A Marketing Plan for Your Craft Business
James Dillehay
Do you have a marketing plan for your craft business? I am not speaking of a business plan, which is a more formal lengthy manuscript used mostly when attempting to raise money from lenders or investors. Instead of a multi-page document, the marketing plan consists of seven sentences which guide your progress in the coming months and years. The seven sentence plan can be drafted on one or two pages.
1. What is your most desired result to be achieved from your marketing activities?
The first part of creating a marketing plan is envisioning what you want the success of your craft business to look and feel like. Start by writing down exactly what you want your craft business to accomplish and by when. If you want $5,000 in sales each month within the next six months, write that down. If you want to get 20 items listed on eBay in the next sixty days, that’s a target. Go ahead and make that list right now.
2. What benefits does your work provide?
The second step is to list the benefits of your art or craft. What do people get by purchasing what you offer? Be careful not to focus on the features of your products. Features differ from benefits. For example, feautures of art and craftwork include dimensions, weight, colors or materials. Benefits to the buyer include escalating value, gratification, confidence, pride, good taste, and satisfaction from owning an original work by a reputable artist. Get specific and write down what makes the benefits of your items unique or different from other artists. What makes your items stand out? What’s in it for the customer? The more benefits the better.
3. Who is your audience?
If you think it’s everyone, guess again. Even if everyone is a potential customer, you can’t possibly reach them all. The purpose of step three is to zero in on your target audiences, thus allowing you to carefully plan how to promote to their specific needs. Experienced artists selling their work already know that women are responsible for most purchases of handmade items. Creating marketing material that appeals to women then becomes a clear necessity. Get as specific as you can about identifying who is your most-likely-to-buy audience(s). Define them by age, sex, race, income, hobbies, purchasing habits, and any other demographic fact that helps you describe them completely.
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