Posts Tagged ‘Handmadeology’

Last week I received a post card as a thank you from Alyson Stanfield – who runs the ArtBizBlog – an essential for your marketing information. This was a hand-written thank-you as a result of an article I wrote for Handmadeology that mentioned Alyson as a source for goal-setting information. I felt like I was appreciated.

This is what we have to do for our customers. Make them feel appreciated. I have a postcard that gets included with every order. The front is a piece of artwork, and the back is all the information about Marble-T Design: website, blog, Facebook, and an invitation to sign up for the newsletter, plus, a hand-written “thank you” for their business.

 This particular article by Alyson looks at a greeting card business – which I think many artists do, as a way of getting more mileage out of their art. But Alyson has a really neat idea: offer to send a card for a new subscriber to someone. You use one of your cards, the new subscriber provides the recipient’s name, address, and a brief greeting, and you do the rest. Love the idea. I also want you to read the comments on this post, because they mention a couple of caveats if you are going to do this….time limit, etc.

What ideas do you have for a type of give-away for new subscribers to your newsletter? We offer a drawing each month to receive free marbled fabric, but I’m not sure it’s enough to get new subscribers. I’m thinking of combining all my organizing posts into an ebook and offer that free to new subscribers, but I would REALLY like to hear from others as to what you do.

Our first update is of a brand new calendar from The Textile and Fiber Art List, Muse Moments. This is available in the tafashop on Zazzle. It’s a wonderful collection of some of the many (over 430) artists around the world and the work they do. We happen to be the month of July.

Rachel, our wonderful creator and inspiration, has also designed a second TAFA calendar, this one showing different artists in their studios. Money made from the sale of the calendars helps to fund the development of what is becoming the go-to place for fiber and textiles on the web.

Also, Martingale Publishers are having a sale, and included are ebooks of the patterns of Lois Fletcher. I met Lois in Houston in 2002, and we created a series of fat quarters for her for use in her Spring book. It was quite enjoyable to see how she utilized the marbling throughout the book in her various patterns. I still absolutely love the marbled butterfly she created.

Handmadeology is announcing a new market opportunity today, January 3. From the website: “Today, we  launched  our own market by leveraging Meylah’s marketplace technology. This partnership will super charge marketing for creative businesses and support all the creative community, giving sellers new ways to market their products through online and social channels.  We are inviting sellers across the creative community to become part of Handmadelogy market.” It’s worth checking out, which I will be doing in the next few days.

We will be participating in StashFest again this year. StashFest is a fund raising event for the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum. Dates are April 6 and 7. Look for marbled silk offerings this time from Marble-T Design.

It’s the third day of January, and I have just started organizing my ideas and goals for this year. So far we are seriously off to a great start!!

Over a week ago I made the following list of things I wanted to focus on for the coming week for marketing…..

update ebay “About Me” page; schedule for pattern release; review and comment on blogs – been doing better on this; look at TAFA marketing for holidays; Handmadeology post on community for this week; Southern Cal artist packet completed; Stumble pages; new small gallery; contacted CraftGossip about quilting info

Well, based on yesterday’s post, I haven’t made a huge amount of progress, to my way of thinking. But – I did get a couple of these done, and now I have a couple of major deadlines to meet within the two weeks. I was locked out of Word Press this morning, but now I’m back and working on things. I will have a tutorial up on CraftGossip, which makes having the updates done on the website more critical. Plus, I will be having a guest post on a publisher’s blog, so again the website needs to be worked on. The Handmadeology post on the importance of community was completed, and it had a lot of good feedback. I’ve been enjoying Stumble and collecting and pinning some great images. Now I have to figure out how to add the Stumble logo to the blog.

Now about asking for help: I would ask you to stop by our main website and give me some feedback about any updates, changes, or new products you would like to see. I have some ideas, but for some reason I can’t seem to really get a “feel” for a lot of changes. I’d appreciate any comments and suggestions.

I write regularly for Handmadeology, a blog about all things handmade, and the blog is strongly connected to Etsy sellers. As I am trying to REALLY work at having a good holiday season this year, rather than letting it fly by me, I took all the advice I found in these sites!

