How to Make Money From Your NFT Art?
You’re a visual artist: you draw, you paint, you create with old tools like pencils and brushes or modern ones like software and pixels.
The medium doesn’t matter. What does matter is your ability to make a living from your work — to move from survival mode to comfort, and from comfort to sustainable and rising wealth.
With that in mind, you’ve taken the NFT route, given the opportunity that tokens offer in terms of reach, flexibility, and security.
But you’ve also quickly realized that there is competition in the Metaverse too — a whole, fresh, daunting universe of it in the NFT space.
This takes us back to two age-old problems:
- How to stand out and differentiate an NFT art offering from those of thousands of other creators; and then
- How to leverage this initial offering into a powerful income-generating engine.
Art OR Business, or Art AND Business?
What we are focusing on here goes beyond art.
We’re interested in the astuteness with which you position your work in a crowded space.
Ways to Market and Sell Your NFT Art
The thinking is about marketing creations so that they reach the audience most likely to be interested in them and prepared to purchase them — a lot of them, in fact, at the sort of prices that speak to a profitable business with plenty of sustainable growth opportunities.
We all need inspiring models
Let’s have a quick look at five successful artists whose NFT performance stands out.
Then we’ll isolate a few principles about their rise to fame and how marketing plays into that.
The selected artists are all different in terms of their approach and their product.
They also differ in terms of their commercial development, from early stages to astonishing success.
The artists are:
- Leo Caillard. (Sculptor, digital artist)
- Rafaël Rozendaal. (Internet entrepreneur & digital artist)
- Victor Langlois. (Crypto digital artist)
- Trevor Jones. (Painter, digital artist)
- Mike Winkelmann. (Graphic designer, digital artist)
Biggest NFT Artists
Leo Caillard
Leo is classically trained. He forged his artist’s reputation as a sculptor in marble. His works have been shown around the world and found their place in museums.
In 2006, he turned his attention to digital art and studied animation at Les Gobelins school in Paris.
Selling NFT Art on SuperRare
This year, he launched his first NFTs via SuperRare, some of them combining physical sculpture and digital art.
From an initial selling price of 3 Ethereum, the value of his first NFT climbed to 4.5 Ethereum in less than one month.
That’s a 33% increase in value in 30 days. It’s not a fortune, but for a first plunge by a classically-trained artist into virtuality, it is an encouraging first foray into a new domain.
Rafaël Rozendaal
A Dutch-Brazilian visual artist based in New York City, Rafaël is a prolific creator not only of NFT art, but of created, purchasable websites as art — among many other products.
Rafaël’s creativity expands in numerous directions beyond websites as art objects: he curates exhibitions, generates a wealth of NFTs, designs games, produces installations, writes books and lectures.
Where NFTs are concerned, he is prolific. His Dive series, for example, holds 333 tokens. Token prices average $2,200.
Two things stand out in Rafaël’s business: first, the volume of tokens available and sold: 57 of them in a recent week in the Dive series alone. And there are many series.
NFT Art as Income Stream
Do the basic math, and you’ll understand how significant the income stream potential is.
The second thing that stands out in Rafaël’s case is the diversification of the earning streams he has built through the diversity of his activities.
Victor Langlois
You are more likely to know Victor as FEWOCiOUS.
He’s 18 or thereabouts and defines himself as a crypto artist. He has rocketed to fame — and astonishing wealth — in a matter of months.
One anecdote is enough to describe his rags-to-riches story: earlier this year, Christie’s auction house in London offered a five NFT series of his autobiographical journey (‘Hello, i’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life’). The bidding was so keen that it crashed the famous auction house’s system — for the first time ever!
NFTs on Christie’s Auction
According to an interview Victor gave to Esquire Magazine, Victor has amassed near-enough to $18 million since entering the NFT market in 2020. One year’s work and counting…
Meet FEWOCiOUS, the Crypto Artist Who Crashed Christie’s Auction House
Trevor Jones
Trevor Jones came to the arts later in life than many other artists.
He began by painting and, in recent years, has gone on to expand his range of artistic efforts to have it take in technology, animation and video.
Create Popular NFT Animation and Video Art
NFT Marketing
His first NFT, EthGirl (2019) fetched $10,027 USD.
But that marker was quickly left behind when his Bitcoin Angel arrived in open edition: 4,157 of them sold in seven to eight minutes for $777 each on the 25th of February 2021.
To you and me, that means $3.23M USD. Hard to beat.
Here again it is worth noting the diversification that the Metaverse has enabled for his art, opening up connections and opportunities – one of them a collaboration with Ice Cube in the Man vs Machine series.
Mike Winkelmann
With Mike Winkelmann’s work, we enter another realm.
You will almost certainly have heard of Mike as Beeple. Or if you haven’t but have an interest in crypto/NFT art, you could hardly have missed the Christie’s March 2021 sale of Mike’s Everydays – The First 5000 days, for an astonishing, mind-bending $69.3 million.
Beeple’s Record Breaking NFT Sale on Christie’s
$69.3 million translates to about $14,000 for each of the daily images that make up the gigantic time mosaic of his. And the series keeps going, as the artist adds another tile to the tally, each and every day.
Beeple NFT Everydays Sells at Christies Auction for $69 Million in Ether
Successful NFT Artists Market and Promote Their Work
Caillard, Rozendaal, Langlois, Jones and Winkelmann are five artists among many who have derived substantial benefit from their NFT ventures: artistically, financially and reputationally. NFTs have opened up an entire world for them — a world full of promise.
These five are far from the only ones who have met with success: we haven’t spoken about Pak, Maddogjones, Hackatao, Xcopy, Slimesunday, 3lau or Grimes who top some lists in their own right.
Their success stories have fundamental marketing-related lessons in common.
