Bead Craft Thoughts - The Significance Of Merchandising: Check Both Local And Global Market
This information in this article is predicated on 2 guesses: That you've a number of beading projects you'd like to make beneficial, and that you've some level of inventory at the ready for when sales start coming in. If that's you, then this article will outline severa avenues open to you for "passively marketing" your beading projects.
Note that passive marketing does not mean "no work required," or "you don't have to talk to anyone." Rather, it means that the bigger bulk of the work occurs on the "front end" and that once the work is concluded, your passive promoting efforts will continue more or less on their own, indefinitely, with only least added effort on your part.
This is significant for you as a bead crafter as it frees up more of your time, which you can dedicate to your present beading projects, or, if you feel you're ready for it, develop wholly new beading projects to develop your line.
We will cover two examples of passive marketing. One, advertising your completed beading projects locally, and the other, advertising them worldwide.
One of the very finest methods to market your beading projects locally is via consignment. Here, your goal is to show your line to people with a well-known business and ask if they will display and sell your products in exchange for a part of the profits. This works to your advantage on a number of levels. First, the reputable business already has regular clients you can make sales from. Furthermore, most will allow you to display your business cards next to your wares, so if a patron likes your product, their next purchase may be made direct from you. Also, once you have an existing relationship of this sort, it's normally easy to introduce new products to your display as you expand the number of beading projects in your line.
The key here is not to limit yourself to only one or two such relationships, but to seek to engage as many sources as you can keep supplied. Not just does this increase your publicity, but it also allows you to see how various shops handle your merchandise, and you can use this information to see where your products sell the most, then attempt to gain a similar in-store position at other stores carrying your line. If your beading projects are focused on necklaces/bracelets, you might surely be drawn to locally owned jewelry shops in your town, but I recommend you to think outside the box here! Hospital gift shops, gift shops in retirement homes and old fashioned country stores are all great pleases to inquire, as are common gift stores and specialty shops such as Hallmark, and any place that caters to local artists!
Considering the worldwide market, the extremely best thing you can do to promote your projects is niche online marketing. There are dozens of books on this topic, and it's beyond the scope of this article to completely explore the process, but in broad strokes, what you need to do in order to market your beading projects in this manner are:
1) Identify keywords describing your beading projects that get a few daily searches (10-30+ per day) and have minimum competition (under 50k).
2) Design a niche website around these keywords to drive visitors to your page
3) Describe what you are offering. These descriptions should be mixed in with original content on your website
4) Offer would be customers a means of contacting you
5) Offer them a means to purchase from you online
Again, the great thing about passive marketing is that once the initial work is done, your beading projects get exposure day in, and day out with very little effort on your part.
Note that passive marketing does not mean "no work required," or "you don't have to talk to anyone." Rather, it means that the bigger bulk of the work occurs on the "front end" and that once the work is concluded, your passive promoting efforts will continue more or less on their own, indefinitely, with only least added effort on your part.
This is significant for you as a bead crafter as it frees up more of your time, which you can dedicate to your present beading projects, or, if you feel you're ready for it, develop wholly new beading projects to develop your line.
We will cover two examples of passive marketing. One, advertising your completed beading projects locally, and the other, advertising them worldwide.
One of the very finest methods to market your beading projects locally is via consignment. Here, your goal is to show your line to people with a well-known business and ask if they will display and sell your products in exchange for a part of the profits. This works to your advantage on a number of levels. First, the reputable business already has regular clients you can make sales from. Furthermore, most will allow you to display your business cards next to your wares, so if a patron likes your product, their next purchase may be made direct from you. Also, once you have an existing relationship of this sort, it's normally easy to introduce new products to your display as you expand the number of beading projects in your line.
The key here is not to limit yourself to only one or two such relationships, but to seek to engage as many sources as you can keep supplied. Not just does this increase your publicity, but it also allows you to see how various shops handle your merchandise, and you can use this information to see where your products sell the most, then attempt to gain a similar in-store position at other stores carrying your line. If your beading projects are focused on necklaces/bracelets, you might surely be drawn to locally owned jewelry shops in your town, but I recommend you to think outside the box here! Hospital gift shops, gift shops in retirement homes and old fashioned country stores are all great pleases to inquire, as are common gift stores and specialty shops such as Hallmark, and any place that caters to local artists!
Considering the worldwide market, the extremely best thing you can do to promote your projects is niche online marketing. There are dozens of books on this topic, and it's beyond the scope of this article to completely explore the process, but in broad strokes, what you need to do in order to market your beading projects in this manner are:
1) Identify keywords describing your beading projects that get a few daily searches (10-30+ per day) and have minimum competition (under 50k).
2) Design a niche website around these keywords to drive visitors to your page
3) Describe what you are offering. These descriptions should be mixed in with original content on your website
4) Offer would be customers a means of contacting you
5) Offer them a means to purchase from you online
Again, the great thing about passive marketing is that once the initial work is done, your beading projects get exposure day in, and day out with very little effort on your part.
0 comments:
Post a Comment