Category: Making & Selling Crafts


Marketing Your Crafts

April 11th, 2009 — 12:46am

All the talk establishing the target market for your own business finally leads to this point was to marketing your crafts and business.
Now that you know which is the segment of the consumer market you are going to target, you need to get your missus start to these consumers.  You need the consumer to see your business and realise that you may have a product that fulfils their need or desire.  Advertising is only one such means half marketing that you may employ for sending out an effective message to your target customer.
Marketing crafts I feel is a little different and marketing for most of the other regular products.  There are two main reasons why anybody wants to buy craft products.
Number one it is attractive and appeals to some desire of the client.
Number two it serves some practical and useful purposes that the client feels will help solve a pragmatic need in day-to-day life of stuff

There are also other factors that could people in their choice which may be fashion, style, perceived value, glamour value and the cool factor.  These are all some factors which are essentially a part of the above two main factors and we will cover each of them in detail later on one-stop
in order to market your craft well you need to appeal to the taste and the craving of your target market.  We keep mentioning the face target market all the time because it is important.  Making a craft appeal to summon means that you have to know their tastes to stop since you cannot possibly appeal to everyone’s tastes as they are all varied, it is a clever idea to find out who is the best potential client and then target that particular consumer profile.  You can appeal to a consumer taste the kitchen to any one of their own vulnerabilities.  Depending upon the profile this vulnerability can be any of the Saab nine factors mentioned above which, a sense of fashion, style, since a value Shearer practicality and usefulness of the product.  For example for the middle aged successful home and you will target this stylish and the classy vulnerability.  For the younger teenager you can target the penchant for more fashionable and being cool tendency.
When you use advertising as a medium, marketing tactics beside the course that the advertising has to take.  Since marketing is a means of getting your message across to the people, the advertising should convey the aptness of the craft to your potential client.  Everything about marketing crafts is guided by two factors.  The fiscal appeal of the product and/or its usefulness.  Your marketing tactics should convey either or both of these two to your target client.  The more your client feels that you understand the tastes of requirements the more susceptible they will be to buying your product.  The exact need requirement of your target consumer has already been determined by you when you build a profile of the potential customers that you are going to be targeting your business.

Comment » | Making & Selling Crafts

Selling Your Craft

April 11th, 2009 — 12:46am

Now that you have everything client for your business, such as the business plan and the target market, you wondering where and how to sell here craft?
Do you know what the greatest advantage of selling crafts is?  It is the informality and the pleasantness associated with this business.  When people look at crafts they usually see two things beauty and/or usefulness.  You yourself are probably in the crafting business for the love of crafting and the people who are willing to buy this craft from you are probably buying it because they love it
start with people close to your.  Make your relatives, close friends and neighbours aware of your new business enterprise.  Invite them for an informal visit to your crafting studio which may really be your home or room in it and showcase some of the work. 

Word by mouth is the powerful advertising medium.  Do not underestimate the value of it will stop even the bookselling online giant Amazon.com gained in popularity initially only by word of mouth.  Your friends and family may serve to achieve this were you.  You may make them special offers for selling here craft to them either by offering discounted prices or offering customisation.  Excite people loved customisation of what they like to buy and you can offer this would craft.  Not only will this make your service unique but it will also add an extra incentive for people to come to you post of for example if you are involved with the apparel were people you can let the people choose their own design and fabrics from a catalogue.  If you are making candles using people and choose the shapes and the colours for it from a palette of design that you have already prepared.  Other examples will include making you read with a can choose their own designs or, making soaps perfumes where people can choose their own essence of preference.

There are three basic markets where you can sell here craft product.  You can either side in your own studio, on the Internet or through other retailers and wholesalers.  Selling in your own studio means that you will have two attacks suitable marketing and advertising tactics in order to make people aware of your business.  This may be as simple as letting the name of your business spread word badmouth to friends and family or resorting to advertising medium such as Inspector magazines and posting flyers.

Selling on the Internet puts you before puts you before a consumer force that is magnanimous and spread across the entire world.  It is really up to you to decide who all you want to put your business in front of.  The potential of selling on the Internet is huge but it then again so is the competition probably.  Unless you have come up with a unique idea and provide a unique craft product you will have to take the records of certain marketing and advertising through at the classifieds or the research marketing with the major search engines.  Selling on the Internet entails a different set and presence on the interval Internet by the means of a website.  Were we will cover the aspect of setting up an online business in another post but it basically entails using a Web hosting service and a bit of specialised knowledge about setting up and Eastaugh.  Most of the Web hosting solutions today provide an e-commerce solution that is fairly easy to be used and can be taken advantage of even by an individual who has no formal knowledge of doing this will stop
the third option is that of selling locally or through other retailers and wholesalers. 