But before we go there, three fundamental points bear making about their NFT activity and art NFTs specifically.
NFT Art Tips To Follow
Embed these three fundamentals firmly in your mind:
1 – NFTs are still new, start innovating. While there is a lot of talk about NFTs, they are a relatively new form of business enterprise.
With NFTs, we are not dealing with a long-standing, deeply embedded product environment with a load of baked-in rules.
There is a lot of room to move and to innovate. We can push boundaries as to what we think of as art, its value and its commercial potential.
So, be creative: the field is opportunity-rich and in continuous evolution. Don’t restrict yourself.
2 – NFT Art collectibles are a highly competitive industry. Artists Not one of the five selected artists are old-hands at the NFT business.
Think about it: in a new domain, no-one can claim longevity.
Sure, all the artists we mentioned have accumulated a deal of experience since beginning their digital crypto journey.
But remember too that all were novices when they joined the fray not so long ago. A year or two, maybe — and they succeeded in short time frames.
3 – The barriers to entry are low to the point of being almost non-existent. (You do need a product, after all!)
This is important if you are thinking business and wealth development. Get in the art NFT space and make it work for you. The gates are open.
NFT Marketing Strategies
Now let’s have a look at five important marketing guidelines when it comes to establishing yourself in the NFT art space and exploiting its potential to its full value.
1 - Create an NFT Community on Social Media
If you are to meet with success, you need to develop a community around you and your work. ‘Community’ means a group of folks who, among the vast numbers who populate the digital world, have at least an interest in crypto art.
No community means no prospective buyers, no influencer support and therefore few (if any) prospects. Without a community, you can easily become an orphan in the Metaverse wilderness.
Where to find these members of your emerging community?
Start with TikTok, with its more than 90 million users active every month in the US alone. TikTok is well-known for its appeal to marketing influencers.
Go on to Reddit, a network of communities in which you are sure to find one or more that will speak to your interests.
And think of Discord, the group-chatting app. Pick the server (or servers) that most closely aligns with your ambitions.
One thing is certain: There is no lack of community building avenues you can turn to achieve your ends.
2 - Build your NFT Community through Research & Networking
Having a community around you is a necessary part of success. However, just any old community won’t do.
For success, you need to have the right community around you.
The right community are the people whose attention you want to attract and the people most likely to open their wallets to you, those who are seriously interested in the type of art you create.
They’re already showing that interest to other, similar artists.
So, where to find “your” people?
Try social media platforms where other NFT creators are showcasing their work. TikTok is no stranger to NFTs. Neither are Reddit and Discord. Twitter is home to artists and influencers like Beeple and DeeZe. And even YouTube has NFT channels.
Search these forums for people creating similar artwork to yours. Study how they are doing it. Target your people as compellingly as you can through your work and your presence on the platform.
Watch. Study. Learn. Apply. If it’s working for others, it will most likely work for you, too.
Get to know the influencers in your type of work or field of digital art, too. Their contribution can make a dramatic difference to reaching the right people and the rate of your success.
3 - List Your NFT On Popular Marketplace Platforms
You have a product (or a suite of them). Which ‘market’ will you take them to so that you have the greatest likelihood of success?
You don’t take organic vegetables to a meat market, any more than you would try to sell furniture at a book fair.
So, pick the right market: each of them has its particular strength.
Leo Caillard uses SuperRareand Kryll (NFT Kryll with Leo CAILLARD). SuperRare is dedicated to digital art.
Rafaël Rozendaal offers his NFTs on Foundation, which has a segment dedicated to art.
Trevor Jones uses KnownOrigin, a digital art marketplace, and SuperRare.
Mike Winkelmann offers his Everydays via NiftyGateway (NFT | beeple (beeple-crap.com)). Others call on OpenSea, which labels itself the largest NFT marketplace (OpenSea.io). And there are more.
Investigate. Select. Experiment. Find the right fit. Read Crowdcreate’s full list of top NFT marketplace platforms to launch your project.
4 - Collab with Celebrities and NFT Influencers.
Art NFTs are a recent phenomenon, as we’ve said. But it already has its stars, established and rising, and its community of influencers. Communicate and collaborate with them. Be present.
‘Names’ attract. ‘Names’ give you exposure. They give you pull and with pull comes precious leverage. Influencers will amplify your voice beyond anything you could achieve on your own.
It’s the same the world over because Metaverse or not, we are people and that’s how we work. Need a list of NFT art collectors on Twitter to reach out to? Crowdcreate can help you with that.
5 - Hire an NFT Marketing Firm or Do-It-Yourself
You are walking the NFT path in search of recognition and wealth. You want to make a business of this — a great business.
Well, you can’t do this without marketing and, chances are, you can’t do this all by yourself either.
Some of us feel able to build market presence and the business ourselves. But not everybody does — and it takes time, effort and resources to do that. There are going to be mis-steps along the way. ‘Trial-and-error’ can cost a lot.
Luckily, there are groups of experts who can help, They refine your thinking about your product; devise strategy with you; define your target audience; recommend the best-fitting Metaverse market platforms for your offerings; provide the technology tools that will support your enterprise, and so on.
Look out for guides into the art NFT forest and through it.Crowdcreate is one of such guiding NFT marketing enterprises among others that can also provide strategy and consulting for your art, music, movie, or entertainment project.
At Crowdcreate you can tap advice and services about NFT marketing, crypto marketing and crypto influencer marketing.
Their team seeks out and connects with the most influential people in the business.
Team members are often thought leaders in their field and have precious knowledge ready at hand — knowledge that you can put to use in growing your art NFT business.
Take a look. Have a think. And remember: this is as much about building a business as it is about art.
At Crowdcreate, we believe you can be strong alone, but together, we’re unstoppable.
