If you are thinking about starting a digital art business then watch this video first
because I'm going to share with you.
The must have things you need in your business to get started the challenges you might face
and how to make your product stand out from the crowd.
Hi, my name is Mei Pak. And I help makers artists
and designers make a consistent income from selling their handmade products online.
So why is a digital art business a good idea?
Well digital art is a broad category that just means artwork that's created using a computer.
So this can mean a lot of different things. You can draw an
illustration on a computer screen that you then color in
or you can take images and render them in Photoshop in a certain
way you can do a From different photographs
or you can use fonts.
I mean the options are endless,
but all of these artworks are created by using your computer as the main medium.
So this sets it slightly apart from other kinds of artwork
such as drawing or doing portraits with pen and paper.
Of course, those are mediums that may use your computer as well.
But digital art is really focused around the computer
as your main art tool so there are a lot of advantages to running a It'll art business.
Number one. There are incredible growth opportunities.
If you can create artwork that catches on with with people you can sell a droves of them
and grow a really large following a key part of a digital art business is that you're
creating files on your computer that you can then have printed.
So if you create a file that's really beautiful you can sell dozens
or hundreds or even thousands of prints
and this sets it completely apart from an art business where you're drawing each.
Drill item from scratch manually.
So there's a lot of opportunity
for growth because of that number to digital art businesses are also easier
to Outsource than other kinds of handmade businesses.
And here's why a big part of the digital art business is a customer service
and the actual printing of the finished artwork
and both of these are very easy things to Outsource compare it to a handmade business
that requires you to teach someone else how to do the artwork,
right. So for that reason, it's very E easy to scale
as I talked about before and it's also easy to run the business without being overwhelmed
because you can Outsource the printing
and some of your customer service which is something I'm always looking for in a effective business.
Number three digital art businesses have the capability to cater to the
custom and memory making niches.
So let's say you create beautiful artwork with over-the-top lettering for someone's name.
Once you create the basics of the file.
In that artwork to a person is really just changing the name or changing the font.
So this sort of business lends itself really well to creating custom pieces
and custom things are hot right now.
Everyone wants to commemorate their wedding or their engagement or the trip.
They took or their new child's room.
And this is a huge Market that digital art allows you to easily tap into number
for digital artwork can also be turned into printables
and you'll want to watch my other video about out how to make a printables business succeed
and the final file reason.
I love digital art businesses is that in general you're looking at a
pretty pretty comfortable price point right?
I love these mid-range businesses that are charging.
Let's say double digits to low triple digits in terms of the price for the finished product.
Of course, it depends on the size,
but these are much easier businesses to run than say a luxury goods business
where you're selling a 5,000 dollar custom painting.
Example because you're going to have a much larger audience
and be accessible to a wider range of people,
right? Okay. So now let's move on to some challenges to look out
for the first one and this could be the biggest challenge is that you need to have a vision
and I'm going to talk about defining your Niche later in this video,
but you can't just put up whatever artwork you feel like you would be drawn to
you need to have a clear Niche that makes a statement
and that connects with people and that is the largest.
Trouble spot people have when starting a digital art business is finding their Niche
and having a vision that connects with people and creates a cohesive shop and with digital art.
There's a bit more of an upfront production cost as well.
So let's say you're going to be making wedding print prints with very stylized bride
and groom images.
Those images may take you a long time to initially develop
and then with each sale it may only take you five minutes to customize the file.
But there is a large upfront time investment,
right and so developing your portfolio at the front end can take a pretty good chunk of
time number 3 client communication can also take up a lot of your time especially if it
revolves around things like events like weddings
or engagements or newborns because it's a time in their lives that's really important to them.
So they will be more particular than usual.
And so that's something you need to think about before you begin.
Business is client communication something that you're interested in doing.
Is it something that you're good at if answering replies from people makes
you super grumpy then maybe the custom path isn't right
for you the success of your business is going to rest to some
degree on your customer service abilities
for a digital art business number for suppliers.
Your suppliers are crucial the quality of your print
and how the finished product comes out
and is received by the customer is absolutely Paramount to house.
Customer regards your final piece, right?
And so finding the suppliers that can do the printing to the
standard that you want is really important.
And finally it is a crowded Marketplace.
Lots of people from all around the world have computers
and lots of people are creating digital
art and getting the actual physical products printed by print-on-demand printers in the US
and Canada.
So the competition is huge.
So it's going to be crucial that you distinguish yourself from your competitors.
But on the flip side of that you can start a digital art business anywhere in the world,
which is nice. Now, let's move on to the most important thing you can do
when starting your digital art business,
which is determining your shops Niche.
Okay. This is going to sound super obvious,
but I'm going to say it anyway because I still see so many businesses go wrong here.
You need to offer products that people actually want
and you need to have a niche that connects with people if your products aren't in demand.
And they aren't going to sell. So how do you figure out what people want?
It's really important that you establish a niche that has a clear
message even digital art with a mid-century
modern style might be too broad to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
So this is a point where you really need to dig deep
and think about the tools
and materials that you work with
what your skill set is and what the marketplace really needs right now.
So for example, well, let's look at the wedding industry.
It's really crowded for digital artists.
So you need to think about what makes your artwork different or special.
Where does your artwork fit in during the wedding process?