It’s almost October, and if you’re an artist of handmade, you are gearing up for the holiday buying season. It seems early…but it isn’t. I thought it might be helpful to see what else others have written about the holiday shopping season. I scoured Handmadeology to collect a set of articles relevant to holiday buying. Some good stuff in here!

Preparation H – H is for “Holidays!”  Packing materials, your mail carrier/s, feeding your family – all things to keep in mind as you get very busy and start to run out of time.

The Holiday Rush Etsy Marketing Formula – this is a free 5-day course. I just read through Day 1, and even though I consider myself pretty savvy about online marketing, there are definitely a couple of things I can do to improve visibility. I’m headed out to look at Digg and Kaboodle today.

25 Things to Do on Your Lunch Break to Further Your Handmade Business – while not directly holidays, there are some good ideas for when we are pressed and thinking there is ot enough time. I really like this one: make lists of your key words – that definitely saves you from writer’s block when you are doing your descriptions.

Etsy Sellers Can’t Afford to Ignore Pinterest – true, true, true. I started pinning a month ago and have seen a definite increase both in traffic and sales. This is a really interesting stat: American users spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on Pinterest compared to Twitter at 36 minutes, LinkedIn at 17 minutes, and Google+ at 6 minutes. In terms of the holidays, set up a Pinterest account and start pinning your holiday items.

Your Blog Post Promotion Checklist – for those of you who write a regular blog, here are some great ideas for getting the most out of a post, plus a listing of additional articles on promoting your blog. One of the best tips? Comment on other blogs. I need to get back to doing this regularly. And….REPLY to every comment you get!

Promotesy: this is a new app from Handmadeology to help your organize and maximize your online presence for your Etsy shop. It’s easy to sign up for, and at $5.00 a month, it’s a deal. I’ve just started using it (as of yesterday), so I will keep you posted on how it’s working.

Three Steps to Freshen Up Your Etsy Shop and Be Found Again – wasn’t aware of the “Trending Now,” and this is definitely something I will be checking out.  Also, change some of your descriptions to match the coming holiday season…..good idea, and I’m off to do that!

As I’ve been doing the research for this post, I realize that even if we think we know a lot about marketing on line, there is always more to learn!! I’d love to hear your insights, so feel free to leave a comment: what’s been working for you?

So I am not a video gamer. Couldn’t even master Pac-Man, and I hurt my wrist trying Frogger. Plus, I hate the amount of violence in video games. This week I discovered an article about a gun-free video game. Who knew? Called the Unfinished Swan, it has lots of elements of art within it. Fascinating.

“Ian Dallas was a comedy writer who cut his teeth at the Yale Record, then The Onion, before moving into TV and working on Comedy Central’s Drawn Together. But his plan was always to make video games. So he went to grad school and created a prototype for an unusual game wherein players are confronted with a white void of a world to which they give form by splattering paint around to reveal the objects and environment around them. ”

I’m finally working through all the cool things from Cool Hunting. Here’s a neat item from Vermont: Battenkill Brittle, gluten-free energy bars, and they look yummy.

Here’s a wonder of the world a lot of people don’t know about: The amazing Bay of Fundy in time-lapse.

Have trouble with deciding what colors look good together? Check out Design Seeds – a collection of pictures that have identified the color palette within. Lots of inspiration here.

From Origami Joel comes another very interesting paper artist, Matt Shlian. Absolutely beautiful!

The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck – beautiful video from my friend Amethyst, who minored in the philosophy of science. It sounds like she did some incredibly interesting reading in those classes! I could take those classes now…..

This is an interesting blog from the Surface Design Association on feng shui for your studio. I need to reread this at lenght, and I also think I will investigate the books she mentions efore I look at repurposing the garage into a wet dye studio.

Jamie Ridler guides artists to authentic creative living. Here’s a post about learning from the Olympics that has some really good thoughts in it. Olympic Lessons for Non-Athletes – Or What I Learned from the Olympic Games.

If you are running a small business, hopefully you know about Handmadeology – an online collection of articles on all aspects of marketing. Some really great stuff here….and I say that even though I write a regular blog for them!

Finally, for all my math friends – Prime Number Patterns. I can SO see a bunch of quilts from this!!

Have a great week! Let me know what cool things you find on line.

