Finally, it's time to get out those folders full of your competitors' information.
Then, go back to that website with the SWOT instructions and chart, and do a SWOT analysis on each of your competitors.
Once you're done, look them over alongside the analysis of your own company and start a list of ideas that will allow you to gain the advantage over your competition.
The column below is from Lynn Switanowski of the Creative Business Consulting Group. Lynn will be presenting "The Color of Money: Green Marketing" at the Buyers Market this summer.
There are lots of valuable suggestions here for both artists and retailers.
Marketing Efforts To Recession Proof Your Business
Whether we are "officially" in a recession or not, every business out there is feeling the effects of this sluggish economy. No matter what products you sell, or services you deliver, as consumers get more concerned about the future, there can and will be some potential side effects for your business. CBCG offers our top 5 (plus 1 we couldn't leave out) tips to help you weather the stormy days. Tips that can and will help your business - and you - stay ahead of the survival curve!
1. Research and Reach Out to Your Customers- Again- And Again! Now is NOT the time to hunker down and hide when it comes to marketing for your business. Now is the time you need to know more than ever how your consumers are feeling, what they are doing, and what they see as value in your products or services. In today's economy, consumers are more willing to postpone purchases, trade down, or buy less. Your job is to research your customers; understand throughly who they are, if their needs and wants and needs have changed, and then to deliver just what they are looking for when they walk in the door.
2. Maintain Marketing Spending. Spending Enables Surviving! This is not the time to cut advertising. It is well documented that successful brands are known to increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back. The affects of this additional spending can not only show on the balance sheet, but spending today can and will improve market share and customer loyalty for years to come. Uncertain consumers need the reassurance of brands- and businesses-during troubled times. If you have to cut marketing spending, try to maintain the frequency of advertisements at all costs. Shifting the size of the ads you run, the length of any radio or tv spots you may choose, or shift from media to direct mail, but for goodness sakes, don't stop!
3. Market to Heart- Drive Messages That Your Customers Care About. Think Family, Friends, and Fun Type Campaigns! When economic hard times loom, consumers look for signs of old and seek the creature comforts of an easier time. To capitalize on this trend, focus the marketing campaigns you run and the images you choose for your ads to reflect this time. Look for family scenes, home and hearth images to replace hard charging aggresive images.
4. Product Rules Mightier Than Ever- Especially In Money Challenged Times! It's is imperative that during challenging economic times, retailers carefully evaluate EVERY item they carry. Matching proper inventory levels, selling cylces, color trends and pricing are all critical factors in assuring retailers don't spend too much (or more than absolutely necessary) to drive the optimum sales in the store. If you haven't focused on classification planning and strategic inventory management for your business yet, now would be the perfect time to do so. Every minute you spend on inventory planning will come back to you in cost savings and better inventory turnover down the road.
Bonus: When shopping for new merchandise, spend at least 10% of your open to buy on new and exciting products for your store every season. Have your store be the destination in town where customers can find the new, unique or fun items to make them smile and take away the "pains" of the day.
5. Review, Refresh and Re-price- If Appropriate. Customers will be shopping around for the best deals. You do not necessarily have to cut list prices but where appropriate, plan exceptional events featuring key price promotions that will attract attention and drive sales. Make the events unique and for a short time period to drive customer urgency! Focus on coupons in your advertising offering dollar discounts that customers have to bring in to redeem.
5 plus 1. Stress Market Share. Many retailers are so focused on their own business challenges, they forget to consistently review their competition. Big Mistake! Good retailers understand that they are in a battle for market share and, in some cases, survival. With fewer customers spending fewer dollars at retail, every dollar is harder to get. If your local competition- or the web retailer across the world - is doing things better than you, and your customers find out about it before you do, that can and will spell big trouble for your business. How to avoid this potential pitfall? Focus on what you do well, do it to the best of your ability, but understand what your competitors do well and make it a constant focus for you to try and accquire the customers they have by doing what you do even better.
