As an illustrator, you’ve got lots of options to turn your skill into profit in this digital world. So, whether you want to find more clients or start a print shop, our marketing for illustrators tips are a great place where to start. Let’s begin!
Define your illustration style and audience
If you don’t already know, you need to clarify your illustration style and unique niche. This can help you in your freelance work with clients and in building your personal brand and art business.
Why is it important?
Once you know yourself, you can define your audience and potential clients. Of course, for client work, you will need to adjust some elements and ideas. But overall, you will be much happier when you can work in your preferred style and don’t always adapt to the style a client wants.
However, for your business, setting your style and niche will help you attract and market your artwork to the right audience. And that is the first step to having amazing marketing for illustrators!
What is your illustration style?
Your style is the overall feeling your illustration evokes. Yes, technique and tools play a role in defining your style, but they are not the only things to take into account. Think about themes you like to draw and your favorite color palettes. Also, consider how your artwork looks – is it soft and organic or has bold, graphic shapes? Is it detailed and busy or minimalistic and elegant? Is it dark and mysterious or playful, almost childlike?
If you are not sure, gather all your past work and see what they have in common. You will definitely find some features that pop out.
Having a clear style doesn’t mean limiting yourself. It simply helps create consistency so people can recognize your work at a glance – which is a huge asset when building your brand or attracting clients.
What is your niche?
If your illustration style describes how you like your work to look like, then when thinking about niche you are focusing on what and who you are illustrating.
To get started in finding your niche, answer these questions:
- What subjects do you love illustrating over and over again?
- What themes or moods naturally show up in your work?
- What types of products or clients do you feel most drawn to?
- What kind of wall art would you personally buy or hang up?
A clear niche also helps with marketing. It tells your audience what to expect and helps you stand out among other artists. People will have a much easier time finding your art if your niche is clear and reflected in your branding, product descriptions, and portfolio. For example, if someone is looking for "modern mushroom art" or "celestial-themed nursery prints", they will have no problem finding you, if you have marketed yourself around these phrases.
Another example, saying “I’m an illustrator” is a start – but saying “I’m an illustrator who creates cozy, Scandinavian-inspired home prints featuring cats and plants” is something people can immediately understand, remember, and connect with. It’s distinct. It tells a story. It lets someone know yes, this art is for me.
What is your ideal audience?
Once you’re clear on your illustration style and niche, the next big question is: Who is this for?
Your ideal audience isn’t everyone who likes art. It’s a specific group of people who feel a genuine connection to your work. They are people who would gladly hang your art in their homes, hire you for a project, or follow your journey because something about what you create speaks to them.
Knowing your ideal audience helps you:
- Create work with more intention
- Market yourself more effectively
- Attract the right buyers or clients – not just anyone
To figure out who your audience is, consider:
- Who already buys or engages with your work?
- What kind of people would you love to create for?
- Where do those people hang out online (Pinterest? Instagram? Etsy? Reddit?)
- What kind of lifestyles, values, or aesthetics align with your art?
Once you know who you’re speaking to, it becomes much easier to choose your platforms, write your product descriptions, or decide what to post on social media. You stop shouting into the void and start having a conversation with people who already want what you offer.
And here’s the best part: knowing your audience helps you build genuine connections. People buy art that makes them feel something. When your audience sees themselves in your work – when it reflects their taste, mood, or story – they’re more likely to buy from you, support your journey, and spread the word.
Build a portfolio that sells (not just shows)
When thinking about your portfolio, you have to keep in mind two things – who is your potential client and what kind of work you want to do.
Hot tip! You should shift your mindset from “look what I made” to “here’s how this could work for you.”
Portfolio for client work – marketing for illustrators
If you are aiming for client work, your portfolio should highlight the types of projects you want more of.
Want to illustrate book covers?
Show mockups with compelling typography and mood.
Interested in packaging design or branding?
Include examples that place your art in context – on a product, a label, or a logo. Clients need to see how your style functions in the real world.
If you don’t have enough portfolio work to show yet, do some pro-bono work or create designs just for the portfolio in your desired category.
Portfolio for art business
If you're focused on selling your art your portfolio should help potential buyers picture your work in their space. You have to remember that a lot of people cannot visualize things in their had as well as you can. That means you have to help them!
Create styled mockups with your prints framed and hanging in a room: a cozy living room, a trendy nursery, a modern office. These visuals are very powerful – they help buyers imagine how your art fits into their aesthetic.
Don’t be afraid to curate. Quality matters more than quantity. You want your portfolio to tell a clear story: this is who I am, this is what I do, and this is why it matters.
Include testimonials
To showcase your skills and professionalism, feel free to integrate testimonials and case studies directly into your portfolio. For instance, you could include a brief description like, “For this project, I worked on XYZ, and [Client Name], [Client’s Title or Company], had this to say: ‘[Insert Testimonial]’.”
Testimonials show how it is to work with you and what you truly offer your clients. Getting an illustration job is not just about having technical skills. It’s also about communication, adaptability, and your ability to solve your clients' problems and bringing their vision to life.
Choose the right platforms – where to sell your art online
Choosing the right platform for your goals is the first step to attracting the ideal audience for you.
Client-facing platforms
If you want to attract more client-work think about entering platforms that are designed to connect individual workers with potential clients.
Some great examples are Behance, Fiverr and LinkedIn. Instagram is also great for artists to showcase their work and even sell some of it right there on the platform.
