In the recent poll here on Crafting an MBA, the number one area people wanted more help in is marketing and PR. But less people noted that they needed help with sales. This makes me wonder, is the goal of marketing just to get someone to look at your work, or are you doing everything possible to get someone to buy?
I mean, its nice to have increased page views and people telling you they love your work, but you can’t pay the mortgage with page views and complements. At some point, you want to convert those eyeballs into sales.
I recently read Inbound Marketing
The first was an emphasis on creating remarkable content. The premise is that if you create content that is useful and interesting to people, they will find you. The second was the authors’ focus on sales in the latter half of the book. They were basically saying, its great to bring in viewers, but at some point you need to get them to buy something to stay in business.
So my question to you is, if all your marketing efforts paid off – if you suddenly got a huge boost in traffic, or some great press, would you be ready? Are you giving your customers a compelling reason to buy? Are you giving them all the information they need about your products? Are you capturing emails to help build future sales? Or are you so worried about bringing in new viewers that you aren’t capitalizing on the ones you already have?
right on [again]! i think people spend so much time trying to get their name seen that they don’t take time to look at their website, content, or even their product! which, in turn, leads to a lot of people pointing fingers at bloggers, etsy admin, and shop owners because they feature the same people over and over again or just don’t take notice
i think more often than not, they do take notice. and then they promptly forget because the goods, the design, the product information just isn’t memorable.
now, i’m the first to say that your online home should always be a work in progress. but if your shop or website isn’t ready for visitors to kick off their shoes and stay a while, don’t spend all your time sending out the invites!
Sounds like another good book Megan! I will definitely pick one up. You’ve got a point there when you ask if we are ready for all those eyeballs to turn into sales! That is our dilemma right now!
A little background on “us”. My mom and I have a unique mother-daughter business relationship as my mom lives in my hometown in Finnish Lapland and I live in the U.S. Mom has been making Raku art in her little studio in Lapland since 2001. Her Raku was gaining popularity in Finland little by little, when, about 2 ½ years ago, she was contacted by the photo editor of the National Geographic Traveler magazine. They wanted to feature her Koivu vase in the magazine and interview her. That is when I stepped in, because my mom does not speak English very well. I facilitated the interview via e-mail and the story was published in the September 2008 magazine. That kicked things off and we set up an Etsy shop for her. I became the “PR & International Sales Manager” by accident and have been scrambling for information online since then. I can’t tell you how thankful I’m for this blog, because it answers all the questions I have been asking!
I always knew my mom’s Raku art would be successful, if it was marketed the right way. However, the more I learn about everything, the more I realize that we are still at the beginning of our journey! We have SO much to learn!!! Naturally, the geographical distance is a big challenge for us, because I can’t physically see her inventory, for one. Speaking of inventory, that is what I worry about. She has many types of pieces that she can make, but there is only one of her, so we are coming to the conclusion that she should just focus on one line of products, so that she can build her inventory and be ready when those big sales start coming (hopefully!)
So, thanks for asking if we are ready when all of our marketing efforts turn into sales. We certainly could be better prepared! It is funny, how much focus and effort is put into marketing, but not so much how to prepare for the big sales, which, in my mom case, would mean having enough inventory available, have line sheets (!), have knowledge of how to fill out the proper customs forms (mom is getting trained on them now) and just how to be properly organized for the big sales.
I guess more often than not with small business, success surprises you when you are not ready. Somehow, we have been keeping up. With this blog as a great resource and all the good books you have already recommended, I think we will be much better off in the future. Thank you for that!
I’ve been in the position of not being ready for an influx of customers, twice, and while it was amazing for sales, it was very frustrating in terms of the customer service I was (or wasn’t) able to provide. Custom orders that were listed on my website as taking 2-3 weeks to complete, ended up taking several months, because of the backup.
The first time this happened, I was written up on Boing Boing, with no heads up, I had never even heard of the site until the orders started coming in. I was still pretty new to the business, and had a big craft show that weekend, so I had a lot of stock, but it wasn’t on the site yet. So I spent hours uploading everything while my site was being hammered by visitors.
The second time, I got a few hours heads up before NPR aired a story on me, so I had some lead time to upload all the finished purses I had been too lazy to upload after my last big show.
It just goes to show, you never know when some big press will come your way, so keep your shop stocked! I’m still guilty of this, my shop is mostly empty because I’m prepping for a big show, and it stresses me out.
