Why print drops sell so much art

If you have ever released work quietly, put it on your website, mentioned it once, and waited, you already know the feeling. The work is good. The response is thin.

A print drop fixes that, and the reason is not really about art. It is about how people buy now.

Art buying moved to social commerce

Over five years ago we noticed something in our print volumes. A handful of artists were selling far more than everyone else. We assumed it was a pandemic spike. It was not. We went and asked them what they were doing, and they all said the same thing: their audience was on social media, and they were selling directly to it.

That is social commerce, and it puts you in control of your collector list, your prices and your brand, without losing a large slice of every sale in commission.

Why a drop beats a permanent shop

A shop that is always open asks nothing of anyone. There is no reason to act today, so people do not.

A drop is the opposite. It is an event with a beginning and an end. Limited editions, a countdown, a moment your audience can turn up for. Scarcity is what makes art valuable, and a deadline is what turns a follower who likes your work into a collector who owns it.

It also gives you something to talk about. Teasers, studio shots, the story behind the piece, the last twenty-four hours. Every one of those is a reason to post, and every post points at the same place.

And your email list does the heavy lifting

Social brings people in. Email is what converts them. In the drops we run, email converts at roughly four times the rate of an Instagram post, so every drop should be building that list as well as selling from it.

We have done this 700 times

Our agency has now strategised more than 700 art and print drops for some of the highest selling artists on social media. Everything we learned doing that is what our marketing plans are built on, and those plans increase sales by 165%.

You can set one up in minutes

This is the part that used to be hard. Not any more. creativehub gives you a free store, picks your sizes, papers, frames and prices, generates your drop page with its countdown, and hands you a day-by-day marketing plan telling you what to post and when.

Then we print it, frame it, and ship it worldwide under your brand. See how the six steps work, or estimate what a drop would earn you.