How to Market Your Business of Crafts to Make and Sell. You've got crafts, you're ready to sell them. How are you going to spread the word? How are you going to brand yourself so others can find you? Check out our branding and social media marketing quick start guide.
You are Reading Chapter 5 of our DIY Crafts Guide: How to Sell What You Make.
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Chapter 5
How to Market Your Selling Crafts Business
After you learn how to price your work, you're going to need a certain look for your business. You will need to do something called branding. Every business, whether handmade or otherwise, has a certain brand that customers can recognize and relate to, and it is vital that you learn how to brand your products well. We've already touched on this, now we're going to go into detail.
After you have branded your business, you're going to need to get the word out, and that's where marketing and social media come into play.
“Make it simple, but significant” – Don Draper (Mad Men's Marketing Tycoon).
How to brand your business | Branding Tips
- DEFINE the type of a service or product you are offering.
- DEFINE your niche. I can't emphasize this enough. Find the group of people in the marketplace that WANT the service or product.
- Pick a good name! Until you make it big, you're probably better off using a name that describes your business to some degree. That way people can find you organically via search more easily.
- Find a way to build long-term relationships with your customers. Provide excellent customer service and always keep your word.
- Make sure you don't get caught up in trying to look like a big name chain brand. People appreciate small businesses. They like small and authentic. They like knowing that someone actually put time and care into them.
- Make a memorable logo for your business.
- Design a great business card! There are tons of free templates online that look very professional. If you don't feel like doing it yourself, you can always use fiverr.com to easily hire someone to design it on the cheap.
This website called Growth Supply
offers some great *FREE* Business resources! Everything from logo design, to free invoice templates. Check it out! I highly recommend them.
Marketing through Social Media
Social media is everything in the marketing world these days! It is also VERY popular in the craft world – great news for you! I know people who make millions (yes, millions) a year simply because they are popular on social media.
You may not start making millions, but when done correctly, you could expand your audience, and engage interest in your product & business, which will increase sales. If you want a quick run down of what exactly social media is, read this. Now here are some tips and marketing ideas, on how you can use your social media account to your advantage. Also keep in mind that you should have an account for your brand that is separate from your personal account! The main focus here is the product, not what you had for lunch. 😉 Though I'm sure that was tasty too.
- Integrate everything together! Make sure people are able to find you on all your sites. Every account should link back to your website, your website should link to your accounts!
- Always include product links on facebook posts, not just images. People need a way of finding your crafts and ordering them.
- Use facebook offers. It's like an ad and a coupon put together.
- If possible, make videos about your business and share them. People love videos!
- Solidify your name on social media. Don't change it because this will confuse your potential customers. Choose the best name ever, then stick with it!
- Consider freebies. Give something free to your target customers to let them know that you are here and ready for business!
- Encourage mentions. Mentions are when people tag you in a post. That way all of their followers can know about our work too.
- Use hashtags. Join the conversation by using appropriate trending hashtags so you can get new viewers.
- Always build your email list. The money is in the list. When you have new products you can just email them to let them know of your updates!
Go check out @kkrzaa on instagram for some inspiration. Krystle is just an ordinary girl who started selling what she loved to make – and now she's an instagram sensation! Check out her whole website here: KRZA By Krystle Dawn She makes and sells headbands, and thanks to instagram she is doing amazingly well! What will your craft success story be?
There's so much more to learn when it comes to social media marketing, but you should be off to a pretty good start! Stay active online, and always respond with grace to your customers and inquiries. You'll do great. 🙂 If you need assistance from vetted marketing experts, Mayple can match businesses with vetted marketing experts and help measure and manage their performance, to ensure marketing success.
