Why do most artists fail when they hire a marketing consultant?

There are two main reasons artists fail with marketing consultants. First, artists don’t understand how long marketing actually takes to produce results, so they hire consultants for only a month or two instead of committing to at least a year - which sets them up for failure from the start. Second, unless that consultant specializes exclusively in selling art or photography, they’re going to struggle even if they’re good at general marketing. The nuances of selling art and photography are so completely different from selling anything else that generic marketing expertise rarely translates effectively. It’s just a fundamentally different business with unique challenges.

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Asked by implied question from teaching context · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-07-16