MyArtConnect offers a professional social network for artists and art professionals. It aims to connect emerging artists with opportunities through partnerships with universities and galleries. Revenue will come from premium memberships and advertising. The marketing strategy focuses on strategic university partnerships, direct marketing, word-of-mouth, and influencers. The objectives are to gain 1,250 premium members by year 2 and expand to other European countries in year 3.

1. 12/06/14
MyArtConnect
Chelsea 12

2. Executive Summary
MyArtConnect offers a professional social network for emerging and
professional artists as well as art professionals that will enable a connection
between both parties.
Revenue streams: premium memberships (paid by either institutions-
universities, galleries- & individuals) + advertising.
Marketing strategy: Strategic partnerships with universities, direct marketing,
WOM, influencers.

3. Situation Overview
✤ Growing unemployment concerns among young art graduates.
✤ 40% of art graduates are still unemployed 3 years after graduation (HESA,
2012)
✤ Traditional offline platforms are unadapted.
✤ 2/ 3 of artists refuse exhibition offers due to pay. (Guardian, 2012)
✤ New online platforms are promising but misused or underused.
✤ 80% of students wish there was a professional social network for artists (St
Martin Survey)

4. Our product
✤ A « LinkedIn » for Art: A social media platform that allows amateur, emerging and professional artists
to connect with peers and professionals (gallerists, collectors, individual buyers, critiques …), expose
their work to the art community, get rated & promoted to gain peers recognition and build their
reputation.
✤ Key Features:
✤ Each member can set up a profile dedicated to their artistic career in a secure environment to
promote their art only to approved people.
✤ The Homepage would consist of a « virtual gallery of the week » for each categories (Paint,
photography, modern Art, drawings…)
✤ Artists link themselves with others through a two-way connection request.
✤ Businesses and professionals can also set up accounts to connect with key artists and other
professionals.

5. Vision and Mission
✤ Our Vision is to help the most talented young art graduates get in touch
with galleries and art professionals by providing a secure and friendly
online platform.
✤ Our Mission is to create long lasting partnerships with art universities,
galleries and professionals to create a close and relevant environment for
artists.

6. Objectives
✤ Our Objectives:
✤ 1,250 premium members (8% of total users) at the end of the 2nd
year,2,500 premium members at the end of the 3rd year.
✤ Create partnerships with top 3 art universities (UCL, Central St
Martin’s, Royal College of Arts) at the end of Year 2 and 15 at the
end of year 3.
✤ Expand to other European countries in Year 3.

7. 3.5 Launch Strategy
Beta-Testing
Launch in
top 3
universities
Launch in the
UK
Uk
Expansion
Empathy Stickiness Virality Scale
Challenge: Create
all the necessary
tools for artists and
professionals.
Solution: Create a
beta version to give
to 100 artists and
100 professionals to
collect feedback and
optimise the
website.
Month 6-12 Year 1
Challenge: Generate
audience quickly with
limited partners.
Solution: Aim to
partner up with the
top three art schools
by providing free
premium accounts to
their students to
generate content.
Year 2
Challenge:Get both
artists and
professionals from
the main cities.
Solution: Create
partnerships with
galleries and art
schools and
promoting the
website through
extensive marketing
activities.
Challenge:Further
expansion and
become the major art
network. Solution:
Offer more solutions
in our premium
accounts and offer
the possibility to sell
on the website.
Year 2-3

8. New Market Considerations
✤ Numerous social platforms & potential competitors (Linked, Facebook,
Gallery Today, Deviant Art, ArtPal)
Unoccupied Gap for exclusive art professionals to gain exposure & grow career
network.
✤ Substantial Market: MyArtConnect is designed to satisfy the needs of 158000
art graduates in the UK as well as numerous galleries, museums,
advertisings agencies, and companies.

9. Entry Strategies (steps-graph)
Replicate Facebook entry strategy: Cooperation with top Art schools first
Direct Marketing: -face to face pitch with top Art University Deans, galleries representatives
-email marketing advertising agencies, Museums and movie production companies.
Accumulate a high quality of students and their artwork
Allow access to the database only to people who matter (artist’s potential employers)
PR: Arrange top art student’s placement in one of the Galleries
Get Bloggers and Journalists to write about it
•Expand to more universities following the same pattern & covering the UK

10. Competitive Strategy
We planning to differentiate from competitors by: providing
quality Control: Only certified artists can have an account to
connect and share their work
• Security Control: We make sure only the selected people
see student’s work
• Impact: Viewers of art convert into employers; mentors;
buyers; partners; useful contacts
• Finding artistic talent will get easier for: galleries, museums,
corporations, art collectors, advertising agencies, magazines,
movie production companies

11. Market Segmentation and targeting
✤ 158 000 art
students in the
UK.
✤ 463 000 Artists in
the UK.
✤ diverse
categories:
✤ Painting
✤ Drawing
✤ Photography
✤ Print
✤ Modern ArtYoung artists
✤ 300 gallerists
(Saatchi&Saatchi
)
✤ 14 000 ad
agencies
✤ 1600 Art
museums
✤ 600 movie
companies
Art Professionals