Product-selling platforms
If you are leaning more towards individual work and growing your art business (or doing it as a side hustle), think about platform where people go to buy things.
For example, Etsy is a great place for creative artists. And while you are at it, you can also check out Amazon Handade.
Another artist centered places where to sell prints are Society6 and Redbubble.
Social media, like Instagram and TikTok, can also be great places where to sell art prints and designs.
And last but not least, you can open your own digital shop by creating an e-commerce store. Your own website can work very well together with social media. For example, you promote your work on Instagram, but send people to your website to buy your products.
Opening and e-commerce store – where to print your work?
Once you've decided to turn your illustrations into products, you will need a system how to create them. If you don’t want to open your own printing house and maintain a warehouse, choosing a print on demand (POD) partner, is a great idea.
POD allows you to sell physical products – like posters, canvases, framed prints, or even t-shirts and mugs – without keeping any inventory. You create the art, upload your designs, and when someone places an order, a POD supplier prints and ships the product on your behalf. No upfront investment in stock, no packing or shipping, and no need to guess how many prints you’ll sell.
Here at Printseekers.com we are passionate about wall art and that’s why we are the perfect fit for illlustrators who want to sell their prints. We offer high quality canvases, posters, metal prints, as well as wallpapers. When working with us, your customers get beautiful, gallery-worthy prints, and you get peace of mind knowing your reputation is in good hands.
Attracting clients and buyers – how to get seen (without selling your soul)
To find clients with ease rember this – you just need to attract people who are already looking for your art (even if they don’t know it yet that they are looking for your pieces). It is a win-win. They get a beautiful art piece they have always wanted, and you get cashflow and satisfaction of job well done.
Organic marketing for illustrators
Leverage social media
Nowadays, one of the most powerful selling tools is story telling. And the best place where to tell your stories is social media. So, choose your platform of choice – Instagram, TikTok or YouTube – and start creating mesmerizing content around your artwork, yourself and your brand. On these platform you don’t necessarily need to invest money to grow. The biggest investment is your time.
SEO for your e-commerce website
Another organic way how to attract customers is to use SEO or search engine optimization. Those are activities that will help your website to rank in Google when people search for specific keywords. It is a longterm investment, but in the end, it always pays off.
Pinterest strategies
Pinterest in the midst of tools for marketing for illustrators, stands proud and alone. It works like a search engine, but looks like a social media platform. Pinterest is perfect for visual products (like yours!), so you should definitely inspect options and see what Pinterest can offer. To get the best results from Pinterest, you will need a website where people can purchase your items.
E-mail newsletter
You don’t necessarily need a website to create an e-mail newsletter. However, you need a place where to “collect” your readers and where to promote your newsletter. It can be a website, but it can also be Instagram or even TikTok. A newsletter is one of the best marketing tools to reach really dedicated audience who are often ready to purchase what you offer to them.
Social media shops
And last but not least, now almost every social media platform has an integrated shop. If you are venturesome, try out how they work for you! There is an Instagram shop, TikTok shop, YouTube shop etc. Pinterest doesn’t have a shop, but it has a “shop” feature if you are using Pinterest integration with Shopify.
Paid marketing for illustrators
When you’ve been working on your organic marketing strategies for a while, there comes a time when you might want to dial up your efforts and connect paid ads. All platforms now have some ways to push your content to more people if you are willing to pay for it.
How to choose what ads to run and where?
First, try running ads on a platform where you already get the most sales. This means that people on this platform are interested in your product, and if you reach more people, they might be interested in purchasing as well.
Second, you can do tests! Test paid ad options on several platforms one by one and see what gives you the best results. The key here is not to overwhelm yourself (and your wallet!). You don’t even have to do huge budgets, just some test runs to see if the concept works for you and your product.
Overall, it might also be a good idea to hire someone who knows paid ads well. Setting up ads and analyzing results on any platform takes time and skill, so you might want to make sure you do it right to get the best information.
Collaboration with content creators
A great way to showcase your work is to collaborate with content creators. If you also create content on social media, you can suggest collaborating to gain more visibility and potentially new subscribers (aka potential customers). Collaborations are a win-win situation, and many content creators are open to it!
If you are not making content yourself, you can partner with a content creator. That way you will need to send them your product and agree on a payment for their service of promoting your work and e-commerce store. If you don’t have a huge budget, look for micro-influencers! They are people with 1000+ followers. They will ask for smaller amounts of money, but you still get extra exposure.
Grow with purpose – track what’s working and what’s not
Marketing is nothing without data. So, make sure you are using all the analytics tools that are available to you. From Goole Analytics to Etsy Analytics and Instagram Analytics. Track information that is useful to you and exploit it to get even more visibility and sales.
Most important metrics to track
Engagement – It shows how people are interacting with your content on website, Instagram, Etsy, etc. Engagement is measured through likes, saves, comments, replies, and clicks.
Sales Conversion – Sales conversion measures how many people take the desired action, such as purchasing your art or signing up for your newsletter. It is measured through conversion rate, average order value (AOV), cart abandonment rate and revenue per visitor (RPV).
Audience growth – Audience growth measures how much your following is expanding over time. It is measured through new followers/subscribers, reach and impressions, audience demographics.
In conclusion
Remember, you just need to reach people who are drawn to your art. They will be happy they found you, and you will be happy to inspire them for a more beautiful life. Use the marketing for illustrators to find these people and make a real connection and change their world for the better. Good luck!
