Over the past three years, I’ve discovered that there aren’t many resources available to help artists create content and sell their work online. We spend our days ‘creating’ so the idea of sitting down and creating carefully crafted copy too, it’s overwhelming.

You’re busy juggling parenting, housework and those spare pockets of time are used to create your art… so when are you supposed to find the time to sit down at a laptop?

Whilst it has taken me a long time and a lot of courses to figure out how content marketing can work for me as an artist and how I can fit it into my schedule, my hope is that sharing my insights with you in this blog post will shorten the learning curve. 

Don’t get me wrong I’ve bought courses… but as I’ve logged into another content marketing framework, I’ve been met with that familiar feeling of disappointment. 

The feeling that I’ve wasted more money on another course when I could have used that money to buy more materials or take another course that might actually help me.

But, these experiences have taught me that our stories help us to sell our art, our stories help us to deepen our creative process and have a clearer understanding of what we create, why we create it and who we create for.

(Which is one of the key parts of understanding your ‘ideal client avatar’ something you’ve likely come across in one of the free or paid courses you’ve taken)

Content marketing does not have to be seen as a heavy workload that is added on top of your full and busy schedule, it works best when you allow it to become an extension of your creative process.

Then, with practice, it becomes a habit and an integral and vital part of your creative process. Creating my content marketing has helped me to have a much clearer grasp of, not only my art but my whole identity as an artist.

When you can understand the purpose of your art, you’ll find it easier to start finding the people who it is made for, but making creative decisions becomes a whole different experience.

The creative process takes on another level of meaning, choices can be led by a deeper intention and as your art is pulled by purpose, any feelings of self-doubt around it seem to lessen with every step. 

As Marie Forleo says, “Confidence comes with clarity”.

If you’ve struggled with creating content, the best place to start with is by asking yourself these three questions:

• What do I create?

• Why do I create?

• Who do I create for?

When you get clarity around these things, the rest is able to fall into place with organisation, planning, and consistency -- more on that another time.

If you’re ready to dive deeper into content marketing I’ve created a guide that will help you to get clearer around how you can make art AND content without burning yourself out.