To the Artist in Search of a Marketing Strategy (Part 1)

A Fundamental Truth: personal feelings can never truly be shared or adequately communicated—no one knows how/what you felt when you were working on a piece. If you try to tell them, rhapsodizing about your passion, the transcendence that enveloped you in the throes of creation, they’ll simply interpret those feelings through the prism of their own experience. The creator’s feelings are one thing, the audience’s feelings another—the twain shall never meet. The best you can hope for—and it’s definitely something—is to provide a space for others to intensify/explore their own thoughts and feelings.

Be allusive, use telegraphic language; suggest rather than explain or expound—it’s more alluring. And while you’re at it, banish forever the words “journey” and “therapy.” These are clichés, and worse, indicators of self-absorption. Using too many words like that, or just a few in the wrong place, may prompt the viewer to see your art as clichéd and self-absorbed—even if it’s truly amazing. (That’s why bad promotion is a scourge: it distorts the audience’s perception.)

The details of your life/struggle are not inherently interesting. Really, who cares? What is your “journey” compared to those of Picasso, Da Vinci et al.? Not much. However, the relationship of your work to the history of art is something else—that’s big. Your work is part of the same vast dialogue/continuum as the titans of art (more or less, per its originality/vigor/etc. and recognition).

Mute the personal, accentuate the universal (“I am but a vehicle . . .”). Survival is dreary, art is significant. Communicate the latter truth to the audience through your promotion, so that they may appreciate your work in a larger context.

Promotion is a frame through which artwork is seen. It is a guideline, a means of orienting the viewer. It should be completely unobtrusive; never showy or superfluous.

Click label below (Marketing Strategy for Artists) for Parts 1-3. Click Arts promotion for all posts on this topic.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Good Writing Is Good Marketing

Good writing is good marketing. Good writing is not interchangeable with bad or adequate writing. There’s a real difference, not only in the writing per se, but in its effect.

Some people think that the product or service they sell really speaks for itself. They look at copywriting, social media, and other communications as something they need just to fill a space or satisfy some marketing convention (like producing a brochure because everyone else has one). When seeking a writer, their sole criterion is price.

This attitude ensures that they’ll have a harder time standing out from their competitors. Assuming they have the absolute best product in the field, if they cannot communicate this fact convincingly, their superiority may not translate into higher sales/business success.

It’s also a mistake to think that effective SEO writing is equivalent to good writing. Improved search ranking and site traffic is just an opening; you also need to close. Good SEO writing that cannot make a persuasive case for your product or service is ultimately not good writing. It’s a well paved road that leads to a derelict shack.

What about “content” and social media marketing? The writing in these areas cannot come across as overt marketing. In blogs, Twitter, and other vehicles, you have to actually add value (not just appear to), by providing services/information that complement what you sell.

As marketing gets more subtle, more sophisticated, more UBIQUITOUS, consumers or “targets” get more sophisticated, too. People are more wary than ever of being marketing to. That’s why the content you provide, even if it has an ulterior motive, must contain some kernel of meaningfulness.

Good writing is more than just words on a page or screen. Good writing is a vehicle for ideas, which takes it beyond the space it fills and creates another dimension. This is no abstraction, especially in marketing, where words must drive action and produce concrete results. A typical copywriter will likely produce typical results, while a writer with genuine passion can make his excitement for a subject contagious . . . In order to make your products/services speak for themselves, you need a writer who can give voice to them.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

To the Artist in Search of a Marketing Strategy (Part 2)

Artists may be fundamentally unsuited to write their own promotional materials. They're simply too close to the work and know too much about it. Excess knowledge, and with it the inability to distill the work’s essence and fit it into a marketing vehicle, may be the biggest downside to the whole “lack of objectivity” issue.

Artists who write their own marketing materials—even those who write well—often abandon the best qualities of their work, like brevity, rigor, and alluring ambiguity. They gush about the many influences and inspirations that figure into their work. They expound and explain when really they should tease and allude.

If you agree with the following premise, then it means the assertion above is on target: If I know little or nothing about how a piece of art was made, who made it or why, then I can make that artwork mean anything I want it to mean.

When the artist allows people to define her art themselves, the work can function or signify in ways that she never imagined, and thus expand beyond its origins/intent.

Faulkner said "Kill your darlings." That is, jettison those attachments that clutter your work. Fixations can be huge impediments in art. That goes doubly in marketing . . . When it comes to promoting art (if not everything), less is more.

Click label below (Marketing Strategy for Artists) for Parts 1-3. Click Arts promotion for all posts on this topic.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Social Media for Artists

Social media makes self-promotion for artists more accessible and wide-ranging than ever, but it also brings with it a new set of responsibilities. The more platforms/media you use to put your work out there, the more important it is to ensure that you speak with one voice—a powerful, consistent voice.

Here are some ways artists can more effectively tap into the power of social media:

Activated Artist Statement. You can streamline your artist statement and extend its reach—so you’ll always be ready whenever someone asks: “What kind of art do you do?” To make your statement an active element in your promotion, start by reshaping it into additional versions, like a Q&A—perfect for press kits, events, etc.; and a 30-second “elevator pitch” or mini version of your statement (just the essentials). These concise pieces are ideal for communicating with buyers, dealers, critics—anyone you want to reach . . . so that your art truly can “speak for itself.”

