Module 1

How to Discover your Art Psychographics and Identify your Ideal Art Buyers

Table of Contents

1. What is art psychographics? And why should artists care?

2. Why psychographics-based artwork generates six-figure sales

3. Examples of multi-million-dollar psychographics-based art and artists

4. How to discover the beliefs inspiring your art

5. How to discover the values inspiring your art

6. How to discover the interests inspiring your art

7. How to communicate your art psychographics

8. How to identify the people who share your psychographics

9. How to build your ideal art buyer profile

10. How to build and grow your psychographic-based tribe

1. What is art psychographics? And why should artists care?

Psychographics are the beliefs, values, and interests that influence how we think, feel, behave, and connect with the world around us. Our beliefs represent what we accept to be true. Our values represent what is important to us. Our interests represent the subjects, activities, ideas, and experiences that naturally capture our attention. Together, our beliefs, values, and interests form an important part of who we are and influence many of the decisions we make throughout our lives.

Whether it is marriage, lifestyle or career choices, the organizations we support, the people we associate with, or the content we consume, we make many decisions based on our psychographics. We naturally feel more comfortable and agreeable in environments that support what we believe, value, and care about. Our psychographics could include a belief in justice or freedom, values such as family or independence, or interests such as wildlife, travel, history, spirituality, music, or countless other aspects of life.

Similarly, in art, our artistic preferences and choices are influenced by our psychographics. We appreciate art for many different reasons, but we can develop a particularly strong emotional connection with artwork that reflects something we believe, something we value, or something in which we have a deep personal interest. Remember a time when you stood in front of a painting and could not fully explain how it made you feel, but you certainly felt deeply connected to the artwork. It is very possible that the painting connected with something you already believed, valued, or cared deeply about and triggered emotions and feelings that you could not logically explain.

Several years ago, our work initially focused on what we called Belief-Based Art Sales. The idea was relatively simple. Instead of focusing entirely on selling the artwork, an artist could identify a belief inspiring the work and introduce that artwork to people who shared the same belief. This realization shifted our focus from selling artwork to establishing the deeper meaning inspiring the artwork and then connecting the artist with people who shared that meaning.

But that was only the beginning.

Over the next two years, we spent significant time and resources studying successful artists and analyzing what makes people and the internet recommend a specific artist and their work. Our research led us to an important discovery. Beliefs were only one part of the equation. The deeper connection between artists and their audiences also involved shared values and interests. What we had previously viewed primarily as a belief-based relationship was actually a much broader psychographic relationship.

This discovery led to the development of Psychographic Art Sales, an approach based on the beliefs, values, and interests inspiring an artist and their work.

Embracing a psychographic approach to selling artwork can have three major benefits. First, realizing your own psychographics can provide tremendous clarity of thought and artistic inspiration. Second, identifying your psychographics enables you to develop a much clearer picture of your ideal art buyer. Third, selling can become more intuitive because instead of trying to introduce your artwork to anyone who might buy art, you are introducing psychographic-inspired artwork to people who already share similar beliefs, values, and interests.

Psychographics can drive emotions. When your potential art buyers feel emotionally connected to what your work represents, the buying process can become much more intuitive.

That is the foundation of Psychographic Art Sales.

2. Why psychographics-based artwork generates six-figure sales

Psychographic Art Sales simplifies the selling process. It empowers artists to focus on what they love, which is creating art, while providing a structured way to identify the people most likely to connect with what that art represents. It also enables potential buyers to connect with the artist through shared beliefs, values, and interests.

Imagine throwing a ball into the air, then watching the ball fall down and bounce on the ground. This entire phenomenon is natural, expected, and does not need much explanation. If someone asks you why the ball falls down and bounces, the short answer would be because of gravitational force. However, if the person asking you is a five-year-old who does not understand the concept of force or gravity, explaining the phenomenon becomes much more difficult. If both people already understand and accept the basic concept of gravity, explaining what happened is easy and intuitive.

A similar concept can be applied to artwork.

When it comes to selling artwork, many artists assume that if they can simply get enough people to view their work, they will eventually sell it. Unfortunately, visibility alone does not necessarily create demand. An artist can introduce their artwork to thousands of people, but if those people feel little connection with the artist or what the work represents, the artist may still generate very few sales.

