If I'm the only one trying to get into a market with many competitors, should I even try?

Absolutely try—there is actually almost no real competition in the art and photography market. This sounds counterintuitive, but here’s why: the vast majority of artists and photographers are unwilling to do the consistent marketing work required to build a normal business. Everyone uploads to large third-party marketplaces, does minimal SEO, posts occasionally on social media, and hopes for sales. These are the easiest things anyone can do sitting on their couch, which means everyone worldwide is doing them, making those channels impossibly crowded and ineffective. What 99.99% of people will NOT do is build a real direct-to-collector business—owning their customer relationships, doing consistent marketing, treating it like a business in any other industry. The moment you commit to building your own direct channel and doing regular marketing work, you immediately join a tiny minority. The competition in the direct channel is weak: they’re unskilled in business, they’re lazy, and they believe posting a few times and sending one email should generate $100,000 in sales. Let them think that. Your real advantage comes from treating this like a legitimate business and doing the unglamorous, consistent work that almost nobody else will do.

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Asked by an artist worried about competition in the market · Answered by Nick Friend · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-06-03