Many artists and crafters are learning that to really succeed at your hobby as a business you need to market your crafts well.

Marketing involves engaging your customers in a relationship that builds trust and friendship.  It is easiest and most cost efficient to maintain this relationship using the resources that the internet provides us.  For instance online stores, web sites, e-mail marketing, and more.

Selling crafts online gives customers who want to buy but don’t have the money right now another place to buy when they are ready.  Include a coupon and link to your online store or website on your business card and give it to every customer who enters your craft show booth.  Let customers know if they visit your online store and enter the coupon code they will receive a discount.

With more crafters than ever looking to sell crafts online more and more places to sell crafts are popping up all over the internet.  I’ve created a page to help you sell your crafts online.  http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com/index.php?pr=SellCraftsOnline

Please comment below and let us know if you’ve used any of these sites and how you felt about your success with them.  Also please include the price range of your arts or crafts, and what you sell, if you sell crafts online feel free to include a link to your online store so we can take a look.

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The article contains suggestions that help you cut costs at craft shows and market your business to grow your craft show business during tough times.

View the article at http://www.art.mt.gov/soa/pr.asp?ID=1289

Thank You Montana Arts Council!

I received an email the other day from Give to Get Marketing expert, Joe Gracia, that shows how Mullen’s Ice Cream Shop uses their business card to do double duty.

The business card contains the business contact information including name and phone number, but also includes an offer to the business’s customers.

The business card functions as a coupon for $1.00 off purchases of $6.00 or more, $2.00 off purchases of $12.00 or more, $3.00 off purchases of $18.00 or more, or 2 scoops for the price of one.  They easily fit all this information on one side of a business card.

There are several ways this concept could be adapted to any business, but I immediately thought of art and craft festival vendors.

Different craft vendors can use different offers.

For instance lower priced jewelry might use an offer very similar to Mullen’s offer above with just a small increase in savings for a slightly larger purchase.  Instead of two scoops for the price of one you could use get a free pair of earrings valued at $x.xx with every necklace valued at $xx.xx purchased.  For higher priced items like fine art or furniture you might want to increase the size of the discount (or use a % off offer) and purchase to fit more with your items.

The idea is to encourage a customer purchasing one item at craft festivals to purchase an additional item or complimentary item as they will receive a larger discount or savings the more they purchase.

Other offers that could be used on a business card include:

• $x.xx off offers
• x % off offers
• buy x get x -1/2 off and other similar offers
• buy x get x free

The back of the card should have a picture of your best seller and say, “Bring this card and a friend to any show and receive xx offer.  See our website for current show schedule.”  It should then list your website address.  NOTE:  Your website should tell what shows you will be attending, have other places they can purchase your items (such as galleries, specialty shops, etc.), and have pieces for sale.  By including a coupon code beneath each offer on the front they could use the coupon on their online order to encourage larger online sales.

HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS LIKE A MAGNET
Marketing is all about ‘helping people get what they want.’ Simply do that and you’ll have all the customers and sales you’ll ever need. Learn this simple formula and your business will begin to grow instantly. For more information, visit:  Give to Get Marketing

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Recently I’ve been getting a lot of calls from craft show vendors who wanted to sign up for my newsletter about craft shows.  When they called they needed a little information about the newsletter and then asked how they could sign up.  I lost the sale when I referred them to my website because I’m not set up to take orders over the phone.  What could I have done better?

I could have  signed on to my website and walked them through the process.  This way I would have guided them through the purchase rather than leaving them to go to the site on their own.  I could have also collected their name and address while talking to them so that I could contact them later if they didn’t go and sign up right away.

Craft show vendors know when your customer is ready to make a purchase and guide them to the cash register.  Don’t walk away before the sale is completed.

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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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What does Real Estate have to do with selling arts and crafts?

The way I see it your art or craft show booth is kind of like trying to sell a house. If you try to sell an empty house people can’t see in their minds what the house will look like when it’s all finished, painted, furnished, and decorated. You will also have a hard time trying to sell a house that is full of clutter, people can only imagine that the rest of the house hasn’t been taken care of well. They will see that the house will be too much work and cost too much money.

Your art or craft show booth is like selling your house. The booth will help your customers imagine using the product they have purchased from you. You have to do the imagining for them. How?

First you need to think about your product, who is it designed for, how and where will it be used? The answers to these questions should affect the theme and design of your booth.

Is what you’re selling for boys, girls, men or women? Is it for children, preteens, teens, young adults, or mature adults? Don’t present children’s items in an adult setting or adult item’s in a child like setting. Use colors that appeal to the ages you’re selling to. What ideas and themes appeal to them?

For instance fancy jewelry for teens might be presented as if at a prom, towel racks might be presented as in a high class hotel bathroom, and clothing needs to be presented as if it were in a fancy closet but also as outfits on the person.

When you created your product you had a vision of how people would use it, your booth is your opportunity to present them with that picture.

Stage your booth just like you would a home that you were trying to sell. Imagine yourself as a customer walking into your booth. Critique and criticize as if you were the customer, ask friends and family to do the same. Ask for them to point out things that are distracting, look odd, and especially anything they feel is not safe.

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Okay I admit it!  I’m addicted to Sorority Life on Facebook for my family it’s Mafia Wars.  Sorority Life is a game where you do things like the girls in a sorority would.  You must add a certain number of new friends every level or you are bound to be beat.  You can send your friends gifts and vote for them etc.

So you are asking me what does this have to do with my art or craft show booth?

Well you only have so many friends you can invite each day.  You need to add that many or suffer the consequences.  Many people that you invite will probably not even be interested in playing the game with you.  A large percentage of the people you invite will not respond at all and many will not respond right away.