We're not quite ready yet to pull out those folders with your competitors' information in them, but tackling that project was an important first step in providing you with knowledge to better prepare you to perform a SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) Analysis on your own company.
If you've been to business school, go ahead and proceed with your analysis. The other 99% of you should visit this website for a primer on conducting a SWOT Analysis, along with a free worksheet. Once you're finished, set your completed worksheet aside, right next to that folder.
This is really a multi-part project, but each step shouldn't take more than 15 minutes.
Identify your competition -- who are your top three competitors? If you don't know, add an additional 15 minutes to this project and FIND OUT.
Once you've identified the enemies, your mission is to learn as much about them as you can. Google their company name. Google the artist name. Google their phone number. Visit their website. Find out their prices, where they are advertising, what stores their work is in, what shows they exhibit at, what they're doing that you're not, how they make their work... everything you can.
Make a folder for each of your competitors and put all this information in it. We'll open them up again next week.
Include a “Call to Action”
First, determine the goal for your mailing: Is it orders? Getting buyers to your booth? Collecting information from buyers?
Once you’ve decided on a goal, you can then develop an appropriate call to action:
A call to action is a VITAL aspect of your mail piece. Without it, it is impossible to measure the success of your mailing.
Don’t forget the details
Your mailer should always include the following:
- Company Name
- Booth Number
- Show name, dates and location
- Your phone number
- Your email address & website
Ensure your piece is mailable
If you are sending postcards, be sure the mailer side has a sufficient amount of white space to affix a 2 5/8” label. Leave at least the entire right half completely blank – postal regulations require no text, graphics or color.
Manage your expectations
Even with daily work on updating and maintaining lists of active and prospective buyers, you can count on a certain number of returned or undeliverable pieces (these will only come back to you if you include your return address).
The average response rate for a direct mail campaign is 1-3 percent. If you send out 1,000 pieces, you should expect to see 10-30 responses if you include an appropriate call to action (if you don’t have a call to action, you’ll never know if you’re getting a response).
This week's 15-minute project probably won't even take 15 minutes, but you should commit to doing it everyday.
Right now, make a comment on any one of this blog's posts. Be sure your comment includes your URL (for your website, your blog or both), either in the body or as a link attached to your signature (this is automatic on some blogs). Then tomorrow, do the same thing on another blog. The next day, do it again. And so on.
Continue, and watch the traffic to your website grow.
You're a hard-working artist, just trying to make a living in a challenging economy. You would never tolerate waste. At the same time, you might not consider yourself a tree-hugger. You're all for doing what's right for the environment, but is there a way to do it that's also right for your business?
Find out by reading this month's Market Insider.
Applications are now being accepted for the 2009 NICHE Awards, celebrating excellence and innovation in American and Canadian craft. Winners are announced at a special ceremony during the February Buyers Market of American Craft in Philadelphia.
Professional entries are due August 30; student deadline is Sept. 30.
Click here to see past winners and download an application.
I'll try to post one of these a week -- a very quick marketing project that can be done in 15 or 30 minutes.
This week:
Write hand-written thank you notes to your top three wholesale accounts, letting them know how grateful you are for their partnership with you. No selling, no enclosing show brochures, no mention of new products allowed... just a simple note of thanks.
NEWS FROM THE BUYERS MARKET:
Buyers Market of American Craft partners with TS2
Exhibitors to benefit from complimentary educational programming, access to tradeshow
BALTIMORE, Md. (May 6, 2008) – The Buyers Market of American Craft, the nation’s largest wholesale tradeshow for products handmade in the United States and Canada, will partner with TS2, the premier conference and expo for exhibit and event marketing professionals.
Buyers Market exhibitors will be able to take advantage of a free two-day (Wednesday-Thursday) conference registration to TS2, taking place July 28-31 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. Exhibitors will also be able to access the expo floor at no charge. Package value is $675.
