career talk : marketing 101

illustration by Valeriy Kachae v director at (name of company)”. And of course you can purchase lists from places like Agency Access. Starting out, you should be sending something out every six weeks, as you gain more recognition, drop that back to every three months.

For results you need to refer to your site’s analytics to see how many people visited your site—give it 24-hours after you’ve sent out a promotion, this will be the largest number.

This year, at 3x3, we moved from our printed illustration directory that was sent to 7,000 art directors in the States to a totally email-based program reaching a far wider market.

The 3x3 Collective we’ve developed has been highly successful at getting eyeballs to not only our site, 3x3-collective. com, but also to individual illustrator’s site in numbers illustrators have never seen before. What’s making the difference? First, our emails are HTML, not plain text like most illustrators use. Secondly, each includes a quote from an art director that has commissioned them—why illustrators don’t use this on at least their websites is puzzling to me. Third, the mailing list is customized to each illustrator and covers magazines, newspapers, advertising agencies, graphic design studios, in-house art departments, publishers and even record companies. Here and abroad. And we hand-select the titles and categories that makes the most sense.

From my decades as an ad agency art director and creative director I’ve learned the importance of being visible, importantly, not to peers, but to the audience who might be interested in what you have to sell.

“Selling” has a bad connotation, branding is sometimes misunderstood, advertising is something most illustrators don’t consider unless it’s a directory ad.

It goes without saying you need to have something of value to offer. Ideally, you have a distinct style that will open doors in your chosen area of illustration. Which area of the illustration field offers you the most opportunities? I’ve never bought into the idea that you must be all things to all people. The idea that you must get work from multiple areas means you’ll end up spreading yourself too thin. I’d suggest you look at your second passion. Let’s say it’s food. You’ll do a much better job on those assignments than other illustrators. Same goes for cars, or celebrities. You get the idea.

Too many illustrators, especially young illustrators, look at the field, see successful artists and mimic their style so they can gain what they think is a readily available market for their work. Wrong. Art directors see your value based on what you can bring to the table, ideas that solve visual problems.

Deciding how to market yourself needs to take a more scientific approach, rather than going to the typical editorial or publishing contacts.

I recently spoke at the School of Visual Arts Summer Residency Program and brought a couple of marketing tests for the group of complete. These tests came from a seminar I took that helped me and my ad agency discover what type of clients were best for us.

First, I had the group answer a series of questions like: If you were a flower, which would it be? If you were a car, which would it be? If you were a city, which would it be? Completing this list of twelve questions tells one what one’s work should look like, informing the artist whether or not their style is truly authentic, or whether it’s a false identity.

We use clever subject lines—not what I’m used to seeing: “Illustrator for hire,”— and they directly relate to the image we’re using in the email. Why is this so important? The first hurdle is having the art director actually opening up your email—they’re creative; they appreciate a clever twist to an email subject line. And lastly, there’s a quote from me talking about why I think the illustrator is perfect for their type of project. And we track results.

Next, I had them answer a second series of questions. I had learned from the seminar that the world is divided up into four specific quadrants: Results, Ego, Process and Social. Answering a set of questions identifies which of these quadrants you’re in, which then tells you your best source for potential clients. When you look at the quadrant, you sources for work are quadrants adjacent to you. However, the best chance for new clients are those in your specific quadrant.*

Each artist receives a full report that includes opens, unique opens, clicks, unique clicks and the number of clicks to their site, to Instagram, LinkedIn and the ones that go to their page on the Collective. With our approach we’ve been able to open up a much larger audience for our illustrators; with many more hits to their sites. Our sole job is getting art directors to their sites. While there’s no guarantee of assignments, recently two of our illustrators got projects the day after our emails landed in the art director’s inbox.

Finally, once you’ve arrived at something authentic and you’ve identified your area in the quadrants, you’re ready to market yourself. What are good sources for mailing lists? How often should you send out promotions? How do you judge results?

There are several sources for mailing lists. You can generate your own by visiting bookstores and newsstands. Or using juried shows, finding illustrators who have a similar style, seeing who their clients are and adding those to your list. Or simply Google “Who is the art

Given the right approach, marketing works, and works well. *Request a copy of the quadrant test, info@3x3mag.com

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