AmbientShade posted at 1:12PM Thu, 09 February 2017 - #4296915

I was talking primarily in terms of how a new artist would establish and grow themselves in todays market.

A number of the big names have been around for well over a decade, some close to two now, and started when the market, and the competition, was a fraction of what it is today, so they've built a solid customer base through time and don't need to put as much effort into promoting themselves elsewhere as other lesser-knowns and new vendors would, in order to make a comfortable living doing what they do.

Established brand recognition is important but there's nothing that's stopping you from building your own. The point is you don't have to attach yourself to any one brand or store if you don't want to. You can sell through multiple stores or create your own or do both. There are a lot of different paths to success and some take a lot more work than others but they're all possible if you stick with it. It's not going to happen over night though, it takes a lot of time and effort. Do you want to make pocket change or do you want to make a living? The 3D user community is only growing, not shrinking, and with the newer technologies that are coming available there are more markets opening up for content artists all the time. But the bigger it gets the more competition there is, so its important to find ways to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by people who would be interested in your work.

I would say some of this is not quite true, but of course that is just my opinion. To me the best way for a lesser known content creators to promote themselves is to partner with strong existing brand umbrellas, to help build their own brand reputation in this market niche. Reputations are built through trust and exposure to customer bases. The best way to build that trust is to gain exposure to your target market, whether that is through freebies or paid content. All the promotion in the world through places such as Facebook will gain little for a new starter, without that critical exposure first. Content builds the content creators brand, better content builds bigger brands in the long term. Self promotion only aids superficial brand development, but mainly maintains existing customer interest. For new or established content creators far beyond self promotion are the partnerships that they can forge to gain them market exposure and help promote their brand to the existing market. Selling in multiple markets is one way of gaining broader exposure, but it is at the risk of brand dilution. Making a big splash in a single dominant market will often go a lot further then lots of little splashes in multiple marketplaces.

When partnered with a single large marketplace it does not mean you are partnered beyond anything than sharing development resources and access to market. Some seem to push that a large marketplace owns your soul in some way, like signing a deal with the devil. But this is just not true from my own experience. Many of the big name vendors that sell through a single market place also work in fields such as artistic visualisation for the movie industry, video game creation, 3rd party 3D content development, etc. There is no contractual obligation to that market partner beyond that they will do their best to sell your latest product to the best of their ability. A single partner market method often simplifies many things for a content creators with an interest in this sector including accounting, self promotion and brand recognition within the sector for their target customers.

A mistake would be seeing an attempt to create your own web marketplace and content creation as the same field. They are very different with an entirely different skill set required for success in either. Creating your own market would be the most high risk method through to market for Poser/DS content by far. The market in this sector is currently fairly condensed with things like game content content development and 3d visualisation circling on the established peripheral. There is a business concept known as "Go to Market" Step one of the concept is always identifying the target market for your product. Step two is in identifying the most direct and efficient path to that target market for your product. An existing marketplace is an existing target market and is the most direct route to market for most products, unless the product does not fit that existing marketplaces demand. Its hard to see why creating a new marketplace makes any sense at all for most content creators, unless that is your main goal and content creation is just a sideline to your main vision.

"There are a lot of different paths to success and some take a lot more work than others but they're all possible if you stick with it. It's not going to happen over night though, it takes a lot of time and effort."

There are lots of ways to do business, but not all of them lead to success even if you try hard and persist. Statistically over 50% of small businesses fail within the first year. The dominant reason has been established as poor strategic planning. A more accurate statement would be "There are many different paths to success and there are many more paths to failure. All of them take time and effort. But research, planning and experience will help you onto that road to success and help to avoid failure."

"But the bigger it gets the more competition there is, so its important to find ways to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by people who would be interested in your work. "

This is entirely true, even when speaking more broadly.