Week 4 PArt B: Defining YOUR Target Market

    My business proposal is for a fictitious art print business named Ghoul Crush. This business is not real but I do hope to start an art shop to promote and sell my artwork either under this name or a similar one. Ghoul Crush would consist of a variety of prints, stickers and pins of girls, anime, and gaming inspired art in a bright, horror, and anime inspired art style. These items will be hand-packed with personalized messages and extra goodies rather than work off a print-on-demand model. These will be shipped mainly in the US but also internationally.

    Internationally, anime is consumed by about 40-60% of the world with women taking up 25% of this market and about 45% of the consumers in the video game industry are women. My target audience will consist of mainly females between the ages of 18-26 with interests in anime and gaming culture who have an interest in these 2 markets. The art style is very bright and female-centered so younger women will be attracted to it because of the "girly" look to it. There is also the possibility of drawing in an older demographic by introducing art that consist of "classics" or are nostalgic in nature from the 80's to the early 2000's.

    The best tactic would be to approach my market on social media like Instagram and TikTok where artwork will be posted under relevant hashtags for those that are interested in the subject matter and themes; the age demographic I chose fits into about 29% of active Instagram users and about 36% of active TikTok users. Consistency is key on both of these platforms to build an audience that is interested in the subjects as well as the niche art style that it will be presented in. Videos of the "speed draws" can also spark plenty of interest from artists and non-artists. This can show the creation process and techniques to interested artists but also can be a kind of "magic trick" of turning a blank canvas into a fully fledged illustration that amazes a lot of non-artists. This video content can be relatively pain-free on certain applications like Procreate and Clip Studio which automatically record drawings on canvases which leaves the artist to just need to do some light editing to post the video.

    One area that this business could tap into while creating interactivity with the audience is to make "packing" videos of customer's orders; I would be packaging orders for Ghoul Crush rather than have orders sent from a print-on-demand service to make the orders feel more personal. Some small businesses on TikTok will do this in an ASMR or voiceover format at the request of a customer; this is a way to create another incentive to buy from the shop because the customer can get attention from the business and be featured in the videos.