really simplify it. Now obviously there's a little more to it than that and I want to give you as many tools as possible to be making more sales. And so in this video here, I'm going over 17 ways that you can make more money or more sales online in the next year. So check this video out and I'll see you over there.