You can see Doreen's work at:
Salon of Art Gifts & Apparel
Salon of Art Greetings
Salon of Art on Facebook
Portfolio for Doreen Erhardt
Doreen has generously agreed to share her Top Ten Tips for selling designs online:
For the artist who is just starting out selling their art online, it can be daunting and many of us learn these lessons the hard way, so I’m delighted to have the opportunity to share them freely with Judy’s audience in the hopes that some of you may find a smoother path to success than I did!
1. Design for the product and market you’re after, don’t stuff your design into a market that isn’t suited to the design.
2. If you want to be successful at selling your work online, you need to stop thinking purely as an artist and start thinking as both a consumer and as a business owner. Would I buy this product? What market am I going after? Wearing three hats is mandatory for success in this business.
3. Use templates! Make sure your design fits within the printing guidelines and looks like a professional product. Don’t put a 5x7 card image on every product at Zazzle and think it will sell.
4. If you add text to your cards, make sure it’s legible without overpowering the artwork AND be sure the text/verse you are adding fits the mood/emotion of the image and the category. Making age-specific cards for example is fine, but not all images are right for all ages. Making hundreds of cards with the same image is not necessarily going to bring more sales. Be selective, create your best work and it will sell.
5. Keep your online presence professional. Bright colors, loud patterns and lots of flashing java script such as auto-music are turn-offs to most customers and are not considered professional. An ‘in your face’ attitude does not work with car salesmen and will not work for an online store.
6. Branding is key to the success of any business, online is no different. Create a business name and a professional looking logo to give your business a recognizable quality. Keep your URL’s properly capitalized and be consistent throughout your online presence.
7. Successful site promotion involves creating back links, having strong, valid content and keeping your sites updated. Sites that sit stagnant for weeks at a time lose ranking in search engines.
8. Social networking is not just a craze; it’s an incredible tool all business owners to attract new customers and communicate with existing customer base. Learn how to use it not abuse it. Don’t just post sale after sale after sale. You have to offer content, know what you have to offer and they will follow.
9. Promote other artist’s work along side your own. Take advantage of the diversity you can add to your blogs, the increase in traffic their following can bring to your site and the affiliate dollars on any sales you make.
10. Have a ‘mother ship’ in cyber-space, i.e., your own .com so people can find you without having to remember the long URL’s store owners are assigned. People can type in your store name and navigate everywhere you are online from one location. You can do this for as low as $10 a year for the .com registration and creating a small site on one of many free hosting sites.
11. Submit you sites to search engines every six to eight weeks. Be consistent, but don't abuse this part of your promotion strategy. More frequent submission will get your site banned.
Doreen Erhardt
Well, I actually make that 11 Top Tips - I told you that Doreen was generous, didn't I!
Here's a small selection of her many imaginative greeting cards for Father's Day:
Doreen currently has more than 2000 cards in her Greeting Card Universe store, Salon of Art Greetings, so go ahead and enjoy a browse! I'm sure you'll find something that's just what you need!
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