I just did the following post for Handmadeology, as I am doing a series on niche marketing. And…in the 24 hours since it was completed, I have sold a basket and done a $100 order on Etsy. I can’t emphasize enough the need to plan ahead for this buying season. I was freaking out because I hadn’t done any planning, so I used the blog post as my think tank. It worked really well. Hopefully you will find some use for this post, and you can read the previous posts in niche marketing.

Marketing 101: Niche Markets Part 7

Can the Holidays Be Far Behind?

Part 1: Niche Markets

Part 2: What is your wackiest marketing idea?

Part 3:  Getting out there

Part 4:  Have you done your newsletter?

Part 5: Your Newsletter Revisited

Part 6: Packaging and Displays – Field Trip Time!

I am sitting here on September, nearly panicking because I don’t have my plans done for this coming holiday season. Actually, this is good, because for the last few years I have missed the holiday season completely. Teaching always got in the way, and the next thing I know, it’s a week after Cyber Monday. I am bound and determined not to let that happen this year.

I’m using this post to think through my plan, so you can see exactly where I’m going with ideas, and I sure hope you join in with additional ideas. As you read through these, you’ll probably notice these are basic marketing tasks, not just for a niche market.

* I need to set goals for this holiday shopping season, so I can start the actual planning.

– My newsletter will have specials each month with a holiday theme. The newsletter that went out last week advertised a new pattern for a table runner that would make an easy gift for     a  holiday hostess.

– The Etsy shop will be stocked to the brim with a variety of items: small quilts,   large quilts, patterns, pattern kits, marbled fabrics, ribbons, gift baskets. We are  up to almost 40 items at this point, with another 10 to be added in this weekend.

– I will sell at least 10 gift baskets of marbled fabric goodies (I aimed for 5 last year  and actually made it). I need to get supplies for these and begin the handcrafted bowls – perfect task for watching television at night.

– I will determine a nonprofit to receive a percentage of sales for this holiday  season. This involves looking locally, deciding on a percentage, before/after      shipping, and how to advertise this.

–  I will create a marketing plan that includes website, blog, Facebook business page, newsletter, personal email contacts, and anything else that comes to mind.

* Thoughts on actual marketing:

– I will determine coupon/discount specials for the newsletter, the FB page, and the Etsy store for each month, starting now.

– I will create long-term coupons to go in all mailings and gift baskets.

– I will sketch out what needs to be accomplished during each month, prior to Thanksgiving Black Friday.

– I will continue to create product for the Etsy store so that I do not run out before the beginning of December.

– I will check for all packaging/mailing supplies and stock up during sales.

– I will investigate the new Promotesy as a way of increasing my visibility during the holiday season by connecting all my social media profiles together. Certainly  the price is right, and I want to track how it does for me in bringing more traffic to my store.

* Each month:

– September: clothesline for fabric bowls, create at least 3; marble fabric for gift    baskets; complete Etsy inventory for this month; start listing what still needs to be marbled for other goodies; newsletter special.

– October: three new fabric bowls; check on nonprofit and determine accounting   for discounts; marbling for new products; new pattern up on Etsy; newsletter  special.

– November: plan for Black Friday and Cyber Monday; three more fabric bowls; marbling new fabric; new pattern up on Etsy; newsletter specials and reminders about Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales; determine last day to ship in December to be sure items arrive.

– December: last sale newsletters; last fabric bowls; complete last-minute marbling; last shipments.

So that’s thoughts to get us started. I would love to hear what you would like to add to these ideas. I’ll share everything that comes in, and let’s keep each other on track for a good holiday season!

This week I have two projects to finish, only one of which involves any marketing. The first is to finish a UFO from three years ago – my forest quilt. I’m practicing a lot of patterns learned in the free motion quilting challenge. The quilt is looking amazing – only a few boo-boos that I’m willing to worry over, but oh, the feathers on the border….yummy! They are taking a while, but it is so worth it! Maybe pictures by Wednesday…..

The marketing piece is to do final revisions on my table topper pattern – had great samples made, so I’m really excited about releasing the pattern. Mostly I need to make the pattern less wordy and more organized. But that needs to be done this week so it can be included in the next newsletter for next week, as well as my marketing plan for the holidays. Yes, I’m bound and determined not to miss the holiday season for shopping this year. Hubby has been learning the ins and outs of Etsy, so he is busy restocking the shelves. We have some GREAT fabric pieces in the store.

