Sell Handmade

Do you want to sell more of your handmade products? Of course you do. What a silly question. Well, I suspect two things are stopping you selling more.

1) Your relative obscurity. You can't sell to people who don't know you even exist. And, most likely, that's almost everyone. You're a handmaker, first and foremost, not a web marketing expert. If you wanted to be designing and building websites, you would hardly be wasting your time on handmade products.

2) Your lack of range. Chances are you simply don't have enough stuff to sell. It's rarely economically viable to build an online marketing campaign around 10 or 20 or even 50 products. OK, there are exceptions. It works for products targeting very specialised needs, like hair loss. But, for pure discretionary purchases like jewellery, style accessories, homewares, giftware, it mainly doesn't. You just can't cover enough tastes and price points. This makes it hard to make investments in advertising or even search engine optimisation pay.

Don't believe me? Well consider this, clawing your way out of obscurity means beating literally hundreds of thousands (if you're lucky) or millions of other websites. And, they aren't all plucky amateurs with meagre resources and budgets, either. Consider, also that the average conversion rate on a website is just 2-3%. The smaller your range the worse that's going to get. It's logical. If you had just one lovely necklace, would it really wow all your visitors? What about if you had ten thousand necklaces all different?

Why am I telling you this? Well, I am not saying throw in the towel on your website. Or, maybe I am when it comes to having your own, standing on its lonesome. Maybe your efforts on the web would be better spent where the traffic is? Head for the aggregators - places where shoppers can browse lots of handmade items. Get there and work on standing out in the crowd. That way, more than half the job is done for you. They already dragged the shoppers in, which is the real battle!

How designer-makers should use PR, part 2

So, hopefully you read "Designer/ makers - how to use PR effectively part 1" and have had a fair stab at conceiving an editorial-worthy idea for a press release. If not, go back and fix your story. There's no point continuing without something worth writing about!

If you did come up with a great PR angle/ idea, then now you need to know how to present it. Writing press releases is well covered on the web. Google it or visit How to Write a Great Press Release by Bill Stoller's Publicity Insider for a great guide with clear cut examples. By the way, you'll notice that he keeps banging on about that 'angle' issue too!

Once you've written, rewritten and finely polished your press release, you'll need to distribute it - send it out, that is. It's not going to garner much attention sitting on your PC's hard-drive! You'll need target publications, contact details and the like. You can get those from one of the authoritative media guides, try Media Directory 2007: The Essential Handbook (Mediaguardian).

What guides like the Mediaguardian one don't cover is many of the thousands of blogs and niche content websites on the web. But, actually, these could be as important and influential. They may be more targeted, trusted by their readership and have the benefit of immediacy; a reader's intention to visit your website can be converted in a click! Find these by searching on google, both using regular search (just throw blog into your keywords of interest) and google's blog search (see the more link at the top of the page after "... Shopping Mail..."). Also try www.blogcatalog.com - one of the largest blog directories on the internet.

Don't throw your press release to the whims of an online mass distribution/ newswire service. Well, certainly don't rely on that alone and do not do it straight off. There are numerous of these, all claiming to put your press release under the noses of thousands of editors. And, perhaps they do. But, they are never going to beat a personal approach. Newswire services are a blunderbuss, when in reality you need a rapier. In a PR distribution service your release will be amongst thousands, some of which are fairly blatant advertisements. You can stick out from that lot just by bothering to contact the publication or editor in question.

Mass press release distribution does have its place though. I have used PRWeb in the past. Here's an example: Survey Shows Women Prefer Romance to Sex or Extravagance from my day job at pressies4princesses. The trick is not to do it first. It could harm your credibility during the personal approach. Do it afterwards as a kind of mop up, but before your 'news' gets tired.

In my experience, you'll find distribution services are great at getting some 'lower rent' coverage. By that I mean personal blogs, independent publications, smaller magazines and niche content websites and the like. It'll generally be online (which is no bad thing) and may include some useful links back to your website. Basically, this kind of coverage stems from websites' voracious appetite for content - and the cost of producing it!

So, you're going seize the nettle; go for the direct approach first. You've got your media guide and a great press release, here's how to launch your press release:

1. Find target publications for your 'news'. Some will be obvious, some more tenuous.


2. Segment them according to their main interest in your release.


3. Rewrite your press release for each segment so that the really important stuff (to them) comes first and the relevance to their audience is immediately obvious.