12. Positioning
MyArtConnect
LinkedIn
DeviantArt
GalleryToday
Facebook
ArtPal
Fit to promote the artist*
Only for professionals*Open Access*
1
2
3
4
5
*Research made on 77 art
student

13. 2.5 Competition
Brand Type User database Revenue model Target segment Assesment
General
Linkedin
professional social
network
259m members
freemium model,
Hiring solution,
advertising
internet
users,recruiters,
advertisers
strong brand,
industry leader,
not suited for artists
and craftmans
Facebook Social Nework 1.2 B members advertising Everyone
biggest social
media. Not fit to
promote artists.
Google +
Social
Network/Search
engine
540m members advertising Everyone
no possibility of
benchmarking with
other artists
Art- specific
DeviantArt digital art showroom 19m members
freemium model,
Advertisements
Artists, art
enthusiasts
Large database,
limited profile
possibilities, open to
everyone
Gallerytoday Online art market Unknown sales comission worldwide artists
Only art is visible.
No information
about the artist.
ArtPal Online market 3.7m visitors (UK)
sale comission,
Freemium model
Artists, craftsman,
art lovers
limited profile
design. Limited link
between artists and
their work
Main competitors visuals in Appendix 2

14. What is MyArtConnect ?
✤ Creating a solid community of visual artists
✤ Providing a source of quality content & inspiration
✤ Developing exposure
✤ Connecting artists, dealers and buyers
(insert artwork)

15. MyArtConnect
✤ Daily Highlights
✤ Video & Photo Content Production
✤ News Feed
✤ Follow requests for privacy policy

16. A free service of the WWW
✤ MyArtConnect is free and always will be
✤ Social advertising integrated within newsfeed
✤ Freemium model : £5/month for a premium
membership which allows you to connect & contact
people from outer circles

17. Touchpoints
✤ A digital art gallery accessible from any desktop
computer or mobile device
✤ Responsive design integrated
✤ Mobile Application to come
✤ Physical touchpoints materialized by pop-up
MyArtConnect exhibitions to promote featured artists
and strengthen community

18. 3.3 Financial plan
Revenue
(in £)
Costs
(in £)
Advertising
Membership
Set up costs
Hosting
Sales & Mktg
HR
0 15 000
(0.5£ per user per year*)
30 000
(0.5£ per user per year*)
0 150 000
(8% premium / 60£ per year**)
300 000
(8% premium / 60£ per year**)
5 000 5 000 5 000
19 000 30 000 60 000
0 10 000 10 000
0 0 240 000
(24 000) 120 000 15 000
YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
- Year 1 : Minimal costs to be funded by the founders own money (no developers costs as we have a developer within the
founding members)
- Year 2 : Reach break even but without paying salaries
- Year 3 : Break even with salaries paid
- Year 4+ : To grow business further (international expansion + additional revenue streams – HR advanced solutions software
& possibly online sales) around £400K would have to be raised.
* Based on industry benchmark
** 2 types of buyers : individual buyers (expected premium account buyers 1% based on industry benchmark) + art schools (possibility of buying premium
accounts for all their students with an 80% discount) : on average, 8% premium accounts conservative projection

19. 3.4 Funding Plan
£24.000
Original investment
made by each board
members. (6 x
£4.000)
Year 1
£400.000
Year 3
Investment made from
an investment partner to
help expand the
business. A 30% equity
would be given equally
given by each board
member.

20. 3.7 The Milestones
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Stage Activities
Pre-Launch Top 3 universities All universities
September- May June- December January- June June -December January - June June - December
Founding the
business
Domain registration
Hire developers
Design and development
of platform
Beta Testing
Business
development
Limited Launch (with key
universities)
Secure partnership with
art schools
Full Launch (with Art
universities)
Marketing activities &
Customer Acquisition
Start of premium
subscriptions
Market research for
potential expansion
Adittional Staff
European extension
Own investment

21. Primary research: Findings
✤ One recurrent feedback we received from students was the necessity
for the website to be safe and trustworthy as students will share their
art only with people they trust. Therefore, a key challenge will be to
provide users will all the privacy settings they require.
✤ In order to make our website interactive, it is necessary for the website
to attract as many young artists as well art professionals. This will be
done through partnerships with art schools in the UK as well as art
galleries and art brands.
✤ A key risk would be that universities privilege their own internal network
to help students promote their art and meet potential employers.

22. 4.2 Potential expansion
✤ As seen in our milestones, there would be a
possibility to expand to other European
countries starting year 3. We will start with
the french market as it is composed of 139
Art Schools teaching around 89 000 art
students.
✤ If the number of users increase greatly, we
would have the possibility to have two new
sources of revenues:
✤ provide advanced HR tools to
professionals to easily target artists.
✤ Expand the network to a online market
place where galleries could actually
purchase some artwork on the website
where MyArtConnect would touch a
commission fee.