Small Hand Drawn Portrait Business Advertising Ideas

vixi_2

I draw portraits of pets, people, cars, motorcycles etc. I've been running my business for about 10 years and I only seem to get about two or three customers a year. I'm getting really down about it all and I don't know what do do about advertising it more. I have a website. I have a facebook business profile (smudged portraits), a myspace profile and a linked in profile but I get nothing from them at all. I feel after ten years its about time I should be making some good money out of this but I really don't know what to do next. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Vixi.:(

Artytarty

Have you tried cards in pet shops, specialist gargares etc?
I believe that if you can get a couple of barristers to agree to sit, they will be delighted and will pay good money.That snowballs as all their legal friends will want one and you will have the wives booking you to do surprise birthday presents.

vixi_2

Thanks for your reply. Yes I've tried pet shops, vets, schools even fish abd chip shops! Just don't know why its not going anywhere my prices are lower than my competitors and my portraits are just as good if not better.

paulwf

Hi vixi, you can't post details on the forum as that would be seen as advertising. However in your profile setting you can link to the url of your homepage. Any chance putting your website url in your profile so we can see what's what?

paulwf

vixi wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. Yes I've tried pet shops, vets, schools even fish abd chip shops! Just don't know why its not going anywhere my prices are lower than my competitors and my portraits are just as good if not better.

Sorry to be blunt but we might as well get this question out of the way...how do you know they are better? Have you got any qualifications, competition wins or objective opinions (not friends/family) to back this up?

Apologies for asking this question, please don't take it the wrong way but this is the business forum so the obvious first thing to check is that the product is right.

texranger

Have you not tried Craft Shows, Country Shows etc.

take along a good selection of your work along with business cards etc. and even offer a 10% discount if ordered on the show day and even do some quick Charactures, which will give you some income.

paddyrg

I was using fiverr.com earlier today, and there are a lot of people offering to sketch/draw from your photo - for $5. May not be the market you're after, but be aware that it exists and it may affect the rates you're able to charge.

lovethymini

My mum does portraits and she is getting busier and busier, through word of mouth. This all started because she joined a local art group years ago and displayed her work in all their exhibitions, so she got a lot of exposure from that. Perhaps there's a local group you could join?

Savvy_Sue

Our area has lots of Arts Trails, where people show their wares in their houses (often 2-3 friends together) or in local community venues (where you might be one of a dozen). Some people show at more than one 'trail'. I don't know how much business it generates, but it's usually very lively!

chalkie99

These are purely my own initial thoughts so please don't be offended but -

I don't think your website does you many favours in various ways.

Firstly, the overall design - most of the page is the background and not very visually appearing as I would expect an "art" related site to be.

There are no real "call to action" messages to draw the customer in and grab their attention.

There is not much to look at overall and the contact page is a bit anonymous, there are no real contact details to inspire customer confidence.

I am not an seo expert but I don't think the site keywords are set properly as they should be more targeted and comma separated.

I don't really like the name "Smudge" either! (Sorry, I know this is probably getting a bit depressing!). To me, "Smudge" sounds like a defect and it's not a term I would be searching Google for if I was looking for your services.

My first course of action would be to junk the free Vista website and the free Hotmail address and register a new web name which more accurately reflects what you do with proper hosting. Then set up a new design with a pre-made theme as a basis using Wordpress. The whole outlay for hosting and theme could be done for about £40 and you can teach yourself how to do it quite quickly.

Try and update the site regularly with blog articles about how you work,
your latest projects, upcoming events where people can see your work, etc.

Have a look at some other freelance artist websites to see how they do it. There are some nice Wordpress themes at http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress.

Once you have a better site which people can use as a reference catalogue and which they can find you easily from a Google search then other things will follow.

texranger

i think what the OP has done is gone to Vistaprint for some business cards and then while on the order process he has accepted their free website option, which i must 100% agree with chalkie99

a .uk domain £2.99 a year ( paid min 2 yrs)
a template from themeforest ( approx. £19 one off)
webhosting (approx £30 a yr)

this will make your site look professional as at the moment if i come across your site i would say its from a 1st yr art student whos just trying to make a few pounds.

have the gallery, info, prices all on one page is not a professional setup, these should all be on separate pages.

i would recommend a host like easyasabc-hosting.com