4. Phone. Send. Wait.


5. Submit to mass distribution/ newswire service

When looking for target publications for your press release, consider all the reasons why your information/ story is interesting. Look beyond the obvious. For example, our story "Survey Shows Women Prefer Romance to Sex or Extravagance". That could be of interest to media covering: women's interest, dating, travel (romantic breaks won), men's interest, the Gift Industry, retail and retailing (because it's about purchasing intent), Internet (because the survey was conducted online), weddings, sex and sexual health, style and culture and probably a few more.

Segmenting media on their main interest is simply saying, "these media will be interested because romantic breaks won and this lot because it says men understand women, whereas these folks will want us to focus on what it means for selling high value gifts..."

Rewriting the press release for each segment is essential. When an editor, writer or journalist picks up your release, they will decide in a sentence whether it's RELEVANT TO THEM. After two, they'll want to know it's interesting. So, you have to switch focus and rearrange your words to state the relevance and interest to them quickly and clearly.

Phone and send, then wait, because nobody likes being chased. It's not a pleasurable experience, well not in the work sense. It's like polite bullying. And, it's just as likely to turn someone off your release as on to it. Calling before sending is a good idea to check names and warm them up. Calling afterwards is just hassling. Let your release do it's job.

Writing about PR makes it seem formulaic and easy. I do this and that and then I get media coverage. Well, no actually. No part of any of your first (or first few) press releases may ever get published. That does not mean it was a wasted effort. PR is a drip feed, not a magic bullet. It may take several press releases before you breakthrough. But, after each you'll be more familiar, less stranger. So long as you're building the right impression and creating newsworthy releases, you will get 'FREE' coverage, eventually. But, it won't come FREE of effort and persistence.

Designer/ makers - how to use PR effectively part 1

Make your Press Release editorial-worthy

Put simply, you have to be or do something worth writing about. What's written falls broadly into two categories: news and editorial.

News is not, "We launched this great product"; that's advertising (or advertorial, if you prefer) and you have to pay for that. So, what's news? That's hard to define. Beneath the major events that are the real news, there's a softer under-belly that's just 'interesting'. You can notice this in stories run by newspapers (except maybe the broadsheets), regional TV news bulletins, radio, etc. Interesting means timely and relevant to current affairs. So, an interesting response by you to a bigger news event or hitting on a new trend that's bubbling up can be 'news', for example.

Some PR doesn't even pretend to be news. That's editorial, like when a magazine prints your tip sheet or covers a human interest story. And, editiorial like this can be an easier route to publication or broadcast than doing something genuinely 'news'.

Whether it's editorial or news coverage you seek, one thing above all will dictate how much you get: the angle. The angle is the twist on your story or editorial that anchors it firmly in the here and now, makes it relevant, and makes it timely for publication/ broadcast. What does all this mean?

To understand timely, consider good timing versus bad. Good: submitting a story with a romantic twist in the run up to Valentine's Day. Bad: offering a tip sheet about wrapping presents at any time other than the Christmas season.

Relevant PR is grounded in current events. Today, in the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, consumer credit, house prices, money saving, banking or the economic downtown are obvious examples of current relevancy. Tack your story or editorial to these masts and you'll have a greater chance of success. And, sometimes a contrary twist, eg "proof the economy is not slowing down", is even better still.

Of course, these are obvious examples. You are probably going to have to think of more subtle trends, current affairs and news events that can be related to what you do - unless you're a chief economist, large bank or research group. And, whatever angle you choose, be sure that you can muster some credibility. Nobody cares if the bloke next door says the economy is slowing. You can't just jump on the bandwagon because it's popular. Likewise, you're unlikely to get published for saying black is white, if there's no reason for anyone to be interested in what you think anyway!

Perhaps a good exercise to do, is to list every single trend, event or issue from an entire newspaper or week's newspapers. Just write it down in two or three keywords. Then, try to link every single one back to your business in some way. It can be about you too. Say you ran up huge credit card debts and started making jewellery to pay them off and now it's a thriving business - that would be highly relevant to our indebted age. Wording the story so it introduces a topical, newsworthy element - that's the angle at work. Adding this background to your business start-up makes you so much more relevant and interesting - no matter how great your jewellery really is!

This may all seem complicated and a lot of trouble. And, guess what? It is! But, this is going to have the biggest single impact upon whether you get published or broadcast. And, think of the flip side: money can't buy publicity for free is your reward.