In this situation, the artist is often forced to explain why the artwork is important, why someone should care about it, or why it is worth a particular price. The potential buyer is consciously and objectively trying to make sense of the artwork and determine whether they should purchase it.

The psychographic approach works differently.

The artist first recognizes the beliefs, values, and interests inspiring their artwork. Then, the artist identifies people who share similar psychographics. Finally, when the artist presents the artwork to those people, the audience has a greater opportunity to connect with the work because it represents something already meaningful to them.

For example, imagine an artist who believes that wild animals should be free to live in their natural habitats, values the protection of nature, and has a lifelong interest in elephants and wildlife conservation. The artist creates a painting illustrating a baby elephant reuniting with its mother after being returned to the wild.

When that artist presents the painting to someone who shares those psychographics, the person may not simply see a portrait of two elephants. They may see freedom, family, conservation, compassion, and the protection of wildlife. The artwork has connected with beliefs, values, and interests the viewer already possesses.

The physical artwork has not changed.

The psychological relationship between the viewer and the artwork has.

In this case, the audience is no longer evaluating only the physical characteristics of a single piece of art. Some members of the audience may begin to connect with the artist's larger body of work because they understand what the artist represents and feel personally connected to it.

This is why Psychographic Art Sales is not about changing your art to satisfy an audience. It is about discovering the psychographics already inspiring your authentic work and then introducing that work to the people most likely to connect with it.

3. Examples of multi-million-dollar psychographics-based art and artists

One of the important findings behind Psychographic Art Sales is that successful artists can build relationships with their audiences that extend beyond individual pieces of artwork.

People may initially discover an artist because they like a particular painting, photograph, sculpture, or other work. But over time, they may become connected to something larger: what the artist represents.

Our original research into belief-based artists showed how powerful this relationship could become. Artists who developed communities around something meaningful were not simply accumulating followers. They were attracting people who had a deeper reason to care about the artist and the artwork.

The development of Psychographic Art Sales expanded this observation. We discovered that the connection did not always originate from one specific belief. Sometimes it originated from a value. Sometimes it originated from an interest. And frequently, beliefs, values, and interests worked together.

Consider an artist whose work is inspired by endangered wildlife. One person may connect with the work because they believe humans have a responsibility to prevent animal extinction. Another may value environmental stewardship and the protection of nature. Another may simply have a lifelong interest in animals, wildlife photography, or conservation.

These people may arrive at the artwork through different psychological paths, but they can ultimately become connected to the same artist and body of work.

The same concept applies across almost every artistic subject.

An artist documenting immigrant communities may attract people interested in a particular culture, people who value family and heritage, and people who believe cultural stories should be preserved.

A landscape artist may attract people interested in hiking and travel, people who value peacefulness and solitude, and people who believe natural environments should be protected.

An abstract artist may attract people who value individuality, believe in challenging convention, and have strong interests in contemporary design, creativity, or self-expression.

In each example, the artwork has a physical dimension and a psychographic dimension.

The physical dimension is what the audience sees.

The psychographic dimension is what the artwork means to them.

This distinction is important because successful artists often become associated with something larger than an individual artwork. Their artwork becomes part of an ongoing expression of ideas, values, interests, experiences, and meaning.

That is what enables an audience to become interested not only in one piece of artwork, but in the artist behind it.

4. How to discover the beliefs inspiring your art

The most challenging part of building a psychographic-based audience is often not finding people who share your psychographics. The biggest challenge can be discovering your own psychographics in the first place.

When you look back at your work, you may realize that over the years you have created artwork inspired by many different beliefs, motivations, and intentions. It can be challenging to determine which beliefs are the main drivers of your artistic inspiration because several different beliefs may have influenced your work.

However, when you look more closely, patterns often begin to emerge.

The first step is to discover the beliefs inspiring your artwork.

Try to select your ten favorite pieces of artwork. These ten creations should be works that have had the greatest emotional impact on you or that you feel most strongly represent you as an artist. For the purpose of this exercise, ignore your potential audience and focus entirely on yourself and your work.

Display the ten pieces side by side.

Now study them carefully.

Ask yourself why you created each piece. What were you thinking about? What were you trying to express? What did you want someone viewing the artwork to feel? What idea about life, people, nature, society, identity, culture, or the world influenced the creation?