You may be able to find various craft businesses operating in your area locally or around the country by means of certain publications and magazines.  In order to contact them you must have a formal business proposal ready.  You can make the same temperate in the form of an e-mail or in the form of our brochure.  Depending on the contact details available for various retailers and wholesalers you can either e-mail the person in charge of send your brochure through mail.  It is always the good idea to try and call up and speak to the person in order to make a certain impression and give your dealing a personal touch.  It is likely that such retailers and wholesalers receive offers from many private crofters with proposals for supplying them with aircraft so it is essential that you do not get lost in these this sea of proposals.  After you have spoken to the person and agreed to send them your proposal via e-mail or a meal be sure to make a follow up call three or four days after they have received to documents sent by you.

This not only makes you stand out with the retailers and the wholesaler’s memory but also shows that you are an interested party who is also professional and particular about your business.

While supplying two other retailers of wholesalers you may either get to sell your craft out right to them or you may have to work on a consignment basis.  Working on a consignment basis means that you receive your money from these businesses only once they have managed to sell your craft through their storefront or customer base.  You can come to any understanding regarding the terms and conditions for payments through consignment basis.  The retailer is/wholesaler can either keep our percentage of the price you put to the craft or you can provide them at whatever cost you think is appropriate while they are free to mark it up as they choose.

All in all when it comes to the craft business and selling here product, you can either start small or big.  It is completely up to you and depends largely on the amount of capital you are ready to invest.  If you do not want to start with a bank and want your growth to be slow and steady you can begin with marketing your product through friends family, relatives and neighbors locally around your area.
Just make sure that your craft fairs the essential basic qualities that belong to any well selling craft.  We have spoken about this in our previous post but just to summaries them they are good pricing, usefulness, beauty, targeted to specific segment, cost of product and ease of making.

Selling in craft fairs and even space also a huge opportunity to showcase and publicize your crafts.  Not only do you get to meet several other individual artists and build a network with other craft businesses but you get to bring your business in front of thousands of people.  We have covered the aspect of participating in craft fairs in another post in this section but to begin with you were need are scheduled that gives you the information about various craft fair is happening all across the country and in and around your local area.  You can find such a calendar year.

Comment » | Making & Selling Crafts

What Crafts Your Should Make

March 30th, 2009 — 4:17am

This is the common question in the minds of any individual who is looking to start a home business in craft.  And it would be truly wonderful it it could be answered in a rather precise and concise manner.  But it can’t.  Even if there is our every individual would like to not what crafts can he make that will sell like hot pancakes.  If he or she could just needed the market down to a few specific crafts that the consumer loss to buy they will not really have to worry about marketing and exorbitant advertising costs as the consumer all the loves what they are making. 

Unfortunately this very concept is against the basics of how the demand and supply of any market works of stuff even if there was a specific craft that the consumer loved by it is natural that they would be a high demand for it.  Any time that they would be a high demand for certain products that is capable of being produced by any of the several crafting businesses to of the manufacturers would rush in to flood the market with that particular product.  Every manufacturer or service provider in that field would try to take advantage of this high demand and to profit from it.  The result would be that soon the market would be saturated and full of this product which would mean that even if the demand of this craft remained high they would already be too many providers for the same craft was the even if you did enter this high demand market you would have to face heavy competition and be hard pressed to make your product compete along with others as the demand for it would already be being met adequately by other suppliers.

The fact remains that drafting its neck in a field where there are a multitude of options are due.  You only have tilted the closure of look at the craft industry to realize that it really covers a wide variety of products.  The product is that you can make can be anything ranging from craft for home to furnishings and cosmetics and even projects for the office.  We will consider the different ideas that are available to the home based craft inhalator post.

With all this variety available you cannot possibly to determine the craft for you based solely on what is in high demand because a lot of these products are very very popular products to stop so choosing the right product really has to start with yourself.  Making craft is an art form that is closely connected to what you like.  Your creativity and your passion goes a long way in determining the final shape of your craft.  If you are extremely creative your designing ideas can work to create something entirely normal or different from what is currently available in the market.  You may love to simply make crafts and enjoy doing a particular kind of craftwork for example making crafts for homes such as curtains, draperies, table mats, candles this..
You must realize that craft that you choose to make for your business is something that you will be constantly working with end trying to satisfy consumer needs with.  So this craft obviously has to be something that you like, are passionate about and have a conviction about its beauty, durability and usefulness.  After you have figured out the one particular craft or maybe a list of crafts that you could decide between that you would like to produce for your form craft business, the next step is to consider a few illogical and practical issues that will help you determine further whether this craft is indeed an ideal choice for home business or not.

