Promoting Yourself

Shop Talk
1

Hello,

I am new to Folksy but not new to promotions and selling for others, now my time has come and I am trying to promote myself in all of the usual social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. which are good for building relationships and potentially exposing oneself to a wider audience and hopefully customers who will buy our stuff.

But what about when you are not online and you are in front of people looking to buy your stuff at craft shows, craft fairs, markets, etc. What do you do to keep them interested in your stuff after they walk away and probably will not engage with you again - unless you give them a reason to come back and have another look at you.

You could give them a sample of your work but that becomes expensive and if it is free then in my opinion it has no value…!

I have just taken delivery of a small handout brochure which I designed to give away. It is an A5 that folds to A6 so it can be put in a pocket and is less likely to be thrown away.

The front is a picture of me and the back is about me and my contact details. The inside is a mini catalogue of some of my products that I want to sell with a price point to give it value.

This is my silent sales pitch and reminder to a potential customer to come back and buy from me again even after they have gone home and it gives them the opportunity to contact me.

Total cost about £40 for 250 copies - a small investment to see if it works… you might like to give it a try yourself and let us all know how it works for you.

Peter Bowen

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6 Likes
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Thanks for sharing, love the idea x

3

This is a great idea Peter.

4

Fantastic idea. I was thinking about adding a 10% off your next order card with a code, as something to keep people coming back.
Maybe sending them out with online orders and using them at markets. Possibly a free gift with every purchase when out at markets, but that could be costly, even small pieces take a lot of time. But still, people love a freebie and might convince somebody on the fence to buy.

1 Like
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That’s a great idea. I do something similar with orders, and basically replace the packaging slip with some info, a discount and a space to write the customer a little note. I make them myself currently but would love to do something more professional.

6

I thought I would provide an update one year later… now May 2020.

The little brochures I made and gave out to prospects at craft fairs and markets last year did not result in any further sales and I did a lot of markets standing in the cold and rain and wind…!

I did make direct sales with face to face buyers at markets and craft fairs and tried to capture customer details like email etc and found that in general people don’t want to give their details because they don’t want to be bothered by you again.

So it is difficult to find the right balance to firstly get yourself noticed, then do prospective buyers want or need your stuff and then get them to part with their cash…!

I started doing some local magazine advertising with a very limited budget over a 3 month period leading up to Christmas just to see what would happen and I ended up spending a lot of cash and getting no results even when I offered a discount (which I hate doing because, in my opinion, it devalues your product) and offering free p&p and getting no sales.

I took a long hard look at what I was doing and trying to sell and found what I think is the optimum selling price which includes free p&p worldwide and it is starting to work. In 2020 have made sales in US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

In May 2020 I have almost made the same volume of sales that I did in the whole of 2019.

I am capturing customer details, email, phone, address and while I have not made any repeat sales to those customers I am building a good database of known customers who I can market to again when I launch my new products.

How have I done this?

You have to spread yourself over as many different sales platforms as you can; Etsy, eBay, Amazon, etc., take some good product photos of each piece you are selling from different angles and close up to show details, textures etc., and paramount to all of this is to describe your product in as much detail as you possibly can so that the potential buyer wants your product.

The price point has to be attractive considering the amount of work and time you spend to produce your product don’t sell too cheaply otherwise it will seem cheap, too expensive and it will not sell - the key is trying to find the right price and include the postage, the last thing a buyer of online stuff wants is a big postage cost so you will have to factor that into your product price, but saying that the price of your product includes free shipping is better than discounting your product, no one really cares if it is 10% discount - that means nothing, but free postage, in my opinion there is the key…!

OK you might not make as much selling outside of the UK but (in my opinion) a sale is a sale and I am still making a small margin if it costs me more to post.

Well I hope this helps you to sell more of your stuff…!

Peter Bowen

https://folksy.com/shops/PeterBowen

Peter

2 Likes
7

Some good tips here, I agree with the marketing things that often you can spend a lot and you don’t see much from it.
I do have a question when you mention capturing customer details- as far as I’m aware, unless they have specifically signed up to be contacted by you again after a purchase (a newsletter, etc) then under GDPR you cannot just contact people again without their express permission?

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I think that is correct @SulikoSoul …we are not allowed to hold onto information.
For myself, I print off copies of some of my paintings…on cheap pc paper, .in wallet size and put my shop details on the back…then I laminate them and give them to people…costs a lot less that paying a printer for fliers …I always carry a few with me and give them to people when we chat.