Attending Craft Shows Isn’t Just About Selling Arts and Crafts
December 17th, 2009
by Shasta McLaughlin
The Extravaganza Craft Productions
copyright 2008-2009
Okay, I know what you’re thinking if attending craft shows isn’t about selling crafts then what is it about? It is about selling crafts but it’s also about many other things. For instance attending craft show is about knowing who your customer is, building a relationship with a them, it’s about collecting your customers contact information and later following up with them, and it’s about getting feedback about your product.
If you base the success of a craft show solely on the number of customers you saw, the number of sales or the dollars you made there, you are missing the boat. Attending a craft show means so much more to your business.
Let’s start with market research. A local craft show can be a good place to try out your new product idea without a large investment of your time or resources. You can create just enough of a product to fill a booth and create a nice display. Create a few signs stating the benefits of the product to the customer. Rent an inexpensive booth at a show where the type of person who would buy your product would be in attendance. Now pay close attention to who comes into your booth what age are they, are they men or women, are they well educated, what seems to be their income level, do they have children? Make notes about your observations and soon a pattern will emerge. You now know what kind of person to market your product to. The type of person who enters your booth most often will probably be the type of person to buy your product most often so pay close attention.
Now that you know who you customer is you will always want to focus on that type of person with all of you advertising and marketing dollars.
People want to buy from companies that they trust. They want to know if they have customer service issues that someone will resolve them. Attending craft shows is your opportunity to show customers what level of customer service they will receive when they buy your product. Treat every customer like your best customer and they just might become, “Your Best Customer.” Get to know the customer and establish a relationship with them. Find out their name and say it a few times during the conversation. Try to remember it the next time you see them, they will be impressed when you remember their name.
Your best customer is the person who just bought from you, so you need to devise a way to contact them. A simple way to do this is to use a duplicate receipt book and include their name, address, phone, and email on the receipt. Ask their permission to add them to your mailing list and write that on the receipt. Include your contact information on the receipt and they have everything they need in one place to contact you if they have a problem or need to make another purchase.
Having a customers contact information doesn’t do you any good if you never contact them again. Send out a birthday discount (be sure and collect this info if they will tell you on the receipt), special occasion and holiday discounts, notices of where they can find your product, and relevant merchandise information. Tell them to bring your mailing and a friend to see you at craft shows to receive a small gift.
Constant Contact and AutoWebBusiness.com are two inexpensive ways to follow up with your customers through automated email series a.k.a. autoresponders.
The best part of attending a craft show is getting feedback on your product. This is all about your attitude. You can be offended by criticism or you can see it as market research. Anyone who comes close enough to criticize your product was probably interested in it. Criticism can help you improve your product and make more sales. If many of your customers would want what was suggested it is worth it to try to implement the changes suggested. So instead of getting down about criticism enjoy the compliment that they were interested enough in you and your product to try to help out. Smile and thank complaining customers for their advice, write it down and consider the benefits and risks of implementing them when you have more time and energy to deal with them. Write down the compliments as well and remember you don’t want to change these things unless you can improve on them.
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Categories: How to Make Shows Better
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