The 2023 Artica Mastermind Program was a transformative journey spanning ten weeks, carefully designed to empower artists and photographers in building and marketing their online stores. The program was structured to provide a balance between self-guided learning and live teaching sessions, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of key concepts. This blended approach meant that we could teach those without an online presence to create one, and those with existing online stores to refine their digital presence, all while coaching these phenomenal artists to reach their goals.

During our final review call, all of the students who completed the coursework and launched their shops reported both an increase in their traffic and sales, as well as profound insights into their own art and approach to their businesses. 

As we've seen with previous iterations of the Print Selling program, the students who put effort into building their email lists and effectively communicating their offer easily earned over $1000 during their launch, and the numbers increased dramatically for those with larger email lists. Building an email list is typically a challenge for artists who are unfamiliar with the process of attracting potential clients, and by using Artica's methods of leveraging social media through both organic and paid strategies students were able to hit their goals before launching their print shops.

While numbers can speak volumes, they of course don't tell the whole story. Perhaps the biggest success to come from the program is the ability to transform an artist's view of their own business. All of the students who went through the Mastermind were able to better communicate their unique offer and brand, and demonstrated improved confidence in their product by the time of their shop launch. Watching both new-to-the-scene artists and seasoned professionals refine their online personas and truly view themselves as Fine Artists was deeply satisfying and wonderful to see. 

As an example, Lindsey's incredibly unique hand-drawn artwork featuring Zodiac images has always been fascinating, but throughout the program she crafted her unique persona and began to showcase her talent in new ways that elevated her online presence. Her ability to showcase her work in a visually pleasing way, coupled with her new knowledge of attracting clients will pay dividends as she continues to improve her offer. 

Jim, an accomplished videographer, learned to see himself in whole new light as he realized that the market for his still photography was bigger than he could have anticipated. Despite the hurdles of learning many new computer platforms, he persisted and showcased a beautiful body of work on launch weekend, now considering himself to have a whole new side of his identity - Fine Art Photographer. 

And Spencer, a long-time service photographer, was able to showcase his passion for the natural world as he learned how to hone his story and artwork to reach a whole new audience. By tapping into the unique place he photographs and the stories he shares about it, he is able to reach people who also identify with the beauty of the region. In our final review, even he himself seemed amazed that his work attracted such attention - and he reached his goal of selling over $5000 during his launch weekend.

Beyond the learning modules and group instruction, our students also found a great deal of camaraderie and connection, meeting together in our learning space for weekly accountability sessions and ad-hoc image review. This space allowed for unique feedback and support, not-to-mention networking and friendships, that all of the students found to be a useful addition to the program. Our Artica Community Space continues to be a place of mutual growth and learning and we are so pleased to be able to offer this additional benefit to our Mastermind students.

While Artica's Print Selling Masterclass is designed to help students build and launch their online print shop, the Mastermind program builds on this course to help students build a long term strategy beyond their initial launch. Modules and strategies pertaining to advertising and generating prospective leads are valuable to all, but even more-so to those who've already had some experience selling their work online. These methods can be used again and again in compounding strategies to grow and scale art businesses as students become more aware and inn command of their unique markets and offers.

The Mastermind program runs just a few times a year, and is only open to students who have or are currently taking the Print Selling Masterclass. To learn more, click here, or get in touch at hello@artica-studios.