GIVEAWAY - Spring Cleaning at Olive Bites - Win Some Scrap-Fabulous Goodies!

AND THE WINNER IS- CHOSEN BY RANDOM.ORG

Karen L - congrats Karen!

So, last week was supposed to be all about cleaning

(it wasn't, unless you count the cleaned up look of my blog and website - what cha' think guys? - but only say good things because I'm feeling a bit .. uh fragile, ok)

I did manage to get my crafty closet cleaned out (and 4 bags of clothes to Goodwill)!

WHAT YOU WIN:

Photobucket

This giveaway includes a 78 count rubon book of monograms, 3 hero arts brand spankin' new rubber stamps (big ones), 8 journaling tags, 2 pks of funky vintage flower stickers from making memories, 2 pks of K&Company 3D florals, 6 metal ribbon labels, 1 pk of definition stickers and 2 mini photo bags.

One lucky winner is going to be in scrap heaven with this take!

HOW TO WIN:

It's easy, peasy - just leave a comment below with your contact information!

For additional entries:

(5) Twitter this post
(5) Blog about this contest; linking to this post
(5) Follow my blog
(5) Facebook this post

Let me know if you have done these things so I can give you additional entries. This contest is open to US and Canada only (sorry guys!)

DRAWING:
Enter by midnight, Sunday, March 6th! Good Luck!

Blog Break - Back in a Week!

Of course, I haven't really gone fishing.

(you can exhale now Mr. Big Billy Bass)

I'm really still here, but I need to get my head and closets and inbox uncluttered and do some early spring cleaning.

I will be back next Monday with my -

1st Annual Spring Cleaning Giveaway

(this is not a lazy way of cleaning out my crafty closets ... really)

so mark your calendar!

* Gone Fishin' screenprint by DMeyerDesigns

(Mooza Designs Giveaway Extended 1 Week!)

Marketing This Thing Part IV - strategy is not just for generals

Back to the basics of strategic marketing :

1. Identify an Opportunity -

look for holes in the market that might be opportunities to use our creative skills
.

At this point things like brainstorming, focus groups of creative peeps, talking to your current customers - there are great survey sites like surveymonkey.com and
freeonlinesurveys.com that you can use to ask your current customers questions before introducing something new or to find out what they are looking for.

Once you have customers it is a whole lot easier to sell new stuff to them than it is to sell to an entirely different kind of customer.

(I have used surveys a couple times and always offer some kind of freebie when sending something like this out - it is amazing how many people who have already purchased something from you will take the time to answer a short - I have a 3 question max - survey)


A few words about showing your early ideas to people - sometimes they will not be so receptive and sometimes you have to trust your gut with this stuff and totally ignore them.

When I found this drawer of old auto parts in hubby's shop and started talking 'locket', he thought I had lost my mind.

He said, "Cat, girls want to wear silver and gold and gemstones and stuff that is shiny and new."

but I was thinking ... well, maybe not all girls ...

2. Niche thinking makes this strategic marketing a whole lot easier because a. there is less competition b. it makes it easier to find the customers who will be attracted to us c. our stuff has a higher perceived value since we can position ourselves as an expert in a smaller field and d. we can charge more.

It's like the travel agent who specializes in cruises for college athletes (if there is such a travel agent) or the chiropractor who specializes in golfing injuries. Their success comes from the fact that they are not worried about leaving out 95% of the market - they are just focusing on being the go to girl/guy for this niche.

(and it totally helps if the travel agent is an ex-college jock and if the chiropractor plays golf because there will be a kind of passion and presence and energy from that that will be unique to them)

3. Strategic marketing is about fulfilling someone's emotional need with our stuff.

Marketing people will tell us that people buy stuff based on their emotions and those primary purchasing hot buttons are:

LOVE,
HEALTH,
BEAUTY,
RELAXATION,
MONEY

How are we solving some problem for other people around these needs?

4. Strategic marketing is about taking what you love and being smart and creative about making money with it.

No one can really teach us how to do this, because it will be unique to what we do but there are lots of incredibly clever people on Etsy doing all kinds of strategic thinking within competitive markets.

Littlebrownpen is an amazing photography shop that could be teaching strategy to generals in the Pentagon.


1. The passion they have for their subject jumps off their pages.

It is clear they have an amazing and developed skill set - composition, depth, perspective, technique - just gorgeous. They live in New Jersey (yay) but their hearts clearly reside in Paris.

2. They have chosen a subject that is not available to everyone with a camera.

(for example - if you are going to sell photos of flowers on Etsy, they will have to be some very special flowers and you will likely need some photographic techniques to set you apart from everyone else because everyone has a digital camera and access to flowers and by everyone else I mean your customers - also people probably don't want to buy pictures of your cat - if they like cats, they have their own cats to photograph

this is the same reason if you make jewelry and buy your supplies at AC Moore or Michaels or other places available to everyone your work is much more likely to look like everyone else's work)


3. They think in terms of how customers use their products.

Sometimes it is hard for people to see how a single photo or print they love would fit into their home.

People often have large wall spaces to fill and by offering the groupings they do by color I could see how customers (even those with no interest in Paris) could immediately see how this could work in their home and be excited to buy. It is, I think, simply brilliant.

They do alot of other smart things; based around the fact that they think their customers are smart, too.

They are a great example of makers creating things from their heart that people want to buy.