For each artwork, complete this simple statement:

"I created this artwork because I believe..."

Your answers could be very different.

Perhaps you believe people should spend more time connecting with nature.

Perhaps you believe women should be free to define their own identities.

Perhaps you believe our cultural history should be preserved.

Perhaps you believe happiness comes from living a simple life.

Perhaps you believe animals deserve compassion and protection.

Do not worry about making your answers sophisticated. At this point, accuracy and honesty are much more important than beautiful writing.

Once you have written down the beliefs behind your ten pieces, look for patterns.

You may discover that the same belief appears repeatedly. You may also discover several beliefs that seem different but are connected by a broader underlying belief.

For example, an artist may believe that wild animals should be protected, that forests should be preserved, and that humans should reduce their impact on the environment. These appear to be three beliefs, but all three may be connected to a broader belief that humans have a responsibility to protect the natural world.

That broader belief may represent an important component of the artist's psychographics.

The beautiful part of discovering the beliefs inspiring your artwork is that you can begin to imagine the people around the world who already share them.

Those people may eventually become some of the strongest supporters of your work.

5. How to discover the values inspiring your art

The second component of your art psychographics is your values.

Beliefs and values are closely related, but they are not the same. A belief describes something you accept as true. A value describes something you consider important.

Freedom, family, justice, independence, tradition, compassion, creativity, adventure, spirituality, authenticity, community, equality, courage, and simplicity are all examples of values.

Our values influence how we make decisions and what we choose to support. They influence the careers we pursue, the people with whom we build relationships, the organizations we support, the causes we care about, and even the artwork we choose to display in our homes.

They also influence artists.

An artist who deeply values freedom may repeatedly create work involving open landscapes, birds, movement, travel, independence, or people challenging social expectations.

An artist who values family may repeatedly portray relationships between parents and children, family gatherings, memories, homes, or traditions passed from one generation to another.

An artist who values individuality may create work celebrating people who challenge convention or refuse to conform to social expectations.

These values may never be written directly on the artwork. Nevertheless, they can influence the subjects the artist selects, the stories being told, and the emotions communicated through the work.

To discover the values inspiring your art, return to the ten pieces you selected in the previous section.

Look at each artwork and ask yourself: What is important to me about this piece?

Then complete the statement:

"This artwork reflects my value of..."

Try to identify one or two values associated with each artwork.

When you finish, compare your answers.

Just as you did with your beliefs, look for repetition. Which values appear again and again? Which values seem to connect several pieces of your work? Which values have remained important to you throughout your artistic journey?

You may discover that three or four values repeatedly appear across your work.

These recurring values are another important component of your art psychographics.

The purpose of this exercise is not to force every piece of artwork into one rigid category. Artists are complex human beings, and your work can express many different ideas over the course of your career.

The goal is simply to discover the values that appear frequently enough to help explain what matters to you as an artist.

6. How to discover the interests inspiring your art

The third component of your art psychographics is your interests.

Interests are the subjects, activities, ideas, experiences, and areas of life that naturally attract our attention.

Someone might have an interest in wildlife, gardening, travel, jazz, history, architecture, fashion, horses, spirituality, technology, literature, sports, food, sailing, astronomy, or thousands of other subjects.

Interests may appear less profound than beliefs or values, but they can create extremely strong connections between people.

Think about how easily people form communities around a shared interest. People join photography groups, hiking communities, automobile clubs, gardening forums, travel groups, book clubs, music communities, animal organizations, and countless other groups because they enjoy being around people who share what they care about.

The internet has made these interest-based communities even easier to find.

Social media platforms recommend content based partly on what people repeatedly view and engage with. Search engines help people find information about subjects they care about. Online communities bring people with specialized interests together regardless of where they live. AI systems increasingly help people explore ideas, creators, places, products, and subjects through conversational discovery.

For artists, this creates an important opportunity.

Your personal interests frequently influence your artwork.

A photographer fascinated by architecture will naturally photograph buildings. An artist who loves horses may repeatedly create equestrian work. A painter interested in travel may create artwork inspired by different countries and cultures. An artist fascinated by astronomy may repeatedly incorporate celestial subjects into their work.

To discover your interests, begin by ignoring your artwork for a moment.

Write down ten subjects you genuinely enjoy.