Popularity and usefulness

If you decide to make a craft that is already popular and in demand with people than know that you will probably be facing stiff competition from other competitors.  In this case you will have to assimilate whether the demand for the craft is already being met by the supply not.  In case you decide that there is still room for another supplier them this may very well be the good option as the product.  You may also have to be heavily rely on advertising and marketing in order to compete effectively in an already competitive market.
If your craft is something that is truly useful and can get served to help solving some problem or need of your consumer then it is an excellent feature to have in our craft product.

Having a good target market

If you can come up with a product ideas that these targeted to the specific settlement of the consumer market than a you can have hopes for a better success than a craft fair is not specific to any particular segments need or demand.  We have spoken our a lot about having a good target customer base as it helps you narrow down your marketing efforts.  You will have to spend less on advertising and you will be targeting are relatively smaller and precise group of people.  If he can create a craft that is targeted at a specific segment you will face better results in terms of converting these consumers to be your paying customers.

Pricing

Pricing is important.  It doesn’t mean that your product has to be cheap but just that it has to be priced correctly.  Pricing is something that follows the process of having determined a target market for your craft.  Once you have determined what the profile of your target market is you can based pricing on factors such as the annual income and the spending habits of this segment.  But primarily you have to consider the factors such as the raw material, time, effort, creativity and overheads that have been spent in making that product.  The intent of any business is to profit out of providing a product or service is only when you have determined the overall cost of running the operation will be able to determine the price of the craft.  If you feel that the overheads do not warrant the high price on the craft than perhaps you should consider lowering your overheads as well.  At the end of the day they should be a match between the cost cost of making the product including overheads and the financial profile of your target consumer in order to determine the correct price for your craft.

Unique

If you can make your product stressed that if you can make a craft that is the unique then it opens a a whole new world of opportunity for you are stuck when I say unique do not necessarily mean that it has to be something that the world has never seen before but it can also be a version of something that already exists with an added feature or a difference that makes it unique from all the other existing products.  A good example of this will be making candles.  Candles themselves are commonplace but just by giving a different shape for a colour to a candle might make it completely unique and fresh.  If the craft altogether is something that is completely new and unique then you might have to rely on advertising and marketing to have to sell and promoted initially.  But as long as the craft has an appeal be it in terms of its aesthetic cloaks for the useful and that it serves this will only be an initial expenditure and effort that will be much much bigger rewards later.

Costing

As we briefly hinted at this aspect in the pricing factor, the overall cost that is incurred while making a craft is a important factor that determines its success of failure.  You know that you have two price the product at a price that is affordable by your target audience and consumer cost of if the your overheads are very high and the cost of making you will be forced to price the product at a higher price than what is really the money that your consumer is ready to pay for it was start this means that the average consumer will get the idea that your craft is overpriced and hence will hesitate to bite.  In the case that you are in a field where there are competitors offering the same product of craft and you will find the going it difficult in this scenario where your competitors have the same craft available for a low price.

Having spoken about the few factors that determine how well you craft sells care of a few ideas of some of the craft items that you can make and give them a unique touch to make them into best sellers:

You can make crafts for the home such as candles, placemats, kitchen items, cushion covers, quilts, lamps, photo frames and other such items.
Everyone loves accessories and the range can be limitless stock you can make handbags, purses, hats and even jewelry.  With a little bit of extra technical know-how you can even make shoes.
Clothing is always hot selling and you can target the specific market such as bridal dresses, children’s clothing is, men’s suits the sector.
Making stationery allows a lot of variety of crafts that you can make at home and they are mostly always hot selling.  You can make books, book covers, calendars, gift cards, note cards, pens and pencils and so much more.

This website also has a section that gives you ideas of making some popular craft items along with complete instructions.  Do wizard that section and see what catches you fancy.  Try and establish a niche for yourself as soon as possible.  Once again we want to remind you that this has to begin the with what your passion is for and also what your skill set allows you to.  Only make the craft that you are confident of being able to make with the skill and quality.

Comment » | Making & Selling Crafts

Back to top