Readers know I have a number of places I do business on line, from Facebook, eBay, Etsy, and our website. Hubby has handled the time effort in eBay for the last 8 years, and now he is picking up Etsy. Alyson Stanfield had yet another good post on analyzing the time you spend – or need to spend –  setting up your online outlets. I will say the work gets easier the longer you are at it and set up systems for posting items. Our first two weeks of posting for eBay took close to four hours for six items. Same for Etsy when we first started. You have to be willing to spend the time, have the inventory, and write good descriptions to go along with good pictures. That’s several hours a week you need to spend – or in our case, hubby needs to spend. I write up the more unusual Etsy offerings, like the small table toppers, ribbons, and the like. You also need to add in the time to post items on Facebook, tweet them, and now use Pinterest.

A lot of us are online because we are convinced it is the way to do business. For us, online didn’t cost anything beyond our time. No stores, just free sites. As long as we were willing to invest the marketing time, we were able to get these venues to work for us. We also knew the art/craft show wasn’t the route for us, being such a niche market. But…and a very big but….you can’t put stuff up and expect it will sell if you don’t do anything more than just listing items. I did drop Tophatter from my venues for three reasons: one, not really selling anything, even in the “fabric and textiles” auction; two, a HUGE time commitment, as you want to be present at the auctions to promote your item; and three, I’m not willing to be burned by uncivil people (blog post here). These are decisions you need to make, and I like how Alyson’s guest blogger spelled things out for accounting. Our business has always been the two of us. Hubby is primary marbler, I’m the designer. I handle most of Photoshop, he does accounting, eBay, and Etsy listings. Retirement has made it easier to spend more time on what we love, as I am not exhausted from the school day.

If you’re not familiar with Handmadeology, I have done (and continue to do)  a series of posts on marketing your niche market. You can find them here, plus there are loads of great articles about running your business that are well worth your time.

Part 1: Niche Markets

Part 2: What is your wackiest marketing idea?

Part 3:  Getting out there

Part 4:  Have you done your newsletter?

Part 5: Your Newsletter Revisited

Have a great marketing week!

Here’s a look at what’s coming on the Handmadeology blog, of which I am a regular correspondent. I’m focusing in on niche markets, since a lot of us have unusual things we sell, items that don’t seem to fall into a general marketing category.

You can see the first two posts on Niche Markets here and here.

And here’s this week’s post:

Marketing 101: Niche Markets 3 – Getting  Out There

Just what does that mean? We’re talking about marketing your products without spending money. In Part 1 you looked at other uses for your unusual product, and a lot of you had really good ideas. In Part 2 last week I asked for unusual marketing ideas you’ve tried.

And poof, just like that, the conversation went dead.  In fact, I found myself short on ideas. It seems if we have a store front, it’s a lot easier to come up with ideas. Rachel from Rayela Art talked about literally stopping traffic with a belly dancer in the window of her shop. Michelle of SHELs Unlimited does yard sales on a regular basis and includes a drawing for a chance at a coupon in her store.

Belly dancers certainly work with a store front, but now they have no storefront and have moved into the realm of social media.  Michelle is looking to do something more unusual. And I pondered for several days, trying to figure out how I could help you all jump-start some ideas.

Did you see this new headline on Handmadeology? “May 2012 Etsy Stats – 1.29 Billion Page Views and $65.9 Million in Goods Sold.” Pretty impressive, and we all need a piece of that pie. So let’s get brainstorming ideas to market ourselves.

This presupposes you all have Etsy shops, but even if you don’t, these ideas can work for you.

1. Get your profile up on LinkedIn . It takes some time, but it doesn’t cost anything. Then you can include that in all your email addresses, business cards, and the like. It makes you look a lot more professional at your art. I know a lot of “gurus” suggest your profile picture be actually of you, but hey, I’m different. I have a piece of my art as my profile picture, and I keep the same one across social media platforms. Once I had my profile up, I began to look for groups to join within LinkedIn. I hooked up with presenting some potential marbling classes, and participating in an unjuried show last fall, just to name two opportunities from LinkedIn. Take the time to do this.

