Successful marketing strategies

A quick business related post to give you food for thought today, this time on effective marketing according to the Fournaise Marketing Group. The study looked at low and high GDP growth countries, but for the purpose of this blog entry I will give you the low GDP growth country information only, which applies to North America, the UK and Australia.

So here’s the top 10, draw from this what you will, hopefully it will give you a few pointers on how to develop your craft business marketing strategies next!

1) Direct Marketing – Newsletters and targeted mail outs. I would probably include samples for craft fair goody bags here as I would argue that you are specifically targetting the craft buying market. These are postal only results, not e-mail- we’ll get to that later.

2) Public Relations – Keep your customers happy for repeat purchases!

3) Newspapers – Perhaps not the most relevant, but if youcan get a product in the newspaper for review in a Saturday/Sunday supplement that would set you off to the big time. On a smaller scale think getting a feature in your local paper about your business.

4) Online E-mails – E-mail newsletters.

5) Online Paid Search Ads – Stuff like Facebook ads and Google Adwords.

6) Online referrals – Think link swaps, blog posts etc.

7) Online Display Ads – Adverts on other sites such as Project Wonderful.

8) TV – Not a hope in hell with this one for crafters really!

9) Online Rich Media – YouTube videos, podcasts…

10) Outdoor – Not that I expect you to be able to pay for billboard adverts, but maybe the odd car sticker may work!

As we’re now in 2009, things have probably moved on a little, I would imagine that online methods are becoming more trusted and clickable as people become less fearful of the Internet and E-commerce is growing and growing. For online shop owners and those with Etsy shops for instance, this is probably very welcome news!

Oh and here’s a picture of me at said successful craft fair as per my last post- my stall came together quite effectively in the end!

Advertisement

My 100th post!

Today is my 100th blog post! Unfortunately it’s going to be a small one since I spent all day cleaning and so don’t have much to talk about. I did however get my free tote bag through the post from Made It Sell It (MISI) http://www.misi.me.uk which I plan on using for craft fairs and the like! It also reminded me to list another item on there today. I’ve neglected it a bit in favour of Folksy and Etsy, but I think if I put something new on every so often it should pay off. Despite being a new handmade site (literally weeks old), several sales have been made already, which is promising, and the admin team are friendly and helpful! The first 40 buyers and 40 sellers registered get a free bag (it’s pretty!), so give it a whirl 😉

This is my shop: http://www.misi.me.uk/store_info.php?user_id=151

And here are some of my favourite things for sale on there so far!

  

 

Don’t forget to enter the November giveaway here: https://pennydog.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/november-giveaway/

I am taking part in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), so I will be blogging every day in November. Today is post 7 (a week has passed woohoo!) http://www.nablopomo.com/