I’m backing off of major marketing until I get my website sorted, there’s something wrong with it and if I had a major jump in traffic, it would be completely wasted.
As always, really interesting questions being asked.
There’s a saying that goes something like, “Luck is where opportunity meets preparation,” and it’s been the guiding light in my sales/marketing efforts in the past six months.
I really took time to plan my label’s marketing strategies and am implementing them now – including purchasing advertising, print and online features etc. But I didn’t feel comfortable doing so until I had all my (well, most anyway) inventory, customer service, packaging and production ducks in a row.
Otherwise, when ‘luck’ happened and I did score a feature in a magazine or newspaper, I wouldn’t be able to capitalise on that opportunity and it would be a case of bad luck or poor timing. No good.
Really loving this blog too – so much fabulous information for crafters/makers/designers of all stages in their business journey. So thank you!
Great food for thought! I’ve come to the realization that the audience that I already have at my blog is just waiting for me to make something that THEY can buy (patterns, instead of a finished product), so I’ve got to stop looking for more blog readers until I deliver the goods to the audience I already have!
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I agree completely. Even though we are online there still is no substitute for the fundamentals of business. Identify a market, create a product for that market, bring the product to the market and then finally SELL it !
It is a fact that obtaining a new customer is far more expensive than keeping one. Why would you go to such expense to obtain them if you didn’t intend to close the deal?
I had several brick and mortar stores and had the same problem. I’d spend alot of money to get a customer in only to not make a sale because of unskilled sales help or even worse unresponsive salesman.
The photos and product information are your sales persons. Its very possible that they are not doing the job or are just ineffective… If that’s the case, its time to kick them to the curb or you won’t be in business much longer.
With generally a sales force of one, YOU, you have to make your photos and descriptions do the work for you. Done right, your product can sell itself when you find yourself handcuffed with one of the other 100 duties of a online entrepreneur.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the article! I know that if I were to get a huge influx of purchases, it would wipe me out for the upcoming craft shows I have, but at the same time, I welcome that because I need to move product – esp the winter hats that won’t sell at my shows in April. I would love to be on that end of the marketing problem more often, where I have more traffic than I can keep up with, rather than spending hours trying to drive more traffic to my site in an effort to increase online sales.
I am ALL about the sales and have no problem selling. I love making my products, but this isn’t a hobby for me, it’s my full time 50-60+ hours a week job and it’d be nice to get regular sales. After all, I would like to help my husband pay the bills and other personal expenses. I make my best sales in person at craft shows because: 1) I’m an excellent salesperson of things I love, 2) I know everything about my product, and 3) people can try my hats on right there. However, I’ve frozen my butt off too many times at craft shows to want to do them all the time. (I don’t mind the Texas heat as much as the cold – a hand fan cools me off but I have no portable heating device when it’s 40 degrees out and I’m just standing there for 6 hours!) So one of my goals for 2010 has been to increase online sales.
Anyway, does this book suggest the best ways for crafters to market beyond just Tweeting, Facebook posts, and blogging? I’m doing all those but they don’t seem to increase sales. On the other hand, I was interviewed for a local magazine recently and had three paragraphs about me in the article, and the day *before* I got my copy of the magazine I had made a sale from that article! Now THAT’s marketing – and it was free and didn’t take any of my time!
I’m also trying to market to European ladies because they wear hats much more often and are less afraid of bold hats than American women. I’ve been able to sell quite a few hats to local women who swore they weren’t hat people… until I found a great hat for them. And I sell to a lot of cancer patients, which is wonderful to be able to help them physically and emotionally. But I have yet to break into the larger market of hat wearers.
Any suggestions would be wonderful. In the meantime, I’ll have to check out that book to see what they say.
Thanks!
Ginger
Ginger – while the book focuses on blogging and social media, what it really does is help you create compelling content within social media. even if you’re familiar with the nuts and bolts of using blogs, twitter, facebook, etc – i think there’s still a lot you can learn from it.
thank you for the tips and the book recommendation – it sounds like something I would certainly benefit from. I especially agree with your last sentence. We have to remember to market to the contacts/customers we’ve already gotten. It is so much easier to sell to someone that has already bought than to get a brand new customer. that being said – do you have a recommendation for keeping your contacts/customers organized? I have my email contact list for retail customers, an excel spreadsheet for potential wholesale customers and then quickbooks for current customers. sometimes I wonder if there is a better way. thanks again – I am loving your blog and looking forward to the book club.