The success of any business depends on the amount of success that you have at selling your product. Selling crafts has a few peculiarities that are specific to the crafting industry only.
Follow some simple and effective pointers that are guaranteed to make both short-term and long-term benefits for your craft business.
1) Sell only your best crafts. Do not be in a rush to start your craft home business.
The start-up phase of any business is a crucial time in the lifeline of the business. Reputations can be built and destroyed during the first few weeks and months of the inception of a business. You have put in months of planning before launching your business. It is understandable to be eager to get the show on the road. But our advice is to not be hasty.
Highlight and showcase your best craft work for the opening weeks. This will help you establish a reputation as a quality product. The adage that one commonly hear is ” first impression is last impression” and it is more true than you realise.
It is hard to go from a bad first impression to a good one. It is best to get ti right the first time. Plus, you want the early customers to convert. It will speed up growth your business.
2) Sell to moms
Many women who are running a craft business from home feel uncomfortable about approaching other moms and neighbours about their business and craft products.
They are afraid of seeming too pushy. They do not want to seem to be taking advantage of the proximity and familiarity. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Infant, other moms and women are almost always a very friendly market.
The trick is to keep it ready casual and not make any direct sales pitches. In case you are not friends already with many moms you have plenty of opportunities to meet them at school games, meetings, community clubs etc.
Do not keep yourself aloof but striker casual conversations with various groups of moms. Sooner or later the question of what you do will come up. This is where you can in from everybody about your home based craft business.
Refrain from making any sales pitches. You will realise that many moms are interested and curious about what you do and how you run a business from home.
The magic of art and crafts is such that almost everybody is interested in having a look at what you are making at least once.
Have you business card ready to hand out at every opportunity and don’t be surprised if you find a bunch of moms dropping in to see your business pretty quick.
3) Network with friends and family
When starting out a craft business at home the first step can be working with your close friends and family. Not only do they provide a good testing ground for your craft product but can also be your first customers.
Networking with fans and close family helps save on marketing costs. If you are starting up small and do not want to spend a lot on advertising to begin with then spreading news about your business through word-of-mouth is just as good a marketing strategy as any.
4) Place at least one advertisement
You have to understand the importance of marketing when it comes to running a home business. Many people make this very obvious mistake of not taking direct marketing measures to ensure that people become aware of your business. Your business reputation can spread through friends and family. But you must make it a point to place at least one advertisement in any prominent place of your choice.
These can be flyers across town, advertisement in the local newspaper, broadcasting on the local radio station, posting noticeboards in schools and clubs etc.
Direct marketing can have the effect of directing the attention of a large number of people to your business. A busy shop encourages people to buy. When customers walk in to a shop bustling with other customers, they are more likely to buy something themselves.
5) Target your market
The value of determining a target market cannot be understated. You will get maximum results if you know beforehand who are the people likely yo buy your craft. That way if you target those people, you will get very high conversions. Anyone who has experience with making a marketing effort to sell something will tell you this.
You can get a hundred people to look at your craft and not make a single sale. This happens all the time with a non targeted approach. But if you get targeted customers, you can convert those hundred people into sales at a much higher conversion ratio.
Read about target market and research in much more detail.