Among the sessions Buyers Market exhibitors will be able to choose from:
· Leading with Questions: The Ultimate Key to Successful Trade Show Sales
· Many Happy Returns: Getting the Highest Return on Your Trade Show Spend
· Lose Weight (in Your Booth): Creative Ways to Exhibit Light
· How to Develop and Manage a Budget for Success
· Trade Show Espionage: What Every Exhibitor Needs to Know About the Spies Among Us
· Driving a Consistent Brand Image from Start to Finish
· Marketing 101
· Strategies to Get Maximum Trade Show PR
· Big Impact with Small Booths and Small Budgets
“TS2’s co-location in Philadelphia presented an unparalleled opportunity for our exhibitors to learn how to more effectively leverage their tradeshow participation into greater profits,” says Christine Kloostra, Show Director of the Buyers Market. “Conferences like this are often not affordable for the types of small businesses that exhibit at the Buyers Market, so we’re particularly excited to be offering these sessions at no charge to our exhibitors.”
The Philadelphia Buyers Market of American Craft takes place August 2-4 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It attracts thousands of retail gift shops, museum stores and galleries that sell fine handcrafted jewelry, glass art, furniture, ceramics, art made from recycled goods and more.
For more information on the Buyers Market of American Craft, visit www.americancraft.com. For more information on TS2, visit www.ts2show.com.
Earth Day is this Saturday... and the green movement is all the rage.
Here at the Buyers Market, we're taking baby steps, but trying to move forward.
We've recycled in our office for several years, and will introduce recycling bins at the show this summer. Last summer, we initiated a plan to put our exhibitor kits online with some success, but had to revert to mailing paper kits for February. We'll make another go of returning to online kits this summer in a manner that works better for our exhibitors AND reduces the amount of paper we produce and send out.
What steps have you taken in the past year to make your business more environmentally-friendly? Can you share these actions with your stores and galleries so they can pass the information onto their customers?
It's just a few weeks until one of the year's gift-giving holidays - Mother's Day. If you've got gift-appropriate items in stock, now is a great time to call or email your galleries to see if they need anything.
The April Market Insider is now posted at www.americancraft.com -- this month's issue provides an in-depth look at how emerging artists can move their business forward.
At least twice in the past week, an artist told me "But, I don't have any galleries" in response to suggestion that they send a promotional mailing.
If you're brand-new to wholesale, you may not have any stores or galleries that are selling your work, but that's no excuse not to have a mailing list.
Some tips on building a mailing list from nothing:
- Google artists who have work that you consider complimentary to yours (type, price point, etc.). Often, artists will list their retailers on their website, with ADDRESSES.
- Add the stores and galleries in your local area that might be appropriate for your work
- Visit the websites of appropriate membership organizations, such as the Craft Retailers' Association for Tomorrow, Museum Store Association, the Retail Jewelers' Organization, the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers (really!). Many of these associations will list their members' store locations.
We're putting the finishing touches on the November edition of Market Insider (to be posted very soon), but we wanted to give you a little sneak preview!
This month kicks off a three-part series on blogging. This month, we’re focusing on the basics of blogging—what they are, how to start one and why you need it. Next month, we’ll discuss more in-depth tactics for marketing your work and your blog. The final part of the series will explore some artist blogs, and some common mistakes that bloggers (those who maintain a blog) experience.
For now, we'd like to use this post to learn about some other artist blogs out there. Post a link to your blog in the comments section so we can check you out!
Yesterday, a number of my favorite PR blogs were buzzing about Facebook. Facebook is a social network, where users set up profiles and connect with each other through common interests and other friends. Originally, Facebook was only for use by college students. Then they opened it up to businesses. Now they've opened it up to anyone.
Since it seems to be taking off as the "hottest new thing" in social networking, I'm curious to know if anyone in the wholesale craft community has taken the plunge and started using it. If you have, post your feedback about Facebook in the comments section.