Communications Audit. Before plunging into social media—or even if you have already—make sure all your materials are up to par. Don’t let typos, awkward phrases, or broken links—on your Website, profiles, and other channels—tarnish your public face. Review and compare all your materials thoroughly, to ensure that everything is in top form. Also, plan to revisit your site design; make an effort to get a few outside opinions and see it with fresh eyes. (If you think you’re too close to your work and its promotion to be objective, you’re probably right.)

Marketing Plan. As part of your audit, you should also create a plan to integrate ALL your promotional efforts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn updates, etc.) . . . Approach your marketing systematically; fashion it into a seamless tapestry, with all the different platforms interconnected and showcasing your work—consistently, dynamically. A few simple techniques can give your marketing a strategic edge.

Social media truly expands the artist’s promotional palette, which is significant on multiple levels. In the best of circumstances, promotion not only helps an artist gain exposure, but also enriches his/her art by adding texture and context—those fundamental elements of meaning.

Click the Arts promotion label below for all posts on this topic.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Statistic of the Week (Archive)

I’m really not a numbers person, but I love a good statistic, especially one that confirms what I had known all along or what common sense might dictate.

With that combination—Insight/observation > Common sense > Evidence (quantitative)—you can be relatively certain you possess an authentic truth. Any comfort this certainty may bring, though, is often short-lived; the numbers can reveal harsh truths, and confirm what you had hoped was not as bad as it seemed.

Statistic of the Week is intended to highlight good stats—figures that reveal significant social/cultural/economic changes or trends . . . A good stat is one that synopsizes a big issue or idea, and is obviously credible.

Please send me good statistics (including the source) and I will try to include them here.

# # #

In 1950, less than 10 percent of American households contained only one person. By 2010, nearly 27 percent of households had just one person. [Source: Atlantic Magazine, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”; May 2012]

In 1950, 4 million people in this country lived alone. These days, there are almost 8 times as many, 31 million. [Source: New Yorker, “The Disconnected”; 4/16/12]

The number of American workers in unions has dwindled to 1 out of 14, from 1 in 3 in the 1950s.[Source: New York Times, Film Review: “Who Stole the American Dream?”; 3/1/12]

In 1890, 90% of bread in the U.S. was baked in homes; by 1930, 90% of bread was purchased [Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, “What Would Great-Grandma Eat?”; 2/26/12]


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

To the Artist in Search of a Marketing Strategy (Part 3)

“My work speaks for itself . . . I don’t like to put labels on my art.”


The statement above represents two-thirds of what I call the Trinity of Artistic Fallacy (the other part being: “I don’t care what people think, I’m just doing it for myself.”).

Not since Jackson Pollock made a splash in the pages of Life magazine has it been possible to deny that an artist (and his reception) is an agglomeration of his work, his life, his persona—his entire being. The time is well past that an artist can claim with any ingenuousness that “my work is all that matters.” No, everything matters.

Labels are fine, as long as they’re sufficiently fluid and either a) accurate/useful, or b) utterly ridiculous (perhaps as a parody). Labels are an essential part of language, especially when it’s used to translate across mediums/art forms. Anyway, an artist is labeled continuously, by a variety of interested and disinterested parties—some who label because they have a definite agenda, and others who do it without a clue.

Why not get there first and literally define the terms? Meaning is a negotiation, which the artist should master soon after figure drawing 101. Why not just let the labels fly? Be creative—you’re an artist, right? Let the language you use to promote yourself sizzle and amuse or baffle and disturb, or whatever effect you’re looking to create in the work itself.

If you must borrow, be accurate. The old terms of art history come with a lot of baggage you should be ready and able to shoulder. Better yet, be inventive (see above). It has advantages, especially in marketing.

If branding is something you have a taste for, you can use labels and phrases programmatically, for a deliberate “tag” effect (using the same language consistently, across different marketing vehicles).

When it comes to promoting your art, call it what you will. Just make sure it resonates, and conveys the essence of what you believe your work to be.

Click label below (Marketing Strategy for Artists) for Parts 1-3. Click Arts promotion for all posts on this topic.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Self-Promotion for Artists: More Than a Necessary Evil (Part 1)

If a tree falls in the forest and no one writes a press release about it, does it make a sound? By the same token, if an artist creates a work and no one else experiences it, does it have any artistic impact? Is it a viable creation? The act of creation guarantees only that a work will come into existence, but this is an incomplete equation without the presence of an audience.

Whenever you hear an artist say that he/she creates “just for myself,” don’t believe it. Everyone knows that the audience isn’t secondary to the artistic process—it’s a crucial, necessary component. An audience, however, does not come into being on its own; there’s an intermediary step between creating art and the formation of an audience. That step is promotion.

Many artists regard self-promotion as a base activity, at odds with the creative process. In the extreme, they see it as dubious and sleazy, a mercenary endeavor that can only corrupt the purity of their vision. At best, it is a necessary evil that is divorced from the real business of making art.

This attitude is increasingly unrealistic and burdened with the quaint notion of the artist as a gifted exile in a pristine realm, completely insulated from the world at large. More importantly, this attitude can be fatal to artists’ careers and may preclude them from realizing even the most basic level of success.

Artists that are not established rarely have the luxury of being able to entrust all of their promotional needs to a specialist. So, if an artist does not promote him/herself then this necessary task will go undone, in which case it is likely that the work, no matter how good it is, will not find an audience. Artists must “get their hands dirty” and lay some of the groundwork required for initiating their own careers.

Click label below for complete Self-Promotion for Artists (Parts 1-4). Click Arts promotion for all posts on this topic.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.