2. See what professional groups have blogs and discussion groups on line. Have you done any searches? Many have restrictions about outright marketing, but you can have a tag line at the end of each of your posts. Start a dialogue, ask questions, follow potential ideas you see, comment thoughtfully on other posts. Yahoo has a marblers group we belong to. We are not only up-to-date with what’s happening in the field, we also learn of new supplies, who’s having issues, new ways of trying marbling techniques, and just in general having a way to stay in touch with other professionals.

3. Get more pictures. Use your own living space and think about how else your product could be used. Can you hang it on the wall? Take a picture. Can you wear it? Take a picture.  Can it be part of some other product? Take Pictures!!!

4. Start some partnerships with whom you can trade supplies Who’s your supplier? Would they like to have a sample of what you do with their product? Could you do a demo or teach a class for them? In fact, where do you buy your supplies? Do you follow them on Facebook? Do they have a website? Do this for all the suppliers you use. We met a batik artist when we did an art show in the Seattle area. We traded fabrics to see if we could marble over batik, and if she could batik over marbling. You could have another by-product you can sell.

5. Get noticed on line. Dharma Trading likes to spotlight folks who use their products. ArtsyShark has a call a couple of time a year to spotlight artists on their weekly blog. If you have an Etsy shop, is one of your available pictures what your product would look like in something else or in the home?

6. Start reading business blogs. Now, there are a LOT of business blogs out there. Are you reading Handmadeology, primarily focused on Etsy? (Hint: your answer should be “yes.”) Check out Alyson Stanfield (ArtBizBlog) and Tara Reed (ArtLicensingBlog) – always insightful and full of good ideas.

7. Schedule time for marketing each week. You need to find a balance between marketing and make product. Set aside one day a week, even just a couple of hours, and read blogs, respond, look for opportunities, follow through on new ideas. It takes a while, but it does pay off.

If you remember your high school algebra, one of the basic functions of life is exponential; something starts very small and over time begins to accelerate faster and faster. That’s what you want with your marketing, so start thinking and doing!

Leave me comments – I want to know what you’re currently doing, what you’ve already tried and with what success, and what you’re thinking about. Let’s share the wealth of ideas each week.

Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks it’s been – and that’s a good kind of crazy! A bunch of marketing items came together over this last month, and the marbling tray has been busy creating customized fabrics.

First, the tutorial and giveaway for SewCalGal’s Fun Friday Giveaway broke on May 18, and we are still seeing comments, newsletter sign-ups, and orders from the tutorial. In case you missed the post, you can see it here. If you want it direct to your box with all the pictures and links, please leave a comment on the post and I’ll get it emailed to you. One of the participants in the Free Motion Challenge, Jenny Lyon, sent her finished piece of marbled fabric. It is absolutely amazing! Jenny has given this such a lovely rich feel. You can read her blog post about the quilting here.

I am now a weekly correspondent for the blog Handmadeology, and last week’s post was the beginning of a series of marketing for niche markets. You can read it here. This looks like it will be a lot of fun and be of some use to those folks who have very specialized markets. Already a lot of good comments on the post.

I’ve started selling on Tophatter. I know, there are a bunch of places I’m trying to be on line, and it is obvious to me I have to determine which ones work best for me and concentrate efforts on those. So Zazzle is going to be out, and potentially Cafe Press. But I’m selling on Tophatter – just trying to get listed in decent auctions and not having to be on Standby all the time. But if I stay with it, I should be in good position for the holiday buying season. There is SO MUCH jewelry in the auctions. It would seem to make sense to list the fabric in “supplies,” but what is already there is pretty much supplies for jewelry. Well, the site is still relatively new, so we’ll see how it works.

I’ve made my second month of getting a newsletter out. It was a major loose end for all of the first quarter, but now I seem to be on a roll. There was a bit of a learning curve using Mail Chimp, but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. You can sign up to get the newsletter “Out of the Marbling Tray” in the upper right hand corner of the blog.

The Facebook page is having more activity, thanks to the tutorial, and I am making regular comments on it. It is so much fun to connect people with the joy and beauty of marbled fabrics.

And…a couple of deadlines have passed, and now I am looking at my list of projects for the year, determining which one to do next. After 100 dollars in entry fees, and two rejections since March, I’m not sure the entry circuit is going to be for me. I had decided to try again, since my work has really improved, but still no luck. One more show to hear from by mid month. We’ll see……Going to be a busy month, and the lists are working out well. Plus, time for some fun!