 Warm Winter Wishes from All Art Licensing! While 2016 was a busy personal year filled with a hip replacement and raising my son, I am feeling better than ever and ready as possible for tweenager-hood (is that a word?). All Art Licensing finished the year out with two series' on our blog, which now has over 200 posts. In October I shared 31 Days of Marketing Tips for Art Licensors, followed by November's One-A-Day Q&A. These efforts have been very popular and I am excited to say that All Art Licensing is in the process of creating the ABC SCHOOL OF LICENSING and will be developing and collaborating on its products over the next year.
Join us as we embark on exciting new endeavors, many of which may be of interest to you and your colleagues. Please pass this newsletter on to a friend or two, so they can benefit too from all the information we share about marketing your creativity.
Enjoy your holidays and a blessed New Year! |
 HOW DESIGN LIVE's Recent Interview with J'net Smith
HOW DESIGN LIVE PODCAST
After speaking at last year's HOW Design Live Conference in Atlanta, I was asked by Marketing Mentor's Ilise Benum to do the following interview and explain further about licensing opportunities and how creatives can get their work it into the marketplace.
The 2017 HOW Design Live will return to the city of Chicago, you can visit their website for updates and more information. |
FREE Ask J'net Q&A Dec 14th Date: December 14, 2016 Time: 9:00 am PST/10:00 am MST/ 11:00 CST and 12 noon EST Price: FREE Our Ask J'net Q&A will give you the opportunity to ask your critical marketing and licensing questions and get direct answers during the live event. Sign-up here for the free class. There is still time to register and email your questions to jnet@allartlicensing.com. I will answer as many questions as possible during the hour (usually 15-20). You will receive a link All you need to do is call in at tto watch and/or listen to the class the day of the event to get your questions answered.
All Registrants will receive FREE J'net's popular eBook '20 Rules for Starting Your Art Licensing Business' ($10 Value), as well as a link to the class after it airs live (just in case the time doesn't work for your busy schedule!). |
A recent Licensing Letter report stated that 137.4 million Americans were Holiday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend. Whether or not you were one of them, you can't miss the diverse array of Christmas products in stores and online this time of year, especially in the departments of gift and home décor. However long or short your gift-giving list, I am sure many of you are simply asking yourself, 'How did those artists get their product out into stores this year?'
The process of licensing holiday products is really no different from licensing any other art and designs, but it does take planning. The products in the stores today were marketed by artists over a year ago, and perhaps as much as 2+ years ago.
A great time to promote your holiday designs is between October and May; and I apologize, but it's hard to narrow it down much further. Today there is no set time of year to promote Christmas designs as every manufacturer has their own schedule. Since many products take a year or more to get produced and distributed, you are looking a 1.5-2 years to get those into the marketplace (think ceramics, other 3-D products). Certainly paper products don't have such a long lead time, so you can still market your designs now through May 2017, which includes Surtex and Licensing Expo. What you will find at both of these shows, as you present your holiday art, is that some manufacturers are cramming new fresh designs into last minute Christmas lines for 2017 and others are saying, 'hey this is great but we are already planning Holiday 2018.' And of course, print on demand retailers offer last minute opportunities.  If you do your research, such as exploring the showrooms at AmericasMart, the International Housewares Show and the International Gift Show, you'll see that there are many manufacturers who produce holiday products exclusively and some who carry a diverse product line-up, but who make most of their annual profits during the holiday season. On the retail front, there are also a few who are 100% dedicated to Christmas products and/or sales (think of holiday display stores - B2B - and Christmas pop-up stores - B2C).
It's a vibrant marketplace and here are some important things for artists to consider doing to get their share of the Christmas licensing sales. - Since the demand for holiday products is high, holiday art and designs may be a strategic place to launch your art licensing career or build on your existing one.
- There are simply more decorative items with art during this season and more retail space to support them, so use this to your advantage.
- If you don't have holiday designs in your portfolio, you are missing out.
- Ignore the time frame and include holiday art year-round in your portfolio.
- Always have 2-3 holiday collections in your portfolio. Or, in general, add more holiday designs to your portfolio.
- Create a holiday specific presentation for manufacturers and/or retailers, which includes art and designs presented in mock-ups on products.
- Don't overlook the need for discount retailer and dollar-esque store designs.
- If you get good sales on your holiday art one year, make sure you mention that liberally to other manufacturers who make different seasonal items.
- Think about adding Hanukkah and Kwanza designs for variety, there are so few good ones out there (help!).
Last, but not least, be honest with yourself about your feelings toward the holidays and holiday products. If you get stressed about the commercialization of the holidays, then it may not be for you. But I know there are artists who love the holidays and all the beautifully artistic creations that can be imagined and designed to help celebrate. If that's your bent, then go for it and make the most of the wealth of opportunities!
A Special Thank You to JoanMarieArt for allowing me to feature her spectacular holiday illustration of Madonna and Child and the Kitty Bliss t-shirt mock-up. For information on licensing Joan Marie's work, please call me at 206.719.1905. |
 Our Live Events in January: 'Doing it Right - Your New Year's Marketing Action Plan'
Class: 'Doing it Right - Your New Year's MAP Date: Tuesday, January 10th Time: 12:00 noon PDT/3:00 p.m. EDT Length: 1 hour Price: $49
This will be a video course and you will have the option to do the live streaming video or to do just the audio. We always provide a link to watch the class over and over again. Don't start your New Year without creating a MAP - a Marketing Action Plan to market your art and build your licensing revenue.
This class will cover making money through: Marketing Action Plans (what they are and how to create one) Promotional Tools (specifically for launching and building an art licensing business) and Leveraging Techniques
Registration will open later this month, so watch for it!
Note: All of our classes are of the highest quality and value, and are never commercials. They include a PowerPoint presentation in PDF format, plus a MP3 audio file (or video link) following the event.. You will receive your Complete Classroom Access Package the night before your class. |
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