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collective Marketing Ideas to Promote Your Craft company
Dec 12th
Net Krafter : collective Marketing Ideas to Promote Your Craft company
Getting started on Facebook couldn’t be easier… Or more considerable to panning online gold. Generate a profile that contains the best copy inherent to make your business look not just good, but hot, hot, hot. After your personal profile is in place Generate a Facebook business Page for your company.
How? Easy. Scroll to the lowest and click “Advertise”. And, get ready to jump for joy… It’s honestly free! Click on the Pages tab and upload a logo and input some copy that portrays your craft business in the best inherent light.
Then, just as you would in other venues, start reaching out to inherent customers by “sharing” your business.
Your first contacts, or “Facebook Fans” as they’re called, will probably be real friends and family. But even the most social of entrepreneurs will need to enlarge well beyond that right away.
Don’t be indiscriminate, though. One of the worst things that can happen to an online business is to begin a spiral of negative word of mouth. Spend some time tailoring your message and your list to optimize your chances of inescapable word of mouth.
You can reach out to crafters with similar interests – jewelry designers, doll makers, potters… Anyone your business line(s) happen to be. Some will be competitors, others will just be concerned amateurs who love crafts as you do. Ask them to spread the word, and give them helpful tutorial content, free samples, and more to encourage them to follow through.
Twitter is an additional one superb way to spread your message, and can sometimes work even quicker. But you trade off speed for volume. Twitter is intended more for real-time communication. It’s sort of like Internet chat on steroids.
Twitter is a great social networking tool for online craft business owners who want to announce things that are happening right now. Having a sale? Tweet it. Discovered a new material or technique? Share your enthusiasm in up to 140 characters of text.
Use Twhirl to carry on multiple accounts if you have multiple craft-related businesses, such as glassware and textiles. You don’t have to be tied to the computer all day, though. Use Twuffer to queue up tweets that will go out whenever you want.
In all these cases, you want not only to reach the audiences that populate these sites but drive them to your websites. Here again, use a miniature discretion, but all the time make sure your friends know where to find your business. After all, there’s no point in building a good mousetrap – or mouse earring – if no one knows where to buy it.
Both Facebook Pages and Twitter are where you can -
Share pictures, pictures, and more pictures! Let me say it one more time: Pictures. Use the Facebook Photo application to Generate and update photo albums with amazing images displaying your skill and creativity.
Step it up a notch by creating videos of your most beloved and most recent creations. Zoom into the details of your products that make them stand out from the rest. Description all sides of them as you’re describing what they’re seeing. If you haven’t done it already, spend in one of those very affordable Flip camcorders. Come to be well-known with downloading them to your computer, and uploading them to Facebook.
provide tips on how to store the products when not in use or being displayed.
provide tips on how to ship the items
Do you offer a fix service if something gets broken? Remind them how they can get the goods back to you for repair.
If not, possibly you can offer some fix tips for them so they can take care of minor repairs. How about providing some fix video tutorials? Even written tutorials will be helpful.
provide gift ideas – the holidays are close. Do you offer a special allowance if man purchases more the one item (one for themselves and one or more for gifts for others). This is a great time to encourage multiple purchases.
Give an incentive if you can, possibly you can provide free shipping if their order is over a inescapable dollar amount. Or throw in gift wrapping as your freebie.
Craft businesses typically had/have origins at craft and gift shows. Maybe you could provide a list of shows in your area, your state…even good – multiple states or regions.
When you’re attending a show, take pictures or even videos. Take your Facebook Page Fans along for the ride. Tell them about your plans, your experiences, the excitement, the surprise bonus you never incredible to find. By all means, if you’re going to be displaying your products at some shows you’ll want to let everyone know where you are going to be at. You might even get some unexpected visitors that happen to be in the area. How great would that be!
Share ideas about the best ways to display and use your products.
Don’t forget to share a nice backstory. Let your visitors know how you got started, what inspired you, a timeline of your progression.
notify visitors of goods options you provide when man orders from you. A collection of colors, sizes, shapes, special features, etc.
If you’re concerned in doing this sort of thing – how about turning your knowledge into revenue? Hold workshops and classes, even Generate video tutorials. Then you can announce your new offerings to your visitors.
Do you donate to a charity? Why not get your visitors complex and offer a ration of their buy to the charity or cause. Here’s an additional one idea on this front. What if you organized a donation drive with your online community? possibly you could be the convention place for handmade toys and other objects that could advantage those less fortunate. You and your fans could come together to preserve a base cause.
Don’t forget to relate to your visitors how your goods fills their need. What is it going to do for them?
Since you have products, you’re in a prime position to hold a monthly contest where the winner receives something you’ve made. possibly for every 50 new Fans you pick a new winner. Keep running this for as long as you like.
What about sharing a list of online craft directories? Ask for input from your page fans, see if they can lead to this list.