Thanks to Alyson Stanfield for sharing this very novel advertising idea.
Obviously, this would work best for 2-D artists rather than craft artists. But it's a great starting point to think about unusual locations to expose people to your work!
Thanks to Luann Udell for pointing us to a new inspirational manifesto by marketing genius Seth Godin, entitled "Pushing Through the Dip: How to Become the Best in the World."
If you're not familiar with Seth Godin, you need to be. I've mentioned Seth Godin in an earlier blog post. He's written a number of books for marketers or anyone who wants to better market their business. Most of his books (I haven't read them all) are really short and easy to read. My personal favorite is Purple Cow.
At any rate, Seth has a new book out about how to get past mediocrity (the Dip). Seth's slant this time around is to be the best at what you do. Of course, not everyone can be the best at everything. So Seth suggests to do away with all the stuff you can't be the best at. "Quit the dead ends and invest in the Dip," he writes.
For small businesses, this can be quite a challenge. But I think there's a valid point here that some artists--in particular--overlook. To fight back against mediocrity--to get past the Dip--ask yourself some questions: What products are working? Which ones aren't that interesting? Which products look just like anyone else's products in your medium? What sets your work apart?
Like Luann, I found this section particularly inspirational:
The point is that in a world of infinite choice, in a world where the best in the world is worth more every single day, the only chance you’ve got is to find a Dip and embrace it. Realize that it’s actually your best ally. The harder it is to get through, the better your chance of being the only one to get through it.
Sticking with something just so you can be mediocre at it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Being average is for losers.
That sure gives us all something to chew on!
I was combing through the recent posts to the Clayart listserve. This Yahoo group with over 1200 members is probably the largest online community of ceramicists (and if there's a bigger one, please let me know!).
At any rate, I came across this post by Jim Graham. It's part of a longer conversation, but I was particularly drawn to the following paragraph:
Why do we react so strongly to what we perceive as a misuse of the word
“handmade”? Suppose some guy in your vicinity is doing the most
egregious form of impersonal mass production imaginable and selling it
as “handmade”, while you, with your wheel, are turning out 1/10 of the
quantity and charging 4 times as much. Do you feel that he is taking
money from your pocket with his “false” claim? If your production and
his were sharing a shelf, would the buyer see a difference? Does
“handmaking” produce a product tangibly different than whatever you
consider “not handmade”? If so, then the buyer who is looking for that
human connection will prefer your work and be willing to pay the higher
price. If that personal connection doesn’t come across in the work
itself, though, then perhaps the fault is in the work, and you are
asking the buyer to pay for nothing more than an idea.
Not only are imports edging out and devaluing the work of American artists, but the technology for producing higher quality is improving. While the available manufacturing technology does not produce pieces quite on par with an artist's work, it is getting better constantly.
Jim suggests here that handmade work needs to offer buyers a personal connection. I think one of the best ways to do that is to tell a story. This fits perfectly with the 2008 marketing campaign we're planning. I don't want to give away too much now...especially because it's in its infancy. Just look out over the next few months (and beyond) for BMAC ads, emails, stories and some very interesting things right here on the blog.
So, what's your story?
By way of the Art Biz Blog, Here's a very complete post from photo journalist Mark Hancock about writing and sending press releases. It's a few years old, but the information is really timeless (as long as press releases continue to be useful to journalists).
Great timing too, since we're gearing up for our PR campaign to promote the summer Buyers Market.
Though this one is much shorter. It's from marketing genius Seth Godin, who wrote one of my favorite marketing books Purple Cow.
Seth knows branding. He knows how to get people to talk about your brand. And, he preaches the value of targeting fringe--or NICHE--markets. Something all artists and retailers know how to do.
Usually Seth is all about marketing the unusual and the extraordinary. I found it interesting, then that he uses the term "predictable" in his conclusion:
If you want to grow a valuable brand, my advice is to keep awareness close to zero among the people you're not ready for yet, and build the most predictable, emotional experience you can among those that care about you.