Think about what you read about, what you watch, what you search for online, the places you enjoy visiting, the organizations you follow, the activities you enjoy, and the subjects you could happily discuss for hours.

Then compare this list with your artwork.

Which of your interests appear repeatedly in what you create?

You may be surprised by how closely your artistic subjects reflect your personal interests.

Finally, return to the ten pieces of artwork you have been studying and ask yourself what interests are represented by each piece.

Once again, look for patterns.

The interests that consistently appear across your work form the third component of your art psychographics.

At this point, you have begun discovering the three dimensions that make up your Psychographic Art Sales profile:

your beliefs, your values, and your interests.

7. How to communicate your art psychographics

You have now identified the beliefs, values, and interests inspiring your artwork. The next step is to start planning how to describe your psychographics in a way that your desired audience can easily understand.

Many artists attempt to describe themselves and their artwork through trial and error. Unfortunately, trial and error can be time consuming, random, and inefficient. A better approach is to develop a clear and consistent description of what your work represents.

The original version of this course used three basic rules for describing the belief inspiring an artist's work: accuracy over precision, less is more, and simple language. These principles remain equally important when describing your broader art psychographics.

Accuracy Over Precision

Accuracy is how closely your words describe what your artwork genuinely represents. Precision refers to the amount of detail included in that description.

Our recommendation is to seek accuracy without unnecessary complexity.

You want your audience to easily read, understand, and remember what you stand for without feeling overwhelmed. Your description should accurately represent the beliefs, values, and interests behind your work, but you do not need to explain every psychological or artistic detail.

For example, an artist could write several paragraphs explaining the complicated relationship between humanity and the natural environment represented throughout their work.

Or the artist could simply say:

"My art explores our relationship with nature and why it is worth protecting."

The second version sacrifices detail, but the central idea is immediately understandable.

Less is More

There is a fine line between under-explaining and over-explaining something.

When describing your psychographics, you want to use enough words to communicate what your artwork represents, but you should always look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary words, phrases, and paragraphs.

We live in an increasingly noisy world. Your audience encounters websites, emails, social posts, videos, advertisements, notifications, and countless other pieces of information every day.

The less mental effort required to understand what you represent, the better chance you have of communicating your message.

Use Simple Language

Artists are sometimes guilty of using sophisticated, abstract, or highly philosophical language when describing their work.

There is nothing wrong with sophisticated artistic thinking. However, the purpose of communicating your psychographics is not to demonstrate how sophisticated you are.

The purpose is to be understood.

This principle has become even more important in the modern internet environment. Your words may be interpreted not only by human visitors but also by search engines, social platforms, and AI systems attempting to understand the subjects and context associated with you and your work.

Clear language helps both people and technology understand what you are communicating.

Once you have described your beliefs, values, and interests clearly, you can begin communicating them consistently throughout your artist website, social media, artwork descriptions, email, blog, videos, events, partnerships, interviews, and other places where people encounter your work.

You are no longer simply telling people what your artwork is.

You are helping them understand what your artwork represents.

8. How to identify the people who share your psychographics

You have now identified the beliefs, values, and interests inspiring your artwork and developed a clearer understanding of what your work represents. The next step is to identify the people who share those psychographics.

This is where the Psychographic Art Sales approach becomes particularly useful.

Instead of beginning with the broad question, "Who buys art?" you can ask a much more focused question:

Who already believes, values, and cares about the things inspiring my artwork?

Consider again the artist whose work is inspired by wildlife conservation. The artist believes wild animals should be protected, values environmental responsibility, and has strong interests in elephants, wildlife, nature, and conservation.

There are already people around the world who share those psychographics.

They may follow wildlife organizations on social media. They may donate to conservation nonprofits. They may visit national parks. They may subscribe to wildlife publications. They may watch nature documentaries. They may attend conservation events. They may search online for information about endangered species. They may participate in wildlife communities or follow creators who publish content about conservation.

The artist does not need to create this audience.

The audience already exists.

The challenge is identifying where those people are and creating opportunities for them to discover the artist and the artwork.

This is one of the areas where the internet has fundamentally changed art sales.

When the original version of this course was developed, social media was already important, but today's digital environment provides significantly more ways for people to organize around their psychographics and discover relevant information.