Now, we want to be creating our own brand and not copying anyone else's, but seeing someone else doing something really, really well can get us thinking of new ways of looking and thinking about our own work.

Traditional target market thinking doesn't always work for creative makers intent on exploring our own passions and some stuff we just have to make even though we know we will never be able to sell it, but by staying true to our own hearts and factoring in those "other people" that our business needs to thrive I truly believe we can create something totally freakin' amazing, real and make some money, too.

* failed opportunity print by the amazing Jenni Penni

Have a great weekend everyone - don't miss the last couple days of Mooza Design's totally fun bathroom door art giveaway here!

Marketing This Thing - Part III - Grab a Breath Mint, It's Time to Cuddle

OK, now strategic marketing is going to mean getting very close to the customer

(not close enough for any type of disease transference, but close enough that we maybe could benefit from a wintergreen tic tac before proceeding)

and it includes market research although hopefully no trips to the mall with clipboards trying to make eye contact with people who are suddenly very focused on the shiny, tile floors.

Most makers -

(I am thinking all, but there may be someone out there who for some strange reason most likely having to do with trends is out there making things they do not love)

who are making a living with their makings are selling things that they are passionate about - things that you and I may not love - but things that they think are freakin' amazing!

They have also either taken the time to figure out that there was a market for their makings and where that market is or they got really lucky.


(and I totally believe in luck, but only beginner's luck - which life has a way of bestowing on us once as a kick in the ass to get us going, after that our luck is kind of like our face at 40 - we've earned it)

I think successful business owners need to have a personal passion for their business beyond paying their mortgage.

A friend of ours has a house alarm installation business that he started after his own house was robbed. Early on he thought marketing to new home owners would be a smart idea and he got lists of them and did mailings to them, but what he found over time was that his primary customer was not a new home owner at all, it was someone whose house had just been robbed.

At first he felt kind of weird to directly start marketing to them (even though this was the reason he got into the business in the first place) but when he really thought about what he is selling which is safety and peace of mind, plus he offers people all kinds of free services and advice, he started talking to these people and letting them know what is available and talking to their neighbors and he is doing really, really well. It is sometimes hard to sell the solution to a problem to someone who has never had the problem.

And strategic marketing is all about solving a problem for your buyer. It helps to be thinking - what problem am I solving and who and where are the people with that problem? And the earlier in your creative business start up you think about this the better.

When I saw Etsy I fell in love hard and fast - the head over heels at first sight kind of love that could have left me barefoot, pregnant and with high credit card debt if I wasn't careful ... luckily I was.

I was already a greenie (although an imperfect and sometimes lazy one) and remaker of all things remakable and I knew in my heart that there was a segment of the market - a pretty untapped segment - of people like me who were thinking about the impact of the things they were buying and who also wanted stuff that was modern and different.

I knew this would be my niche. Modern eco for people like me was what I was thinking. People who wanted to feel good about the environmental impact of what they bought, but who still wanted to buy really cool stuff.

People who wanted to own and wear things that were different - things that made a statement about who they were and that made other people ask them - what is that?

(but in a good way, not in a skin rash - is that contagious? - kind of way - or at least that was what I was going for)

This - "people wear things to make a statement about who they are" - is something everyone who makes wearables can think about when developing their line or planning advertising.

Now, I could see right away that there was alot of jewelry on Etsy, but I did not see this as a bad thing.

Think of how all the car dealers and furniture stores group themselves together on highways.

It would be hard though if you were a Honda dealer right next to another Honda dealer so you need to be working uniquely from your heart and you will probably need to be selling in other places - certain types of art will probably always do much, much better at shows and shops where people can really see them and touch them and hold them and walk away with that art in their hands.

Strategic marketing 1. Opportunity Identification

(this is more than I really love my stuff and so will they)

We need to be seeking holes in the market that might be opportunities.

Double Click Ad Planner
by Google is an awesome tool for some strategic thinking. It's free and based on the incredible amount of information Google collects from us on a daily basis probably very accurate.
We can use it in 2 ways:

1. by looking up a site's url and even better 2. we can search by audience where we can choose our own parameters

I LOVE to enter a site where I might want to sell my work or buy advertising, etc and then click around on the other sites the same people visited! It is addicting.

Checking out Etsy.com I can see that Etsy's average browser (and I say browser and not shopper and you will see why in a minute) is a female, 25-44 years old making $25K-$45K a year, with some college or a bachelor's degree living in the U.S.

The keywords they most frequently searched on the day I checked were: fabric, pioneer woman, land of nod, hancock fabrics, joann fabrics, ballard designs, I should add though that the most frequently searched keyword by far was "etsy" or some misspelled version of it -

other sites they visited that day include artfire, craftgossip, craftster, fabric.com, regretsy, twopeasinabucket (scrapbooking supplies) and firemountaingems.

So what does all this mean to us -

(other than the fact that alot of these viewers are makers, too based on the other sites they visited and the keywords they searched and this is ok because we sell to each other all the time)

well, the income levels tell us something about the upper price points that will likely sell well on Etsy (in general) but other than that I think most of us would find our general customer categories working within these profiles.

Now, this is once again getting way too long so I will continue this tomorrow with some specific things we can do. In the meantime if you have never played with the Double Click Ad Planner have fun thinking about the type of customer your work would attract and what kind of things they are looking for and what places they are looking.

* finger cuddle photo by Dancing Pancake Studio
* love is the new black print by The Love Shop