Do you create artwork that can be on display at the wedding like at the table with the guest book
or do you create the mementos
for after the wedding that work off of the bride
and groom's portraits or maybe your artwork style is totally inspired by vintage.
Travel posters and and your business is making travel
posters from popular locations around the world.
So this is where the real research and Discovery work has to happen.
Just look around on Google Etsy Instagram Facebook
and in actual print magazines and see what's popular and you of course,
you never copy what other people are doing,
but you do need to do some research and see what people are looking for.
Ideally you're looking to get into a niche where there aren't millions of products.
It's just like yours being offered
but you also don't want to dive into a niche that no one's doing if absolutely no one is doing it.
It could mean that people aren't looking for it or it could be a clue that it's too hard to do.
Right? So let's say you're looking at home Wares and you see that coasters are trending.
So could you do your digital artwork on coasters?
Could you make sets going back to the wind vintage travel example,
could you do a set of four coasters with your vintage travel pieces?
It's all about looking at what's popular and figuring out how your Niche can fill that demand.
So do your research at the end of the day
what you really want is the intersection of what you like doing.
And what's popular right now. Okay.
So you've narrowed down your product ideas
and you found something people want now you have to figure
out what makes you different from other shops in your Niche to find out
what makes your products different.
You have to add a little something special that makes your product or business stand out.
From the rest of the other products in the digital art world.
So say you want to do custom wedding art.
And if you start researching maybe you see that a lot of products out
there tend to use a certain muted color palette.
So an easy way to stand out
and be different is to use really bright
and vibrant colors enough people will totally be into that now,
let's talk about pricing. Okay,
if your shop is going to be successful you need to earn enough money.
That part is obvious, right? Right,
but what super interesting about digital art does that there is a unique pricing formula
as opposed to other handmade businesses.
So digital art, as I said earlier has a somewhat large startup
cost your initially creating your templates
or the actual art itself.
And then whether you're selling downloads or the prince,
you have a different pricing infrastructure than someone who let's say nits hat.
Typically the pricing structure would be based directly awful how long it takes you to It's the
hat and how much your materials cost plus a profit.
Now the tricky thing about digital art is you have some cost in terms of time
and materials for each order.
But you also have a cost that goes into the creation of your product in advance.
So from that perspective, it's run a lot more like a printables or a recurring income business.
And so this is where a pricing get super tricky
but the one recommendation I have is that you should just Snoop around
and look at what other people people in the market are charging
for a similar item to the one that you're going to offer
and then you need to realistically think can I sell enough of this item to make it worth my time.
Then you need to factor in
what The Upfront cost of creating that design
is and what the per item cost
is and your perfect pricing structure Mary's those two in a way that you can
make a consistent living from selling these products.
So once you've done that research, you're going to try
it out for a little bit and experiment in your own shop.
You may have to do some revision after your shop has been open for like a month or two,
like maybe you're not selling
as many products as you like
or maybe you're selling more of one kind
but less of another kind then you just go back to the drawing board and change up your formula.
Maybe you decide you just want to sell the larger prints
because they take you the same amount of effort to do but the you make more money and more profits.
And so that's where business is a very cyclical sort of thing.
There's a lot of pivots and revisions and that's totally normal,
but it is Super important to get your pricing right for Success.
Okay. So let's talk about your process
and the distribution your process makes all the difference here.
Right? So we've already talked about are you going to make printables that people will download
and print themselves or are you printing it for your customers?
Are you making the art yourself
or are you creating the templates that you then fill in all of these are amazing options,
but they drastically change how you're going to run your business.
So, I think it's really important that you Spend a little bit of time thinking
about what your normal process will
be as you're developing your products
and making sure it's something sustainable that you can do yourself
or do you plan to hire artists in the future?
This is what we do with our new print on demand personalized art business.
We have a team of multiple artists that help fulfill orders if you're creating templates,
or you're looking for artists. I highly recommend fiver that's FIV err up
work or creative Market as a good Place to get some stock images
or digital materials that you might want to be using.
There are great resources to start with Okay.
So let's move on to software. If you're playing with digital art.
You probably already have your software in order with maybe Adobe Photoshop or illustrator,
right? If you're printing I can recommend printful
and guten that's what we use
and they're both great for different reasons printful is really affordable and fast,
but gluten has better quality.
As I said before the finished product that the customer receives is going to be the printed item,
right? So if that's the path you go it's really important that it's inequality you like
and comes out the way you want.
Now, let's talk about marketing
first and foremost is the platform your hand Meat Shop is going to live
on I talked a bit in a lot of my other videos,
but it is worth mentioning again. It's super important
for you to have your own website instead of relying completely on Marketplace site.
Sites, which are Etsy and Amazon.
You're going to want to pop over to watch this video to watch about why I don't
recommend you putting all of your eggs in the Etsy basket.
You're also going to want a great collection of product photos because this is digital art.
You can use mock-up photos that you can get for free online or get paid ones on sites,
like creative Market pay extra attention to picking really good mock-up photos
because that can also help you stand out.
From the crowd influencer marketing
and Outreach as well as Facebook ads are all going to be great ways to promote your new shop.
Don't forget to hop on over to my playlist here to get all of my marketing tips
because once you've put so much work into developing your business.
You definitely don't want to drop the ball in the marketing department
because that's how sales will happen.