Creative businesses get a marketing hand
For the AJC
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Artist Margaret Warfield couldn’t be more passionate about her painting. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing. It’s what gets me out of bed every morning,” said Warfield, owner of Cassie’s Amber Arts, in Oxford. A fan of bright colors, movement and fabric, she’s been painting joyful images of dancers and making dolls for 16 years. She sells her work in Georgia, South Carolina and Maryland galleries.
She’s no “starving artist,” but when it comes to marketing her work, she rates herself a 3 or 4 on a scale of 10. “I would rather be painting or doing something creative than marketing,” she said. “That’s the downfall of a lot of artists — the marketing side. It’s not enough to do wonderful work. If no one knows about you, you won’t be successful.”
Leita Cowart / AJC Special
A larger-than-life Cabbage Patch Kid is helping to promote state tourism to travelers.
Leita Cowart / AJC Special
The Cabbage Patch Kid greets Laurel Edwards-Underwood and aunt Eliza Underwood on Friday at the airport in Atlanta as they travel to New Orleans.
Sponsored by the Georgia Department of Economic Development and Georgia Tourism Foundation, a new state creative economies initiative aims to help creative businesses thrive.
“Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and we’ve found that small creative businesses — artists, jewelers, story-tellers, crafters, musicians and performers — contribute substantially to their local communities, and to Georgia’s economy overall,” said Gilda Watters, managing director of the Georgia Tourism Foundation.
Creative enterprises, small galleries and artistic products draw tourists and local residents who like to venture off the beaten path to meet local artisans and buy hand-made wares. Some products, such as Cabbage Patch Kids, headquartered in creator’s Xavier Roberts’ hometown of Cleveland, are nationally known. Others, such as artist Anne Jenkins Point of Art Gallery & Studio in Union Point, are just being discovered. Jenkins relocated to Union Point after Hurricane Katrina wiped out her New Orleans home and livelihood. “It’s a great idea to see the state get involved with the arts community. Artists bring in tourists, and tourism is Georgia’s second largest industry,” said Jenkins. “Our gallery is part of one of the initiative’s self-guided art loops around the state. People can pick up a brochure from a welcome center and drive themselves.”
An even better tool to showcase Georgia’s creative businesses is the initiative’s new Web portal, Georgia Made, Georgia Grown Products.
“We looked at the best practices of Kentucky and South Carolina to see how they promoted their arts-centric businesses and then devised our own strategies, including the Web site,” said Watters.“Tourists do a lot of research online before they travel now, so we wanted to make it easy for them to find out about the unique bed and breakfasts, galleries, festivals, pick-your-own farms and cultural attractions that contribute to a rich sense of place,” said Watters. “People like to buy things that are special to a location and have a story behind them. We wanted to make it easy for them to find jams and jellies, jewelry or pottery made in Georgia by creating a searchable database complete with business profiles, locations, photos and contact information.”
Calling the Web site economic development in its purest form, Watters said that when people have knowledge about what’s in an area they are visiting, they tend to stay longer and come back. Each artist or venue must register and maintain its own link, but it’s free and easy marketing for small creative or food-related businesses, said Watters. To date there are about 1,000 registered arts or food-related businesses and Watters is aiming for 10,000.
“It will take some time to build, but we’re already getting good response from meeting planners, corporations looking to support local artists by buying their work, and the small-business owners themselves. We’ve had lots of nice hugs from artists,” she said.
The Creative Economic Initiative is a work in progress. Last summer, members of the economic development team gave a series of professional development workshops in nine regions around the state. They met in local chambers, colleges and churches to show creative business owners ways to market and expand their companies. The initiative has raised awareness about the value of arts-centric businesses in local communities, and created more rack cards and brochures in the state’s visitor centers.
“Besides being a great way for us to market our work, the Web site is a good connection for artists,” said Warfield. “Many of us work by ourselves most of the time, but this allows us to find other artists working in our area and make a connection with them, as well as the public.”
Services »
