For years, I’ve heard that branding is what people say about you when you’re not there. I think that’s pretty accurate. You can have a fancy logo, a terrific slogan, and a unique color palette, all of which are attractive, but they're just window dressing. It’s not the essence of who you are, whether you're a person, a company, or an organization, large or small.
Whether it’s the Amazon smile, the Nike swoosh, or a local artist with a warm market known to relatively few people compared to huge brands, it’s the same. What people think of you, and what they will say about you, is your brand.
The most important part of that branding phrase is this: what do people say about you when you aren’t there? It begs the question, “Where do they get what they say about you?” That is where stories come in. Either you supply the branding material—the stories they will use—or you leave it to their imagination to decide what they will say about you.
The most powerful form of marketing is word-of-mouth. It’s the dynamic that lets a small-budget independent film go viral—and explains why some blockbusters fail. What other people say carries more weight than a splashy ad campaign. So, when people retell your stories, that’s about the best you can do to build awareness among those who can come to know about and like your art.
Your artwork comes to life and becomes more valuable when potential buyers know the backstory, or even related stories. People want to know how you think about your work, who you are as a person, or how you move through the world as an artist. That’s why even a simple reflection or tiny detail can create memorable moments. It’s not about boring someone with your entire life story. It’s about being real, genuine, sometimes even a bit vulnerable, and offering a few well-chosen details. A single paragraph can stick in ways a lengthy biography won’t.
Are You an Older Artist?
I write weekly essays about creativity and growing older.
Stories are an art form to a degree. They’re arguably our oldest form of communication and art; long before people could write things down and pass them along, oral traditions kept memories alive and traveled through stories. And that’s still true today.
I think many artists avoid stories or think they have something to do with performance, being an extrovert, giving talks, or anything like that. It’s nothing like that. One can use stories in all those ways, but they are much more than that. They are personal and human. That’s why I say in the title that stories connect, because they connect humans to other humans.
At its best, art can cause a visceral reaction. It happened to me. To this day, I remember gasping when I saw Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône at the Musée d’Orsay. I was immediately and completely drawn to the work. But later, reading the backstory, that image came alive in ways it couldn’t have if I had only seen this magnificent artwork up close.
So that’s how stories connect. And that’s why they travel, because people remember them. They remember those details. They share them. They use them to describe the artwork, who you are, how they felt, or an experience they had with you. And ultimately, that will sell your artwork when you aren’t there.
Consider two similar pieces of art. And let’s face it: in almost every case, artists make work that is similar to someone else’s. Not every case, but generally. If you’re doing landscapes, or portraits, or pet portraits, or Western art, you have people who are doing similar things to you.
Now, imagine a couple is looking for a landscape painting and has found yours and another by a different artist. One is anonymous to them; they only know what they can see. The other is by an artist they know. They may have seen a mention in a local media outlet or on an Instagram post, or someone they know may own another one of your artworks, or they may have chatted with you briefly at an event or local show.
It makes sense that they'll most likely buy the artwork with a connection and story. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a meaningful advantage when someone decides to purchase an original work of art.
Stories, connections, and conversations are what sell art. Everything else in marketing is just a way of delivering them.
See you next week.
— Barney