Here's a link to the full article. Enjoy!
Furniture World has yet another great article whose title I've swiped for this blog post. No matter what you're product is, or whether your a gallery or an artist, this article has something for you.
Here are the 12 Ways, click on over to read the full description:
Interestingly enough, as you read through the article, you'll notice how many times the answer to the problems of branding seem obvious.
American handmade craft should be the "secret sauce." American handmade craft should be the ingredients to the secret sauce. American handmade craft is a powerful and (sometimes) under-used asset.
So, readers of Furniture World and this blog: SELL MORE AMERICAN HANDMADE CRAFT!
This weekend I found myself in the lovely Asheville, NC, for the Arts Business Institute's weekend workshop at Haywood Community College. After the workshop ended, I stayed an extra day in Asheville to see some of the great art that the area has to offer.
One of the highlights of this trip was a behind-the-scenes tour of the FABULOUS Grovewood Gallery, graciously provided by Sherry Masters, Grovewood's director. First, Grovewood has to be one of the most beautiful galleries I've had the pleasure to experience. The art was fresh and well-organized, and the merchandising made me feel comfortable and at home--unlike some other galleries that sometimes hit you over the head with their merchandising. The second floor of the gallery was a huge furniture show room (they were rearranging at the time, but it was still gorgeous) that was spacious and well put together.
While I was wandering through the gallery, I overheard a little boy ask his mother "Why is everything here so expensive?" He couldn't have been older than 8, so it's curious to see someone with such an astute sense of value.
At any rate, after an entire weekend of talking with the young, budding artists at the ABI workshop, pricing and value were heavily on my mind. Or at least, the general public's perceived value of what something handmade should cost.
We all know about the detrimental effects that imports have on artists--especially when those imports are knock-offs. Yet, we rarely consider the effects that imports have on consumers. What has clearly happened is that the big-box retailers have lowered consumers' perceived value of handmade goods by selling things that look like but aren't handmade.
This is the infamous "race to the bottom" that you might have heard about a few years ago when everyone was amazed at how Wal-mart was driving retail prices down by being the biggest retailer. Only, in this case, it's on the consumers' side. That is, consumers have come to expect all of their purchases to be inexpensive regardless of quality, design, or innovation.
I'm not entirely sure how to counter this value perception deficit besides continually talking to people. But it seems like it's a larger challenge for our community to correct this misperception. We really need a strong orchestrated effort along the lines of a comprehensive public relations campaign that addresses long-term issues. I'm up for it...how about you?
I'm always on the lookout for new and fun blogs, and today I found a great, new-to-me PR blog. NakedPR is a PR blog from Jennifer Mattern, dedicated to exposing public relations tactics and mistakes to small and online business owners, webmasters, and other independent professionals.
Browsing through her recent posts, it appears that Jennifer loves to make lists. I love lists for their simplicity and frequently direct tones. Here's one that everyone should read, especially if they're doing their own PR as many artists and galleries do.
Speaking of lists, here's a list from our own archives. It's the Top 10 Tips to Improve Sales at a Wholesale Show.
According to a postcard I received a few days ago, the famed Lapidary Journal is changing its name the Jewelry Artist.
This seems like a smart move and I suspect it will help increase their sales & subscriptions. "Lapidary Journal" sounded, well, somewhat stuffy. If you're not in the jewelry business, you might not have any idea what "lapidary" means. But "Jewelry Artist" tells us exactly what the magazine is about before we even open the cover. It's a magazine about people who make jewelry. Simple enough, right?
When it comes to artists or retailers, the same rule can apply (though not always). Take for example, Heart of the Home. The Buyers Market's Merchandising Success seminar last summer visited this charming gallery in New Hope, PA. Each room in this gallery is devoted to a different room in the house--the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, etc. And the artwork in each room is suited to fit that particular theme.
