- What are you marketing?
- For my research project I focused on illustration for education and Advanced Practice was a mixed bag of ideas. For this part of the course I want to see if I can develop my skills in narrative so this would be my focus for whatever projects I do it seems like a good learning opportunity and challenge to focus something different. However, at the moment I think that commercially I have a better chance of getting work in scientific/medical/educational projects so maybe this is a risky strategy
- I intended to create some sort of story which could be shown as a paper publication. However I am inspired by Andrea Joseph who, during lockdown, posted pages on Instagram from a story that she was developing. I found that watching the pages appear slowly and intermittently was addictive. I wonder if this would be a good way to develop an audience and do some preliminary marketing? To keep the flow going I think that I should create a number of pages before I start to post them, she came to a halt before the end, but maybe that was intentional and she will publish the book and we will all buy it to find out what happens?
- I have a tentative story which doesn't have a very good end so I was possibly going to see if my audience have any better ideas, although thats probably not a great strategy.
- I want to explore narrative in a very general way so I expect to try a variety of different stories rather than going deeply into a single project. This will give me scope to experiment with different approaches.
- Who are your targets?
- For the narrative, book publishers and agents
- My targets for genuine employment should be scientific publishers and educators, so alongside my tentative story I wonder if I should be making a narrative that could be used to teach or explain something.
- How will you reach them? What will you do or produce to do this?
- I don't have as many followers as Andrea Joseph, but I don't post very often so I should increase my online presence with appropriate posts.
- When I have a product, I can show it to targeted potential clients, it probably doesn't have to be completely finished to generate interest if I am approaching the right client
- What are your key dates?
- Hertfordshire Visual Arts Forum have open studios in September each year so I could try to piggyback my project onto that, at a time when local press and people are thinking about the arts. This would also mean that my ideas appear at a time separate from the flock of new graduates who have their end of year shows in the spring. However I'm not sure if this is too ambitious in terms of time to actually make the work.
- I am close to Buckinghamshire but their Art Week is usually in June which is too early and Bedfordshire had their April event cancelled because of Covid, I guess I have to keep an eye on things to see if they reschedule.
- What design/illustration journals or blogs would be interested in your project?
- I could explore things like It's Nice That I'm not sure whether you have to pay to work with them so I've signed up to their newsletter. There's also Colossal and some of the smaller independent blogs
- What regional media/newspapers would be interested in your project?
- My local paper has disappeared but I think that there might still be one in the nearest town.
- There are online local forums and discussion groups but I'm not sure if what I'm creating will be what they are promoting
- I can pay to advertise my page on Facebook, though I don't know how much it costs or how much promotion you get for your money....
- What employers are you looking to reach or invite?
- Scientific/Educational work
- I work for a university but I don't think that they have the budget to pay for external creatives to make illustrations, it's mostly done (often quite badly) by the lecturer. As they're teaching medicine to committed students I don't think that they feel it is necessary, it would be great to persuade them otherwise...
- I could contact bigger more prestigious universities who have a bigger budget and a less committed audience.
- Narrative
- Agents and book publishers.
- What events are planned for your area that you could join/use/attend?
- Herts Open Studios
- How can you build momentum throughout the duration of your project?
- More frequent targeted social media posts.
- Talking about what I do. That's important but actually quite difficult because I have always kept my creative side to myself
- How will you integrate your project marketing with your professional profile?
- This is the tricky side of things. I'm a multifaceted illustrator/communicator. I want to work on narrative and scientific/educational projects but it might not look too coherent to an outsider. To develop 2 separate profiles when I don't really have a strong outward facing presence would take twice the work and would probably dilute the effect of each strand of my profile.
- Will you use your own website? If so, does it look professional?
- I have a Wordpress site which I can use. It's currently showing my work for Advanced Practice and Visual Research but it can be changed. It will look professional.
My marketing strategy depends on what I'm making.
If I'm trying to promote myself as a narrator and an educator it might be less confusing to my audience/potential employers to have some sort of physical display of some of my work
On reflection, I think that it would be best to concentrate on narrative for this part of the course and use it as a learning experience for marketing and promoting myself then take what I learn from this to promote my scientific/educational illustrations as a separate entity?
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