“Without promotion, something terrible happens… nothing!” This is why creating demand for your artwork is so important.
If you do not have good marketing and self-promotion, you will most likely fail as an NFT artist, but this post is intended to help you get started and learn how to dominate so that you don’t have to be a starving artist for the rest of your life.
For instance, if I released some NFT art and released it with no promotion, there would likely be no demand for it, and no one would buy it.
Even if a well know NFT seller like Logan Paul released something without telling anyone about it, then it would still be hard to find, and there would be a high chance it wouldn’t sell… however, if someone did find it, then it would likely be an excellent investment.
Like with “normal” art a lot of different things play a factor in creating demand and selling a piece of art.
There are many ways to promote your work, and there are no rights and wrongs, but there are more efficient methods than others.
Essentially, you could place a costly ad in a broadsheet newspaper that could reach millions of people, but who out of them are likely even to consider buying an NFT from you? It would be much more efficient to place an ad in a much smaller magazine dedicated to NFT art, wouldn’t it?
Oh, and before we begin, we need to mention that you will need to do a few things like setting up a Crypto Wallet, and this resource can help you pick out one. 2 other resources you may consider reading to help you save money are:
- How To Sell NFTs Without Gas Fees (or less) | Complete Guide
- How To Mint an NFT for Free | Rarible Style
How To Promote Your NFT Artwork
What people want and don’t want is subjective, and just because you think your art is cool does not mean others do, but regardless, some form of promotion is needed. Selling NFTs is NOT easy!
You might say, well, Banksy didn’t promote his art! No, he didn’t, but the way he did his paintings generated buzz, and other people did the promoting for him.
Generally speaking, you will have to create your own buzz unless you strike it lucky.
The two best ways I think you can easily, cheaply, and effectively promote your own NFT art is to build your own brand and to use the already established community.
Build your own brand
Use social media and the internet to build your own following, invest in yourself, and then leverage that to make NFT sales. Here are some of the ways you can do this:
Website
The most obvious place to start is to set up your own website. On here, you can project whatever image you want to push; you can showcase your art, write personal diaries, link to marketplaces, etc.
YouTube
Type anything into Google and at least a couple of the results on the first page will be YouTube videos. You can do anything on here, really; you could make instructional “how-to videos” or even just let people watch you create your art from scratch, which is a great way to create a bit of interest and buzz.
You can even see what we do on our YouTube channel as we create numerous tutorials on how to create amazing digital artwork.
Social Media
This should be pretty obvious; you should have accounts on all the major sites and post to them regularly… Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
However, remember to build that brand, so don’t just post on your private account on Facebook; for example, having a Facebook page is better than that but has limited reach; in my opinion, I would recommend setting up a Facebook group. It is more likely to get greater numbers and better engagement, which you can leverage for sales.
I would like to say that Twitter is probably the most effective platform for attracting collectors, so don’t sleep on it!
One a Days
NFT superstar Mike Winkelmann aka Beeple, completed a new piece of digital art every day and posted those pieces of art to his Twitter and Instagram accounts. He’s done this for 1,000s of days in a row.
It didn’t pay off for the first few years, but he has recently made millions off his one a days. There are plenty of artists out there that do this, and they have huge followings and demands for their work too.
Perhaps doing the same will work for you but know that overnight success is rare and consistency reigns at the end of the day.
Discord
So many artists and collectors are using Discord channels to discuss NFT artwork, collaborate, and mingle. Most of the NFT art selling platforms like Foundation have their very own discord channels that you can subscribe to.
Just be warned that spamming your artwork is not allowed. I mean, you can post work every once in a while just not every 5 minutes.
Email list
This seems a bit old-fashioned, but they are still effective; otherwise, there would no longer be newsletters and sign-up forms in use. Once you have their email address, you can try to up-sell them.
For example, offer a free pdf on “How to create NFT Art,” once you have their email address, you can try to sell them the art you are making yourself.
Building your own brand is all about getting people invested in you and what you are doing.
If you love wrestling and are obsessed with Stone Cold Steve Austin, you are more likely to buy a Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestling T-Shirt rather than a John Cena T-Shirt. So, by building a following of people interested in NFTs, they are more likely to buy one of yours over a random NFT artist.
Use the Community
Use the already established places that are catered for and interested in NFTs. This will give you a much better rate of return on your promotion investment. For example:
Influencers:
Contact people well-known in the NFT field and ask them to promote your art or social media channels. They will expect something in return like payment or even a piece of NFT art.
Collaboration:
Work with someone more “famous” than you, where you can piggyback on their fanbase.
For example, you could team up with an MMA fighter and do NFTs of them choking people out. It might not be your usual thing, but it is about getting your name out there; if someone buys from you once, they are more likely to do it again.
AMA Session:
Hold “ask me anything” sessions on places like Telegram, YouTube, Facebook Live, Discord, and Reddit.
Sell on NFT Marketplaces:
There are many large places to buy, sell, and trade NFT art, such as OpenSea and Makers Place (hard to get into unless you are a rather large artist.)
These will make your art searchable by interested parties, and they may even select you for a weekly blog post or internal promotion free of charge.
Marketing:
If you do have a marketing budget, then use it wisely. If you want to pay for some banners on a website, you are better off making that website CoinGeko rather than advertising on Line Dancers for Really Old People dot com!
Write about and be wrote about:
You can write for NFT publications in return for a little self-promotion dropped in, make yourself available for interviews, podcasts, YouTube crossovers, etc. Basically, it would be best if you become a known name in the NFT community.
Minting and Copyright Mistakes
There are plenty of mistakes to make, and hopefully, they don’t cost you too much money. One of the mistakes is thinking that your work will sell just by minting your NFT and placing it on a sales platform.
Chances are it’s going to sit and collect digital dust all the while you probably spent hundreds just to mint the piece. Don’t expect sales without a following.
One way to fall out of a potential collector’s interests is by copying other people’s artwork, don’t forget about copyright laws. This will ruin your reputation and potentially your career, so don’t do it.
Final thoughts
The NFT art market is in its infancy and is a little like the wild west at the moment. Anyone could conceivably sell a video of a blade of grass being blown by the wind for $1m, but that is obviously unlikely.
As the market matures it will become more about quality and reputation like the normal art markets.
Now is the time for NFT art investors to make huge profits, but they must be willing to take big losses.
If you are an artist interested in getting into NFTs, then I would say the earlier you do it, the better, it could be a huge failure, but it could also be a game-changer. Yet, if you are completely new then you have to check out our beginner NFT guide.