Need More Sales How About You?

I would just like to have my 2nd sale!

i can always use more sales. it was much slower in march than usual, though passover, easter and tax man came at the same time. i did see a burst of sales the other day, though nothing yet today. i think people still have to get off their easter high, and it should get better.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I myself have hit a wall. It's been a bit of a dry spell. Part of it has to do with not having a computer at home to work on uploading and marketing. It's been two months since my last upload.

Always. I am averaging one a year.

Randall,

I just had a very nice sale today, but have been pretty dry before that,mostly phones and gift cards. I'm hoping that all this stuff going on here with new sites,cloned sites,etc. isn't upsetting Mr. Google!

I've got 3400+ images now and I would have expected an increase in sales,relative to those new images,mostly cars lately, but the "views" have really increased for me and that's bothersome,

Rich

i just got 2 sales today, to canada, but they are the same image, hope he wants both.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I'll take 'em. Two framed print sales on Friday. Card today.

I made my first sale in August of last year...haven't had another since. But am always hopeful for the next one and adjusting my listings, promotions, etc. to try and boost sales.

Im still waiting for my FIRST sale.

Looks like the well's gone dry

I post fairly often and market everyday.....lots of bot visits which I have heard is suppose to be good. I am hoping to see a sale anytime.

Getting lists of visitors but sales have flatlined over the last month.

Tons of new stuff coming from Big Bend National Park in TX and on the way to Utah for the next few weeks.

I had a good month in March - but a good month for me is three sales. It gets a "little" better every year, but I'm talking about enough for one large trip to the grocery store per year LOL. I would like that to filter down to enough for groceries for a month, then enough for groceries for the year....

Hey, a girl can dream.

Don't always expect sales to "magically" come to you... Sometimes it takes some leg work to get your name out there.

I had above average sales for March- but so far only one sale for April. I can't complain though- I don't really do much marketing or promoting.

No sales for me yet but boy am I having fun reading the different forums. There better than Dear Abby !

When I am making 100K/year on art sales I will STILL need more sales. It is always about increasing your market and revenue regardless of how much you sell.

(Note I said WHEN)

I need my first sale, let alone more sales.

I'm with you JC. Sales are like crack. Very addictive and the effects wear off faster each time.

@Ed...LOL, are you saying we are all addicts???

More sales would be nice I need a new car...well new to me...I'm not greedy but something newer then '96 would be nice LOL, pretty soon it's going to be a classic.

Cheers, Barbara

Been slow here I sold a few when I first joined faa a few months back. Been dry ever since, I need to spend more time marketing my self.

Get rid of the stuff!

As best I can tell, there are more artists on here than grains of sand and we all basically end up looking at each other's work. On rare occasion, someone who is an actual buyer, not an artist, wanders in, runs a search, looks at the first page or two of results, and then, maybe, just maybe, buys something. I find it mostly entertaining and enjoy the experience, but unless someone has reached a certain "critical mass", I think it is hard to get noticed. I sold a very large print with a very large markup soon after signing up, but that was a few months back. Since then, I have used some of the promotion threads found in a few groups. I got a good number of comments, likes, and favorites, but I spent a ton of time doing the same for others in the threads. The net result was I saw a lot of other people's work and expended way too much time. I didn't see any change in where I came up on searches, however, so I decided it was just too much trouble. I have solicited input from a few other photographers and it seems to be a pretty universal theme.To a large degree, FAA is like a form of Facebook for artists in that we have discussions and like to chat about each other's work, and act as if likes, comments, and favorites will somehow magically catapult us to another level of sales, but the reality is everyone seems to be doing that so no one has a chance at gaining ground. Selling on FAA would be great, but I suspect that many people on here are just looking for ideas. Plus, no matter how great a photographer you are, as we all know, anyone with an iPhone can produce just as good an image! (sarcasm font). So for the end of my somewhat sarcastic laden rant, FAA is novel, but i cannot imagine that even making the most headway possible, that I could ever achieve a level of sales that would translate to even a few dollars per hour of effort put into FAA. Hey, maybe I should buy a few of my own pieces to trick the FAA algorithms and put myself even deeper in the financial hole! (sarcasm font again). Bottom line, I find this to be just a novel way to enjoy knowing that I am getting a few of my shots seen, but I don't expect to ever sell enough to justify the effort on FAA. But it's all good!

A few other places online also bear checking out. I think FAA prohibits listing competitor sites, but there are a few that are worthwhile.

Sales have ben very slow for me compared to last year.

