“My Website Didn’t Sell Anything.” Here’s What Was Missing.

The FASO Marketing System

FASO Member Pauline Roche, Discussing the Caravaggio, 16” x 20”, Oil on Linen

❤️ Please click the Like button—the little heart icon at the top and bottom—if you believe artists should spend less time wrestling with marketing and more time making the work only they can make. Your click helps this message find more artists who need a simple, beautiful home for their art—one that supports the studio instead of stealing time from it.

Last week I asked What if Your Artist Website was as easy to update as Instagram? You may read that article here.

But, being easy to update is only part of a true artist website. Over the years, I have heard some version of the following lament from countless artists: “My website didn’t sell anything.”

Usually, when I ask what they did after launching their website, the answer is, “I put my art on it.”

And then? They waited. Now, being easy to update helps, because most non-FASO artist websites are never updated, and updates are often what generate sales. But updates alone are not enough.

That is not a failure of the artist. It is a failure of the typical passive website model.

I find that most artist websites are little more than digital brochures. They display the artwork, but they do almost nothing to help a potential collector discover it, remember it, follow it, or return when the artist adds new art—new art that would appeal that very collector!

Most websites are designed to sell products—not art. But, I’ve said for years that you can’t sell art the same way Amazon sells sneakers. Art is not merely a “product.” But hardly anyone seems to understand this. At FASO, we’ve organized our whole offering around this idea.

What people don’t seem to comprehend is that art is rarely sold in one dramatic moment.

Someone may discover your work today, read your story next month, join your list later, and finally see the painting she cannot stop thinking about a year from now. When I was a gallery director, I once followed up with a prospective client nearly every month for three years before he went on to buy multiple paintings. If you’re not selling well, I can almost guarantee your giving up on prospects too soon. But some of this follow up can now be automated…

Art sells due to sustained attention, repetition, resonance, trust, timing, and a real human relationship. Your website should help that relationship grow. Most websites don’t.

This truth about the way art sells is why FASO includes a marketing system built specifically around the rhythm of an artist’s life.

Here’s The FASO Marketing System:

• Art Alerts notify your collectors and prospects automatically when you add new art to your site. They also encourage collectors to like, comment, or inquire about the piece.

• Built-in email newsletters empower you to communicate directly with your collectors. You don’t need to pay separately for Mailchimp, Kit, or Constant Contact.

• The DailyArtStream amplifies your efforts and provides an opportunity for your work to reach art lovers beyond your existing audience.

• Promote Mode resurfaces older pieces via Art Alerts, because, at FASO, we believe that beautiful art does not have an expiration date.

• FASO Exhibitions (formerly The BoldBrush Contest) give you the regular opportunity to show, and sell, your art in our online exhibitions.

The idea is simple: Add your artwork once. Let FASO help carry the message.

Here’s an example of a FASO Art Alert:

Example of a FASO Art Alert. Image: FASO Member Michael Blessing, Line in the Sand, 20” x 24”, Oil.

Tell me, have you noticed that the modern world as envisioned by big tech continually tries to turn artists into exhausted content factories?

They expect you to make the painting, photograph the painting, write the post, make the video, and most importantly—to them—feed the algorithm. Oh yeah, and then they expect you to do it all again tomorrow because today’s post has already disappeared into the abyss and the algorithm always hungers for more. Then, to add insult to injury, with each image you post, they train their AI on your hard work. I can safely assume that you didn’t sign up with social media to train your replacement.

About social media one artist recently lamented to us, “I am sobbing daily because I can get no one to help me with my social media and I post every once in a while so I can get some attention from the outside world and then I start doom scrolling. I have had enough!”

That is not artistic sovereignty.

FASO is designed to free you from that treadmill. We don’t treat beauty as optional, art as entertainment, or creativity as content. To us, beauty, art and creativity (along with truth, goodness and humanity) are sacred.

Technology should support you by protecting your creative white space. And it should reduce the burden of the business and marketing that surrounds the work so you can return to the work itself.

We’re not saying social media can’t be useful, but please realize that a follower you cannot reliably reach is not truly your follower.

Your website, your mailing list, and your direct relationships with collectors are owned media—they belong to you. So please, do not spend your life building someone else’s platform while neglecting your own.

Technology should put human artists first and, at FASO, that’s exactly what we do.

Free for 30 days
No credit card required
Keep your existing site while you build

Creatively,

Clint Watson
FASO Founder and Art Fanatic

PS—A FASO website is not designed merely to showcase your art. It is designed to help you remain connected to the people who care about it.

Join FASO

If our philosophy resonates with you, please join us. This is about more than just where you host your website. In a world of growing AI, this is about joining with others who wish to protect the ecosystem of human artists. It’s about working with people who view the importance of human art the same way you do. If we don’t band together in this time, we risk losing something important to the all-consuming beast of the algorithm.