I hope that was useful, stay tuned for the next installment.

"What's in it for me?" blogging

This month I've been writing about how to promote your handmaking business. Blogging is one area that's been covered in more detail. In this article, Hand-makers: how to blog your way to more sales, more PR and higher web visibility, I mentioned the up-and-coming new blog at pressies4princesses as an example of "What's In It For Me?" (WIIFM) blogging. Check the original article for more about WIIFM.

Well, Gifts Solved, the new WIIFM blog, is now launched. It's a chance to see my blogging advice in action - or, indeed, whether I am following my own lead!



Take a look and you'll see that Gifts Solved has a mandate to help people choose, wrap and give their gifts well. We're trying to blend our selling agenda into the useful stuff. This is the essence of WIIFM blogging. You still get to do your selling, but you don't get to write only advertorial, because nobody will read that.

Have we got it right? Let me know what you think.

Handmaking business advice on Squidoo

Hand-making business advice is now available as Squidoo lenses.



Taking a dash of my own advice, I am now translating key posts into permanent Squidoo lenses (web pages) for reference.

What's a lens? A single page about anything. Why use them? Because they are easy to produce and can contain 'Web 2.0' rich content like video, blog feeds, news feeds, social bookmarking, etc.

Apart from hopefully providing a useful online resource, by producing these lenses I am learning all about Squidoo and how to best use it. Information that I'll be passing on here at Pretty Somethings soon.

Handmaking lenses produced so far:

10 FREE Ways To Promote Handmade Products

Why Designer-makers Should Blog

Handmade Business Basics: No.1 - Your Product

OK, so you've made a few pieces for friends and family and, guess what, they love them. Your product feedback is overwhelmingly positive. People say you've got talent. So, with your obvious skill and these popular designs, you've got the semblings of a business, right?

Er, well no actually. I'll let you in on a secret - your family and friends don't buy because your products are great (no matter what they say!). Customers from your social network are 'soft targets'. They have other reasons to buy from you. They know you from Adam and are emotionally attached to you in some way. In the real world folks will not and are not. Look at it this way, you've invested probably between hundreds and thousands of hours making those sales. Why? Because, you've spent a long time building what sales people call a rapport. So, your friends have extra reasons to buy from you, other than that your jewellery/ craft is fantastic. In fact, they'll be looking for reasons to buy. Some will even feel obliged to buy something.

To stand a chance at this business, you need to get cold customers to love your handmade product. So, let's look at product as the first element of what marketing folks call the four p's - product, price, place, promotion.

Your handcrafted product is the first ingredient in your offer. It's no more or less important than the other three already mentioned. And, actually, you don't have to start with product. Plenty of businesses have been engineered the other way around, starting with price for example and designing the product, promotion and distribution around meeting a price positioning. Low cost airline, EasyJet is a good example of this approach. For them, price is everything, so the product (no frills air travel), promotion (mainly online and through 'free' PR) and distribution (direct internet sales) have all been designed to support low prices. It might be logical for you to do the same.

When thinking about your business, you need to understand how your product is going to pay. Are you going to produce a relatively high or low volume? Do you want to spend hours (or days) designing and creating one-off pieces that then sell for a substantial amount at a high profit margin? Alternatively, do you see yourself spending a good proportion of your time making fairly simple designs over and over again? Are you always going to be doing all the making? Will all your jewellery have been crafted by the designer him or herself?

These are important decisions. Get it wrong and you could go from a job you hate to a business you hate. What's going to reward you - the creative craft or the thrill of running your own business? That's why I started with product, because how you want to spend your time is going to have a big impact upon what you make / where you pitch yourself. There's no point drawing up a business plan that adds up, but that you're going to hate after month three.

OK, so you're starting to think about how you see yourself working. What your days will be like. Trouble is, you'll need customers to pay for this lifestyle. What you need to do now, is get investigating. Whether you've decided on high end one-off pieces or 'mass-market' appeal, you need a killer product. Joining the assembled ranks of all those handmakers already trying to make a go of it with a 'me too' product, will make success an uphill battle. What you need is a gap.