People communicate their interests through what they follow, watch, search, save, share, discuss, subscribe to, and participate in. Search engines organize enormous amounts of information around topics and relationships. Social platforms recommend content based on users' behavior and interests. AI systems provide another way for people to explore subjects, ask questions, discover information, and find creators and resources related to what they care about.

For an artist, this means your ideal audience can leave clues throughout both the physical and digital worlds.

Your job is to find those clues.

Look for organizations, communities, publications, social accounts, events, websites, creators, newsletters, podcasts, groups, and other gathering places related to your beliefs, values, and interests.

You are not simply searching for "art buyers."

You are searching for people who already care about what your art represents.

Some of those people may eventually become your ideal art buyers.

9. How to build your ideal art buyer profile

Identifying people who share your psychographics is an important step, but not everyone who shares your beliefs, values, and interests will become an art buyer.

The next step is to develop a clearer picture of the person most likely to connect with your work and potentially purchase it.

We call this person your ideal art buyer.

Traditional customer personas often rely heavily on demographics. An artist might describe their ideal buyer as a 55-year-old woman living in the United States with a household income above a particular level.

Demographics can certainly be useful. Age, location, income, occupation, education, and other characteristics can influence someone's ability or likelihood to purchase artwork.

However, demographics alone tell us very little about why someone would want your artwork.

Imagine two women who are both 55 years old, live in the same city, have similar education levels, and earn similar incomes.

From a demographic perspective, they may look almost identical.

Psychographically, however, they may be completely different.

One may strongly believe in protecting the environment, value simplicity and conservation, and spend her free time hiking, traveling, and supporting wildlife organizations.

The other may value cultural tradition and family history and spend her free time researching genealogy, visiting historic sites, and participating in cultural organizations.

Both can afford the same painting.

But they may connect with completely different artists.

This is why your ideal art buyer profile should begin with psychographics.

Start by describing the beliefs your ideal buyer shares with you. What do they believe about the subjects represented in your artwork? What causes or ideas might matter to them?

Next, identify their values. What is important to them? Family? Freedom? Nature? Tradition? Adventure? Spirituality? Individuality? Justice? Community?

Then identify their interests. What subjects capture their attention? What do they enjoy doing? What content do they consume? What organizations do they follow? What events might they attend? What communities might they join?

Once you understand the psychographic characteristics, you can add relevant demographic information.

You should also think about behavior. Where does this person spend time online and offline? What social media accounts might they follow? What publications might they read? What organizations might they support? What might they search for? What questions might they ask? What events might they attend?

Most importantly, ask yourself why your artwork would matter to this person.

Imagine your ideal buyer has purchased one of your pieces and displayed it in their home.

A friend walks into the room, sees the artwork, and asks:

"Why did you buy that?"

What would you want your buyer to say?

The answer to that question can reveal something important about the emotional relationship between your artwork and your ideal art buyer.

Your ideal art buyer is therefore not simply someone who has enough money to purchase your artwork.

It is someone who has both the ability to buy and a meaningful reason to care.

10. How to build and grow your psychographic-based tribe

You have now discovered your art psychographics, identified people who share them, and developed a profile of your ideal art buyer. The next step is to bring those people together around you and your work. We call this your psychographic-based tribe.

A psychographic-based tribe is a community of people who share the beliefs, values, and interests inspiring your artwork. They are not simply followers or people who happen to like one of your social media posts. They have a deeper reason to remain interested in you and your work.

The original version of this course focused heavily on building a belief-based tribe. The central principle remains valid, but our two-year research expanded the definition. Your tribe does not have to share one identical belief. Different members may connect with different combinations of your beliefs, values, and interests.

What brings them together is the broader psychographic world represented by your art.

Your First 100 Tribe Members

The first 100 members of your psychographic-based tribe can be the most difficult to attract. Prior to making decisions, people naturally look for social proof. An artist who already has an active community can appear more established than an artist who seems to be communicating alone.

However, the way artists can attract their first 100 members has changed significantly since the original version of this course was written.

Previously, artists often had to rely heavily on direct outreach through social media, email, networking, and direct messages.

Those approaches still exist, but artists today have far more opportunities to become discoverable without manually contacting every potential tribe member.

You can publish social media content related to your psychographics. You can create website and blog content around subjects your ideal audience already searches for. You can participate in relevant events. You can establish partnerships with organizations that already have your desired audience. You can appear in publications, podcasts, newsletters, communities, and other places where your psychographic-based audience already gathers.