I’ll bet you’ve tried quite a estimate of materials to ultimately get your products just right. How about providing some reviews on materials that have not lived up to their advertising, or those that have made your crafts come to life and were exactly what you needed. This could also be a great conversation starter with other crafters visiting your site.
Do you have any tips on what to do with your leftover materials? Is there the possibility of providing your visitors with ideas on how to recycle what they don’t use from projects?
I’d like you to think less “online craft store” and more “online crafting community”. Encourage the sharing of ideas, materials, issues, troubleshooting, resources, etc. It should be a place everyone wants to visit so they can participate in conversations and lead some of their considerable content. It could be one big happy family! When like-minded habitancy get together, amazing partnerships and joint speculation opportunities happen. Doors open. Deeper connections are made. Doesn’t that sound like the society you’d like to build?
If you know of some other crafters that have products which compliment yours, why not share these resources with your visitors? possibly the other crafters could refer visitors to you as well. Now would be a great time to set up a referral or affiliate program. What a win-win situation all around.
Network Marketing – Hanging Out With Your Niches
Dec 2nd
Step one in knowing where your niche market is, is knowing who your niche market is. I often ask people in network marketing who their niche market is and they give me a broad answer such as “women.”
I sell cooking products yet I don’t believe “women” are my target market. I know far too many women who don’t like to cook, eat out almost daily and never spend time in the kitchen. For example, my coworker’s husband is a chef and does all of the cooking in their house.
It’s important to ask yourself who exactly is your target market. Are they under age 30? Are they over age 40? Are they self-employed? Are they managers? Are they indoor people or outdoor people?
It’s actually possible to target more than one group of people, but chances are you’ll need a different marketing strategy for each group you’re targeting.
Now that you know what niche you’re looking for, it’s time to find out where they are. One of the markets I target is crafters. I hang out on crafting message boards. I read and post on crafting blogs. I have written some crafting articles.
Another market I target is those who love to cook. This time, not only do I hang out on cooking message boards and visit cooking blogs, I also have a cooking blog of my own and a recipe website. I try very hard to stay within my own comfort range even in this niche. For example, I’m not a vegetarian and cooking vegetarian food is not my specialty. So I stay away from the vegetarian message boards and vegetarian blogs. I know I really don’t have anything of value to offer these cooks and so I don’t even attempt to participate.
Different markets congregate in different places. Offline, you can find speaking groups, cooking groups, car groups etc. Most adult ed programs offer a large variety of classes. Try taking one class per semester. Often these classes are one night a week for a couple of hours. Not only will you learn a new skill, but you’ll meet people in the very niches you’re trying to service.
Online you’ll find blogs, websites, message boards and more. Try going to Yahoo Groups and searching for a group or two in your niche market. Join the group and begin reading. Get a feel for the flow of the conversation and the people who hang out there. When you believe the time is right, jump in. Start participating. Truly give to the group. Don’t advertise your business. Once you begin giving to the group, you’ll begin to form relationships. I actually don’t join groups that won’t allow a signature. I don’t advertise per se in this signature, I simply put in one of my URL’s. I know that I often click signatures of those I find interesting. In return, I know that when I give to the group, others will click on my link.
Go to the places where your niche is hanging out. These are the people you want to market to and build relationships with.
Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. You can read more of her articles at http://mydirectsales.com or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant
Internet Marketing For Jewelry Makers – Ecommerce Solutions
Nov 27th
If you are finally thinking of taking the big plunge from hobby jewelry maker or part time crafter into starting your own business on the internet…congratulations! Selling your jewelry or artwork on the Internet is a worthwhile endeavor that many people have had great success with. I know you make a quality product and have many satisfied customers, but selling on the web means having an ecommerce system in place to make it happen.
What is an ecommerce system? It is the tool that takes the customer’s order, processes their credit cards and sends them and you email confirmations of the order. It is also known as an online shopping cart. You may have seen those “Buy Now” buttons on websites that you shop from. Those buttons connect your products to the shopping cart system that checks you out and completes the transaction.
A shopping cart can do so much more than just take the credit card numbers. A good system will calculate all the shipping charges, taxes and make a printable form with the address so you can print a label for the box. It will send your customer automatically generated emails that thank them for their purchase, give them valuable instructions and even promote your other products many days after the sale. A good shopping cart system will even help you build a database of email prospects and send them newsletters and printable coupons.
Your jewelry is the heart of your art. The shopping cart is the heart of your online store. Together, they can build and manage the online store of your dreams. You can make a part time or full time career by selling your jewelry online. An investment in online training and running your shopping cart efficiently is the key to web success.
How can you sell more of your artwork online and make bigger sales?
Discover the number one resource that artists all over the world have been using to excite their customers, create cash flow and get more of their art in front of the eyes of thousands of prospects. Learn to expand your art and craft business beyond the shows with a trusted, online presence.
Alka Dalal is an experienced internet marketer and fine artist that has been speaking to audiences for over 25 years about ways to increase their businesses.