In this case, the name of the gallery truly fits the theme of the gallery. While someone may not necessarily understand what kind of merchandise they'll find there before actually seeing the gallery (or an ad or website), it's pretty clear that it will likely sell items for the home.
(By the way, we'll be doing the tour again this summer on August 3. More details to come.)
What we're really talking about here is branding. Your name is your brand, and it should ideally help potential customers identify what you do before they know anything else besides your name.
Of course, there's lots of arts businesses whose name is not descriptive, such as Schlaubaugh & Sons. If that's the case, then you'll need to work extra hard to associate your company name with what you do. It's not impossible (think Nike), but it should be an important consideration in your marketing plan.
One of my favorite non-craft blogs is Todd Defren's PR Squared. Todd is the principal of a very well known public relations agency, and has worked diligently to promote the emerging role of PR practitioners in an online world.
At any rate, Todd's most recent post quotes a memo by Starbucks chairman Howard Schulz. Here's the quote:
“For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play… This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista.” (emphasis added by Todd)
This quote seems incredibly useful to the craft community. What this quote points out is the incredible importance of what I would call "experience marketing." In other words, we're not only selling work that was handmade by an American or Candian artist--we're selling the experience of purchasing handmade works.
And this applies to both artists who wholesale, artists who retail, artists who do both, retailers, galleries, museums, arts councils, guilds, and on.
Sure, Starbucks is now a multi-billion dollar company that has essentially made the world a more caffeinated place. But it wasn't always like that. The beauty of the craft community is the conscious effort to maintain that intimate experience. After all, it's what sets us apart from the homewares departments at Target.
Last week, Alyson B. Stansfield of ArtBizCoach.com counted down the Top 5 Mistakes Artists Make. On Christmas Eve, she posted the number one mistake:
Neglecting their mailing list.
As we head into the winter show season, this seems incredibly relevant. Show promoters can advertise and do as much PR as is humanly possible, but a personal invitation to see an artist's work at a show goes a long way.
Here are Amy's other Top 5 Mistakes Artists Make:
2) Presenting themselves in an unprofessional manner.
3) Thinking there is a fairy godmother (an agent) who will sell all their work for them.
4) Not following up with people who express interest in their work.
Flickr.com has now become one of the hottest ways to market interesting and innovative ideas. If you haven't tried yet, it's a great way to put images of your work up online without having to build a website. You can also upload images and then reuse them on other websites (if you have your own website). And, you'll need to have your images there to make those great mini-cards from MOO.
This is important for a couple of reasons:
1) It will help you have your work seen by a new audience. For example, I did this search for "Glass Art" and came up with these results.
2) If you have a website, you can save money by posting your images on Flickr and then cross post them on your own website. (For those who are familiar with HTML, this is done using the <img> tag. If you're not familiar with this, talk to your web person). This actually saves you bandwidth, because when someone visits your website the image is downloaded from Flickr's server and not the one hosting your website.
So, the image at the top of this post of Chihuly's floats was not actually uploaded to this blog! Instead, the <img> tag points to the image on Flickr.
There's all sorts of innovative ways to use Flickr, so here's a few ideas from the Strategic Public Relations blog.
From the Dec. 18 New York Times:
Julie Ann Travis , 23, a graduate student at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, is curious to see what her peers are up to and to share some of her latest work. So recently she posted a self-portrait in which her head is buried in a pile of dirt at Stuart (saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart), the latest addition to a recently redesigned Web site for the Saatchi Gallery in London.
The brainchild of the London-based advertising magnate and collector Charles Saatchi, this social networking outlet — a kind of MySpace knockoff for artists — is causing something of a sensation, boosting traffic at the gallery’s Web site overall to more than three million hits a day.
In May Mr. Saatchi, famed for spotting young unknowns and turning them into art-world superstars, created a section on his Web site for artists of all ages to post their work at no charge. It is called Your Gallery, and now boasts contributions by about 20,700 artists, including 2,000 pieces of video art.
Read the full article here.
