Your creative business needs an audience.
Most businesses start with defining an audience and a problem to solve for them. You study people, understand their daily struggles, pick one important one, and design a product or service that addresses it.
Creatives businesses are different because you deserve to make the exact art you want to make. Conforming what you create to an audience (i.e. making “commercial” art) hurts your creative spirit. It’s not sustainable. So I never recommend it.
But that creates a unique challenge for creative businesses. If you make the exact art you want to make, how do you know if there’s a market for it? How do you find buyers who will love it?
That’s the situation this advice seeker is facing.
How do you identify and attract the right buyer/collectors?
Mary Lou
Mary Lou, you’re not alone. This is the core challenge for every creative business because of the nature of all creative businesses. Because they’re creator-led, not customer led.
The answer requires a different approach to building than most businesses.
Start With Your Brand Story
Your brand story as a creator is what will attract the right buyers because they can see themselves reflected in your brand. Brand is the place to start but most artists aren’t also brand marketers. The good news is you don’t have to be a brand marketer to build a strong brand story.
I teach a simple, 3-part framework to develop your brand story: spark, drive, and message.
What sparked you to begin creating?
This is the real experience in your life that caused you to become an artist. Maybe that spark was an event, like facing racism or some other injustice But maybe it was just always there, you always just had to create. What matters is that it’s true.
What drives you to keep creating?
This is your mission. If your spark was injustice, your mission is a search for justice. If your spark was just always there, your mission fills a personal, emotional gap. Like a search for identity, validation, or peace.
What message does your work send to the world?
This is the mechanism of change for your work. Actually changing hearts and minds. If your drive is a search for justice, your message promotes justice. Trans people deserve protection. Immigrants are humans.
If your drive is filling an emotional gap, your message does that. You’re beautiful as you are. Peace can be found in the mundane.
So start with your brand. Literally answer these questions by writing a story.
Check out my lesson on finding your artist story here:
Finding Your Audience
Your audience is made up of people who share your experience, who support your mission, or who need to hear your message. Each individual person in your audience connects with you through one of those ways. Or maybe two of them. Or maybe all three.
So how do you find them?
The first way is with storytelling content. You don’t tell your entire brand story at once. You sprinkle pieces of your spark, drive, and message throughout your content. If you do that consistently, your audience will engage and follow you. You’ll train the algorithms who to serve your content to.
The second way is in person. Through conversations. You go to events or place where people who connect with your spark, drive, and message might be. And you talk to people. One person at a time.
You lead with curiosity. Ask open ended questions that center on your spark, drive, and message. Look for opportunities to naturally tell your story.
And position support for you as a natural choice to support your shared mission.
You can see my lesson on learning about your buyers here:
What’s Next?
Write your brand story, your spark, drive and message. Build a hypothesis about what parts of your story is likely to connect with an audience. Create content that highlights pieces of your story to attract an audience. And structure conversations with people to seek connections with your brand story and to connect the dots for them.
If you do all of that consistently, a consistent audience will follow.
