How to sell creative arts and crafts on YouTube? The answer, as noted potter Charles Smith discovered, is to offer viewers educational and informational viewing that inspires sales.
Company Profile
Company: Charles Smith Pottery
Product: Pottery
YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/smithpots
Website: www.smith-pots.com
Charles Smith is one of the premiere African-American artists in the United States. He works with stoneware, decorating each piece using a carved-and-sgraffito technique. His style derives from realistic and Art Nouveau forms mixed and interspersed with abstract animal imagery.
Smith studied his art at Jackson State University in Mississippi. In 1977, the city of Mobile, Alabama, hired him as a resident artist. Since then, Smith has won 25 first place or Best of Show awards for his work, exhibiting his artwork all across the United States, including the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the American Craft Museum in New York City. His pottery was also included in the traveling exhibit “Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: The Legacy of African American Craft Art.”
Artists always face the challenge of finding customers for their work. In Smith’s case, he turned to the newest of today’s new media: YouTube videos.
Smith and his son Ashanti made the decision to go with YouTube in late 2006. As Smith puts it:
I saw what was out there and noticed there was a void of African-American artists, and more specifically African-American potters, in the market. When I saw some of the other art-related videos [on YouTube], I felt it would be a good idea to put some of my own work out to the masses.
Smith’s first video was a photo montage/slideshow that he and his son put together as a test to see what kind of response they would get. That video wasn’t overly successful, so they took it down and replaced it with a demonstration video—a video that showed viewers how pottery is made.
The demonstration format was the key to success. The initial demonstration video gained a cadre of viewers who were interested not only in general pottery techniques, but also in the skills and the art of Charles Smith; it led to nine other videos that built on the first video’s success.
The videos have directed many visitors back to Smith’s freestanding web-site and have, in turn, provided extra opportunities for direct communication with new customers. Viewers of Smith’s videos tend to be students and teachers of pottery, as well as art and pottery collectors. He relies on word of mouth to attract new viewers, and he uses the videos as part of other print and electronic promotions.
Charles and Ashanti try to be as cost-efficient as possible when producing their videos. They’ve built their own video production studio and use it to produce all their YouTube videos in-house; they also produce videos for other clients. If they went outside for production, they’d probably spend a few thousand dollars for each video.
Each video allows Charles the freedom to express himself by throwing, building, and designing the pot as he is inspired to do so. They add a little wow factor by destroying each piece at the end of the video; this has been a trademark of Charles’ demonstrations for years.
The result is more than the entertaining videos typically seen on YouTube; Smith’s videos are more of a learning tool for aspiring artists and art lovers. Each video gives fans, clients, and customers of Charles Smith an opportunity to see the inside of what really goes into the formation of building a quality pot.
The key is to use the informative videos to draw viewers to the Charles Smith Pottery website, where Smith’s artwork is available for sale. As Ashanti notes, “By mixing the YouTube videos with the promotion of the website, it increases the marketability and exposure of the pottery.”
Of course, Charles and Ashanti continue to develop their style from video to video. Ashanti offers this advice to other artists working with YouTube:
When you are dealing with the public, and you have people returning to you to see what you’re going to do next, the demand grows for you to always be bigger and better than you were the last time. So as we continue to produce these videos, we must increase the quality, content, and approach. They now expect to be ‘wowed’ so we must try for another ‘shocker.’ Also, as the popularity of YouTube grows and advances, you have to know how to grow and advance with it. You always have to stay a step ahead.
As Charles and Ashanti note, you have to find your own style and then do whatever it takes to make your videos happen. If you stay true to yourself and your business and offer something educational and entertaining, you’ll attract viewers—and customers.
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