Make the best artwork you can without monetary return in mind!

Now the economy is surging and companies can't find enough workers. In my parts unemployment is under 5%. Construction is green lighted. Companies are expanding. Even the Walmarts of the world are raising wages. I suspect a lot of people who jumped into Internet get rich quick schemes (in their minds) will be dropping out and getting back to real jobs.

Good news for online art sellers who know how to market their work - more employed people means more money to spend on art. The excuses are drying up fast. You can't blame the economy for not selling, only your own efforts.

I hoped
I wished
I waited
I thought
I expected

Turn it into --- I did

analytics is such a waste of time and so hard to use. it tells me nothing i need to know. i wish we had a better stat method, hoping the new upgrade will have something we can use, or at least let us turn our own back on. i know i have people seeing my artist site, but i have no idea at all where they are coming from and what they looked at. analytics does not show that. more so it's a day old anyway.

where i am, they are building houses like crazy. no add ons, no expansions, old house is for sale, time to knock it down and place a small mc mansion. we had one house (the house that founded our town more or less), the house was sold for a million, then divided up so 2 more houses of the same price could be placed. yet i don't really see an upswing in sales over all. while there are some sales, its almost like they are either going some place else, or just making their own with instagram.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

House next door sold within weeks. My neighbors were expecting it to take two years. Surprise!

It is booming in Tampa, FL as well. My business has been doing so well we decided to do some home improving. Contractors are ALL busy. So we've done most of the work ourselves! Home Depot loves us! While it was frustrating that contractors have all been booked out for months, it is a GREAT sign of the economy. :)

Ed is right. I am a doer. I have little patience and cannot stand to "wait" for anything. I figure out some way to make it happen. I poo poo'd blogs for a long time until I hit a rough dry spell. So I started to blog. Now I get sales that way. One lady suggested that I do an image in my Color Fusion style and now it is one of my best sellers. She bought the first one and proudly displayed it on her blog and shared that blog with all of her followers. I figured out really quick how blogging can pay off...

I have resisted blogging because I feel that I do not write very well. I need a ghost writer!!

Edward..."Now the economy is surging and companies can't find enough workers."....
Might be jumping the gun on that. The Atlanta Fed cut its growth projection to wait for it.......0%...after the last 3 months job creation was revised downward by a significant amount, and there are still close to 100million folks out of work...
I suspect certain areas will see surging job growth, but not nationwide...

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/02/news/economy/us-economy-growth-zero-growth-first-quarter/

" People aren't buying big things or small things. Retail sales are down. Home construction and sales came in weaker than expected, and orders for durable goods (think appliances and furniture) have fallen in three of the last fourth months.

On top of that, businesses aren't helping boost growth much either. While hiring has remained strong, there have been pullbacks in manufacturing and industrial production. "

I was just talking to realtor today, their problem is they have buyers, but not enough sellers since most folks don't want to sell because prices are still down. But in order for prices to rise, you need to have sales, It's a chicken/egg thing.

Christmas was good for me, but sales have fallen off considerably the last 3 months..

No sales so far this year for me. But I'm still building my gallery, so I have to be patient.

Tim - sorry but pent up demand is making cars fly out of the dealerships, gas prices are expected to be the lowest in six years over the summer. The recession was officially over six years ago. Its been a slow recovery but its now here and people who are in the game will benefit.

If your sales are off its because your competition is taking them from you.

.....

Ann - search engines can't tell if its written well or not. They just see the keywords.

I've been blogging for years, haven't seen any indication that's it's doing anything for me.

Ed, if the economic picture is so rosy why is the Fed so reluctant to raise interest rates?

You can listen to talk radio or you can open your eyes and look around. As Sharon noted - try getting a contractor these days. They are booked all summer.

BTW - if you've been hoarding gold - time to get rid of it.

Statistics are more useful than anecdotal evidence. For example, just because contractors are booked where you are does not mean they are in demand everywhere. Certain jobs are in demand in certain areas, but overall job creation for the country is down. BTW, I do not listen to talk radio, in fact I don't listen to the radio at all.

Keep in mind that your target market sailed through the recession without a scratch.

But if you guys want to blame the economy for your lack of sales, have fun!

I didn't mean to imply that I'm blaming the economy for my lack of sales (though some here appear to be) I know that at least for me that's not it at all. However, based on statistics, the actions (actually the lack thereof) of the Fed and my personal experience with my own job, (we design and build custom equipment, municipal and industrial, delivered throughout the world.) my opinion is that the recovery is on very shaky ground. I don't need a talking head to tell me that.