The goal remains the same: attract your first 100 people who genuinely care about what your artwork represents.

Be patient.

Your first 100 psychographic-based followers can teach you an enormous amount. You will begin learning which beliefs, values, and interests create the strongest response, which types of people engage most deeply with your work, which content they share, which artwork they admire, and eventually which members become buyers.

These learnings will become invaluable as you continue developing your ideal art buyer profile.

Ask

Once you begin establishing your tribe, you need to create mechanisms that allow your members to help it grow.

Ask people to follow your work, subscribe to your email, share relevant content, invite friends, attend events, visit exhibitions, comment on your work, or introduce other people who might connect with what you represent.

The specific mechanisms have evolved, but the principle from the original course remains the same:

Make it easy for people who care about your work to introduce it to other people.

Nurture

Your tribe members may be willing to share your artwork and ideas, but you need to give them something worth sharing.

Many artists make the mistake of turning 100% of their communication into displays of their artwork.

Visit their website or social media account and almost every communication says essentially the same thing:

Here is another painting.

Here is another photograph.

Here is another sculpture.

Here is another piece available for purchase.

Sharing your artwork is obviously important. However, artwork alone may not give a new visitor enough context to understand the psychographics behind it.

Your communication should therefore include the broader beliefs, values, interests, stories, subjects, and ideas surrounding your artwork.

If you are an artist inspired by a carefree lifestyle and challenging social expectations, communicate ideas and stories related to freedom, individuality, unconventional living, and the other psychographics behind your work.

If your art is inspired by nature and conservation, communicate about nature, wildlife, environmental experiences, and the subjects that inspire your work.

If your art is inspired by cultural heritage, tell stories about traditions, history, identity, places, people, and experiences connected with that heritage.

Your artwork remains part of the communication, but now the audience understands the world surrounding it.

This also gives people more reasons to share your content. Someone may not share a photograph of a painting simply because it is available for sale. They may, however, share a story, idea, image, video, or artwork that strongly expresses something they believe, value, or care about.

Before publishing content, ask yourself three questions:

Is this content consistent with my psychographic-based tribe?

Is it worth sharing with their family, friends, or community?

Does sharing it help them express something about who they are or what they care about?

If the answer is yes, the content has the potential to help nurture and grow your tribe.

Repeat

This apparently easy step can be the most difficult to implement. Many artists communicate their psychographics for several weeks. Many publish interesting and relevant content. Many ask their followers to share their artwork. Far fewer do so consistently for a prolonged period of time. The key is discipline.

Create a reasonable schedule for communicating with and nurturing your tribe. Make sure the schedule is achievable and sustainable alongside your artistic work and other commitments.

Then maintain it.

You do not have to publish constantly.

You need to communicate consistently.

Over time, consistency creates recognition. Recognition can create familiarity. Familiarity can strengthen connection. And connection can ultimately contribute to recommendations, demand, and sales.

People and the Internet

There is one final dimension to building your tribe that did not exist in the same form when the original course was created. Your audience today includes not only the people directly following you. Your public content also provides information that helps the internet understand who you are and what your artwork represents.

Your artist website, artwork descriptions, social media posts, videos, blog articles, interviews, event participation, partnerships, press coverage, and other online information can collectively establish context around your work.

When you communicate consistently around your authentic psychographics, you create stronger associations between your name, your artwork, and the subjects, beliefs, values, and interests surrounding it.

People can then discover you through social recommendations, searches, shared content, websites, organizations, online communities, and increasingly through AI-powered discovery.

The objective is not to trick an algorithm.

It is exactly the opposite.

Be clear and consistent enough that both people and the internet can understand what your artwork represents.

That is how the modern psychographic-based tribe extends beyond your immediate followers.

Your tribe can become the human foundation from which recommendations grow.

The more the right people understand what you represent, the more opportunities they have to talk about it, share it, search for it, link to it, purchase it, and introduce it to other people.

And that brings us back to the central idea behind Psychographic Art Sales:

You do the art. We make people and the internet recommend it.

Establishing your psychographic-based tribe is the first major step toward building a successful career as an artist. The next step is learning how to convert members of that audience into art buyers and, ultimately, lifelong collectors of your work.

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