Marketing Crafts

First, it's important to understand the difference between marketing, advertising and sales, and then how to integrate them all to get the best results.

Marketing is about reaching your target audience - the activities and promotions you do to get your message out there (see the section on creating your marketing plan here for more insight).

Advertising is a tactic of marketing - it's one of the ways you manage those activities and promotions, how you get your message across.

Sales is the actual personal interaction, the closing of the deal.

For example, your prospects are cold before marketing your crafts to them, your activities and promotions (marketing) and the ways in which you get your message across (marketing and advertising) warms them up - then you reach the point where you establish a personal interaction and finally convince them to buy.

You can already see how each of these functions are interlinked with each other, and how the process flows, so let's continue with more on marketing crafts.

Marketing Crafts... Identify With Your Target Market

We might be repeating ourselves here, but it's necessary to point out that you cannot begin any kind of marketing efforts if you haven't yet established who you're marketing to - you'd just be throwing time and money away.

When marketing crafts, one of the things you need to be able to do is identify with your target market - your marketing $ will be better spent if you are able to 'stand in their shoes' and know what type of marketing techniques or advertising attracts their attention.

For example:
If you're targeting high income earners, an ad in one of the major (ie: gold/platinum) credit card magazines with a title that includes the word 'exclusive' could work well - but if you're targeting people who would hunt for bargains, you're better off with an ad in the local free rag (newspaper or magazine) with a title that includes the word 'discount'.

If you already have a customer base, watch and learn... find out a bit more about who buys from you and why, where and how they found you (the ad or promotion that attracted their attention), what they read, where they shop, what they buy - in other words, identify with them.

If you don't already have a customer base, but you have defined your target market, you can still use most of the same tactics as in the above paragraph.

Marketing Crafts... Sell the Sizzle

In your marketing, advertising and promotions, focus on the benefit(s) of your product(s) which appeals to your specific audience:
'sell the sizzle, not the sausage'

We'll use the example here of a more mature, higher income female audience (M) vs a younger, lower income female audience (Y).

(M)
"This gorgeous handmade bracelet - one of only a few exclusive pieces produced in this range - epitomizes absolute class and reflects timeless style, whether as a gift for someone special, or just for you because you are special."

(Y)
"This fun and trendy handmade bracelet - which you can get now at our discounted introductory price - will have all your friends envious at your obvious sense of style and fashion know-how!"

Read over those two examples again.

You could quite honestly be selling the exact same bracelet - but can you see how different the appeal is?

The 'sizzle' is not what your product is, but what about your product is going to appeal to your target audience.

Marketing Crafts... Understand and Appeal To Needs

It can all get very psychological and theoretical, but don't worry, we're not going to be getting into that too deeply. What you need to know at its most basic, is that people are motivated to buy for very different reasons, which all translate into needs - if you're able to identify with and fulfill one or more of those needs, then you have a market and customers who will buy from you.

Here's a breakdown of the hierarchy of needs according to Maslow:

Establish which of those needs your products (and/or service) can provide the solution to, and then market (and appeal) to it accordingly.

By understanding the needs of your niche, you're better able to target your marketing and advertising budget towards them with more success than just general marketing not focused in any particular direction.

Marketing Crafts... Other Articles

For more information on how to organize your craft business and sell your crafts, consider visiting The Artful Crafter's Craft Business Center.

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