You really can't leave this to chance. Don't set out with the idea that just maybe people will like your designs better than other designers, so you'll be successful while they struggle. For a starters, get this wrong and customers may never see your product. Retailers don't want more of the same. We get a constant trickle of requests from handmakers at pressies' and the vast majority don't excite us and don't get in the catalogue. While editors want to write about different, exciting products. They won't give editorial space to more of the same. If you can't get into retail and can't drum up PR, then you're going to need very deep pockets for advertising!

So where do you start? Well, people buy products. They buy them for themselves and as gifts for others. Instead of thinking about the product and how it could be different, why not start thinking about people. Think about when jewellery is bought. Who buys it for whom. When people buy it for themselves. What people are trying to achieve with their purchases in all these instances. You could draw a big spider diagram. Just lots of bubbles (facts or ideas) connected with lines to show links or commonality. Don't try to solve this problem by sitting down and thinking really hard. Dump the data out of your head first. Then go and investigate the gaps. Get more information down. Eventually, gaps, ideas, potential opportunities will start to appear.

You are looking for a niche. A corner of the market that's small enough for you to make an impression within, given your modest resources. Yet, that is large enough and profitable enough to sustain your business. In short, you're looking for a small, but hospitable pond to be a big fish in.

To be genuinely worthwhile, your niche needs to be identifiable and 'targetable'. There's no point defining a part of the market that can only be reached through mass media and mass distribution. Because, you can't compete in that promotional arena and will struggle to get into the required retailers. The people in your niche must be reachable through specialist media or websites and in niche retail.

Let's look at bridal jewellery as an example. You could niche this down to 'bridal jewellery for Hindu weddings'. Niche promotion is available - Asian lifestyle magazines, bridal magazines themselves and then there are, of course, bridal shops in towns with a large Hindu population or specialist Asian bridal stores. The point is, you've got media and distribution already serving your target customers.

Once you've got some niche ideas, then all you need to do is work out how you are going to be different in your niche. Chances are you are not first in. But, can you sub-divide again? Is any one catering from the growing wealth of Asian families and producing high end jewellery for Hindu weddings, for example? Niche and then niche again.

By now I would hope to have wheted your appetite. Got you thinking about the market and trying to think about specifics. Remember that there is no 'market' as such, only lots of individuals who can be grouped by wants and different factors like geographic location, ethnicity, tastes, attitudes, the magazines they read or their hobbies. Ultimately, we are all a niche of one!

You may be thinking, all this post is leading to is more questions but, actually, that's the point really. To solve your problem of what to make and for whom, you need to keep questioning the current situation, finding out more and then questionning that. Eventually, you will hit upon an opportunity, but it's not an easy process. Rest assured, however, it has a far high chance of success than waiting for the idea to pop into your head one day! I could go on some more. Outline some popular marketing tools. But, to be honest, what you need to do now is spend time thinking about those niches. You don't need theory, just plenty of deep thought and a little research to flesh it out. After all, what you sell is kind of important, but no more important than the other 'Ps' - price, place, promotion - so next week I'll tackle another. Until then, thinking caps on!

A new mission

Recently, I ranted about some misguided business practices amongst entrepreneurial artisans. Then I got coaxed into doing a pricing/ product review, which seems to have gone down like the proverbial lead balloon. That got me thinking about where I was going with this blog. And, a week later, I think I'm about ready to redefine my mission.

You see, I got to wondering whether I could still be enthusing about all the great handmade jewellery and craft out there in 12 months time. Or, whether I might have become a little jaded by then. I also began to wonder whether folks would tire of reading it. Then I starting thinking about what I really had to offer that was valuable to a readership. I have come to the conclusion that it is my experience of online retailing. And, in particular, of selling niche handmade jewellery and other products online.

I am, of course, still in the e-tailing game and constantly striving to grow gift retailer pressies4princesses. So, my experience will continue to grow. Plus, pressies' gives me access to a large amount of information about shoppers and what they buy. And, the way that pressies' is headed (developing customer feedback loops, etc) will substantially grow the amount and type of information I can call upon.

The team at pressies' has a good track record with taking on highly creative individuals - see the handmade jewellery section and giving them their first real taste of success. We often have to advise on pricing, packaging and other elements to get them on the right footing. We're even in the loop on jewellery design - sponsoring the development of new ranges, for example, by guaranteeing to purchase the outcome. How fantastic to be able to share this information and experience to help create, rather than just sit in judgement of the finished article!

So, I'll be spending the weekend thinking about where to start. The fantastic finds will still be here too, but a lot more besides. I hope that will make things more rewarding for all.