If Rebecca and Dave look familiar, it may be because they’re the stars of countless videos demonstrating their proprietary product, ArtResin. The easy-to-use epoxy-resin clear coat designed specifically for art applications,
ArtResin has no VOCs, no fumes and no solvents. It creates a clear, hard, smooth, glossy finish on artwork, and it won’t yellow.
Of course, seeing is believing. Isn’t that the challenge of selling most art materials? Thanks to the advent of YouTube and affordable, high-quality cameras, demonstration videos can sell a lot of product for you, as
Rebecca and Dave have discovered.
Creating a successful social media strategy like theirs takes time, planning and hard work. It pays off though, says Dave. The company became successful enough to warrant a full-time social media/video-creation team. Here, they explain how it works.
What part has the Internet played in your success story?
An omnipresence online = awareness = sales! We grew organically this way and continue to scale this way (including retail/internationally).
YouTube, specifically, is the only reason ArtResin exists as a product and as a company. We began making videos to demonstrate to artists like ourselves how to use resin. Based on the high number of views our videos received, we recognized an opportunity and found a chemist who could create an ideal resin for art purposes.
Today, we produce video content showing various resin applications and collect key words specific to niche creative projects. We use them, in turn, to dominate the Internet search results for these markets.
ArtResin.com is very data driven. Its website is designed to be attractive and – even more important – functional. We use web analytics to tell us what customers are doing on our site, and adjust the design of the site to adjust user behavior accordingly. Increased followers, likes, views and engagement, thanks to content from our social media and blog posts, always lead to greater web traffic and,
ultimately, more sales.
You post new content all the time. Is it difficult to be constantly producing?
As the business took off, we did find it hard to keep up. There are only so many hours in a day! Since then, we’ve hired employees to manage our social media outlets full-time, including a full-time video editor. They have freed us up to do other things, like develop new products.
We also made a decision to focus on fewer social media platforms. We would rather be successful on a small handful, like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, than be mediocre on many.
We believe that you do not need to overcomplicate a social media strategy. Just post regularly with something interesting! To ensure that we provide content on a regular basis, we schedule things on a calendar and meet about ideas. We aim for three posts a day on Instagram and three videos a week on YouTube. On Instagram, we often repost the work artists have created with our products – a win-win!
So how many employees do you have total?
Including the production team in Texas, the sales team in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, and ourselves, ArtResin has 10 full-time employees. Also, when it’s necessary, we work with remote assistant services or hire talent on contract through Dave’s network from his past career in advertising.
Our factory in Dallas handles our formulations, mixing, packaging, finance and fulfillment in the USA and internationally. In Burlington, we handle sales, marketing, product development and Canadian distribution.
We also have a UK/EU strategic alliance and a budding partnership in Australia.
Whose videos inspire you?
Rebecca really loves how Angela Liddon, from the vegan recipe blog ohsheglows.com, shares her personal story within her content. Her site has big beautiful photos, impressive search rankings and a unique voice and style.
What inspires you as artists? As entrepreneurs?
The idea of freedom inspires us. We believe that being an entrepreneur is being an artist. Every day brings with it new and unique problems to solve. How exciting!
We’re honestly inspired every day by the ways customers use ArtResin. The come up with things that we never even thought of! Interacting with artists as part of our jobs is inspiring. These people are on the road less traveled, making art and wandering into the unknown. They take risks. Picasso said, “If you know what you’re going to do, what is the point in doing it?” This quote really resonates with us.
What are your biggest challenges?
As every owner of a growing business knows, there are always new ones. Here are a few things we’re solving right now.
- Creating packaging that’s simpler, but still cost effective and pretty.
- Managing growth and entering international markets.
- Spending time with our 2-year old daughter and resting up for our soon-to-be-born son. To do that, we stopped answering the phone during the weekend and after 4:30 each day.
What’s the next step for ArtResin?
There is a lot of energy here these days. We have a great team and a lot of opportunity ahead of us. It’s very exciting to see the fruits of our collective labor pay off in measurable ways. There are some new products being launched that have been years in the making. The market is just itching for them. At the same time, we are replicating our website for different countries and currencies, and establishing pick-and-pack services globally. Australia, Germany and the United Arab Emirates are hot spots for us.
The coolest thing about being in the art materials business is meeting so many artists and entrepreneurs. We grew up using the art materials produced by folks that we now get to call our peers. For example, meeting Mr. Mark Golden of Golden Artist Colors was like meeting a rock star!
Most artists love to share and help each other, and that is how we all grow together. We have found a community that goes out of its way to support us. We hope to add to this industry and do our part to get more people making art because in the end, with that being the case, everyone wins.
by Tina Manzer
