What are the fundamental basics every art business needs to have in place before attempting paid advertising?

The basics are in-person direct sales whenever possible (face-to-face is still the best way to sell art), a professional website that can take credit card payments and sell while you sleep, live art shows via video (Zoom, FaceTime, etc.) for one-to-one or one-to-many showings, and consistent regular marketing. You need to master selling from your website first, then run ads to warm traffic (people who already know you), and only once you’ve mastered that should you attempt cold traffic advertising. Trying paid ads before these basics are in place is literally lighting money on fire.

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Asked by synthesized from teaching · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2021-02-13