This is like your craft show customers, it is important to contact the people most likely to buy your craft.  The more people you contact who are interested in buying your product each day the more chances you have of finding the ones that will buy the most product from you. Continue to contact people who truly aren’t interested and you waste both time and money.

You need to try to contact a certain number of the prospects you should have collected at your last art or craft show each day of the week.  Give them a gentle reminder of who you are.  Offer them useful-useful to them, not to you-information about your product or service.   Offer them an incentive to buy right now for instance a coupon that is good for a limited time.

The people who aren’t prepared to buy your art or craft right away will appreciate the reminder that they still planned on buying your merchandise.  Contact them when they are ready and they are likely to become buyers.  Forget to contact them and when they are ready to buy they might buy from your competition.

Like your friends in Sorority Life your craft show customer likes to receive gifts.  Gifts make them feel appreciated and help them to trust you.  Your gifts can be small things like discounts, buy one get one xx% off, or a free newsletter or information about the product they bought.

You also need to be aware of your customers rights when collecting contact information.  Ask your customer if it will be alright to add them to your mailing list.  Let them know the valuable information that you will be sending.  Don’t do this and just like in sorority life you will be banned from sending messages to them.

The friends you add in Sorority Life also often add you as a Facebook friend and if done respectfully you might find some new prospects and customers there for your craft business.

See what you can learn about marketing from the games you play in your life.

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While attending an art fair in my area a few years ago I visited with artists and crafters.  We discussed my newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, and if I should include artist and crafter reviews of shows.  I found this an interesting topic as I had never really considered all the pros and cons of show reviews before.

The only positive point I see to show reviews are that artists and crafts people hopefully don’t get suckered into doing bad shows where the promoter is not truly doing their best to advertise the show.

There are many factors involved in if a vendor has a good show.  Factors ranging from their financial  and emotional investment, what is happening in their lives-before, on the way to, during, and after the show, what they are selling, how they are displaying their items, their own marketing skills, their own attitudes and actions in their booth, to the purchasing habits of the customers at the show.  Even the placement of your booth and the weather (too good or bad) could affect sales at a show.

As the artist who prompted the conversation pointed out some crafters who know of really good shows wait years to get juried in.  They might not want extra competition either getting in or competing for sales so they might hesitate to tell you everything they know about the show.  On the other hand everyone who has ever experienced a bad show is pretty quick to tell you about it.

So how do you know if you can trust a show review?  I suggest using your best judgement.  Reviews by someone selling merchandise similar to yours should be more valuable to you than those by someone whose product sells in a whole different category, but then again they are your competitor.

Compare the number of bad reviews to good, remembering it’s nearly impossible to please everyone all the time.  Ask lots of questions about why people felt that way about the show and which factors might have played a part, while talking to crafters personally about shows.  When possible consider the values and motives of sources.

Better yet, attend shows as a customer if possible before entering as a vendor.  Look closely at the number of people attending, look at what booths are busy, what is selling, how much money is being spent.  If booths in one area of the show are making lots of sales while others aren’t see if the set-up allows for proper flow of traffic to all the booths.  Is your most likely customer in attendance, are people buying products that are the same style as yours and that sell in your price range?  How many competitors will there be in your category?

Remember while it is the promoters job to advertise the show, it is your job to advertise your product.  How much better would every show be if, every vendor told 100 other people about the show?

What do you think are art and craft show reviews worth their weight in gold?

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Shasta has always been an artist and crafter. She participated in craft shows since she was a child with her mom. She has sold her own art at shows since Dec. 2005 and has promoted The Extravaganza Craft Shows. She is now the publisher of The Extravaganza Craft News a newsletter to make artist’s and crafter’s craft show booths more profitable.

by Shasta McLaughlin

The Extravaganza Craft Productions

copyright 2009

I’ve told you the things I did on My 30 Day Plan to Greater Profitability and I promised that I would let you know some things you can do to increase the profits your art or craft show business receives.

1.  Draw a marketing map that shows how the people you meet at craft shows are going to move from cold contacts, to warm prospects, to hot buyers.  Include on your marketing map all of your sales tools including your craft show booth, your fliers, business cards, website, blog, social networking, advertising, and more.

2.  Make sure each sales tool mentioned above (and any others you use) moves your customer through a process that leads to them buying your art or craft.

3.  Get a website.  Click here for easy instructions on how to build a website.

4.  Get your website search engine optimized.

5.  Arrange to take credit cards.

6.  Offer a payment plan.

7.  Get email marketing (auto-responders).  See my post on following up with your customers by clicking here.

8.  Create emails for your current customers.  Remember to follow the Can-Am Act for email.  Send your customers useful relevant information.  You want this to help your business reputation not hurt it.

9. Create emails for your warm prospects.

10. Create emails for your cold contacts.

11.  Sign up your customers to the proper groups above.   Ask permission before signing up people for your emails.

12.  Check if your business cards, fliers, etc. look professional and are updated.  Be certain they have current contact information.  Make sure they mention your website if you have one.

13.  Collect names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the people who are interested in your product.  Ask if they would like to be signed up for your emails.

14.  Sign up for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Fast Pitch Networking or many others.  Let your customers and prospects know they can follow you there.  Post regularly.

15. Create a blog.  Post regularly.  Mention your social networking sites and your website often.

16.  Make sure your posts to your blog automatically post to your social networking sites.

17.  Pick up the phone and call a customer that you haven’t heard from in a while.  Renew your relationship with them.  Tell them the news from your business.  Offer to send them free information or ask if they would like to sign up for your newsletters.

18.  Send an email to customers that haven’t bought in a while.  Renew your relationship with them.

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