That's amazing you know who my target market is Ed, I haven't figured it out myself, please share.

"search engines can't tell if its written well or not. They just see the keywords."

Not true. Search engines can identify poor grammar, improper punctuation and capitalization, and spelling mistakes. A well written post will rate higher than a poorly written post with the same keywords.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

I don't write much on most of my blogs at all....Nice picture....A few words....A link to buy....And I am still indexed. The most important thing with blogging is to interact with other bloggers. Like their blogs. Make comments. They start doing the same for you. You get more traffic and more followers. They start reblogging your blogs to their followers....and it just continues to grow. The search engines like Google grab my blog every day now quite a bit. It isn't the writing...I can assure you of that! Don't worry about how you write. Just get started. Follow other bloggers and learn from them. It's like anything...you work...make mistakes...learn...then grow.

i'll be honest, i have never ever known google to rank you low because you don't capitalize or have good grammar. they will ding you because you have little content, or you spam heavily, or have many domain names with the same content, or if you push words in a spamming like way. but they don't care if the structure of sentences would pass an english class. that's a new one. is this listed some place?

i've found many pages on there that had all kind of things wrong, including the fact that those words weren't even english. i can see sentence issues getting in the way of translators.

google loves blogs, forums, anything updated all the time that has something interactive. google likes retention. how long a person stays on that page, so if you make a story or have interesting things to look at, google will score you higher for that as well. i suppose if it's really hard to read because people made things LoOk LIKe ThiS - then google may ignore that because it's annoying to read text like that. and maybe if it's in all caps.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

"google loves blogs, forums, anything updated all the time that has something interactive."

Yup....loads of comments on a blog gets it a LOT more Google traffic. Even if there are few words.

David

"That's amazing you know who my target market is Ed, I haven't figured it out myself, please share."

I'll actually field this one. Your target market is people with a disposable income that 1. appreciate art and 2. will pay to have something unique.

For the most part this is the upper middle class. Again for the most part, they didn't really take a huge hit in the resection, though that is an over generalization IMO. Back when I was an airline pilot and flew for the ANG my family income was over 200K. I WAS the target market for midlevel art such as prints. Now, depending on the profession some faired better than others. If you were in real estate or construction and making good money you likely took a hit in the recession. If you were an airline pilot for certain carriers you most certainly took a hit. Other industries, not so much.....

The thing is your market is, or should be, someone willing to buy an open ended framed print for over a grand and not even bat an eye while doing it. The super rich buy original art and custom Ferraris. The well off by expensive reproductions and mass produced Porsche Carreras and BMW 6 series..... (Again, a sweeping generalization but one that has some merit.)

Seems to me such sweeping generalizations are of little use in marketing. Only one buyer of my work that I know of fits what you describe as the "target market", but even then not quite, he doesn't own nor could he own a new Ferrari, though he is building a retirement home in a town to the South and that's what he bought my painting for, (he is in real estate BTW). Everybody else that owns my work is lower, middle class at best. I have yet to sell any prints (or originals) on FAA though.

[good grammar and spelling] "that's a new one. is this listed some place?"

Mike, it's not new and it's also very easy to find articles/videos on the subject. Here's one now:

http://www.bluecorona.com/blog/grammar-and-seo

Anything on a site that translates to a poor user experience will downgrade your ranking.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

However, this IS new: Starting April 21, Google will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

If you want to test your pages, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Test:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?utm_source=wmc-blog&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=mobile-friendly


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Consider this. Your target market is not people on unemployment. Focusing on the minority of people who can't find work is not where you want to spend your efforts.

Meanwhile there is tremendous pent up demand for products. People are tired of saving and are spending.

In my area the main employers are hospitals and colleges. The doctors and professors might have gotten a pay freeze or a 2% raise but the people who lost their jobs were the maintenance people and nurses. They put off buying their new BMW for a year. Not much of a hardship. These are the people with disposable income to spend on art.

....

Dan - search engines can't index nothing. Something is better than nothing.

"Dan - search engines can't index nothing. Something is better than nothing."

???


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

People worried about how well they write shouldn't be afraid to start blogging.

That's a true statement, Edward.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Correct Ed. Just do it. Interact with others. Be likeable. Be nice. Build a community of followers. In time....it pays off.

Let me rephrase that. The rich buy original art from known artists and custom Ferraris.

The middle class buy original art from unknown artists and they buy prints.

That can help you market.