When you turn your hobby into a business, suddenly things change. Instead of being a happy crafter spending your time listening to Radio 4 and making cards, you become the boss of a little new company. And for the new business to succeed, having a great product is just the beginning. It’s marketing that makes the business succeed.

And to succeed you need to focus on marketing even more than on making your products. Successful companies spend 80% of their time marketing their products and only about 20% on the actual making.

Surprised?

You don’t need to turn into a marketing machine overnight (or ever…) but the more marketing you do, the more you are visible and the more you sell.

If you just put your products into your online shop or website and leave it there – you might get the odd sale, but the reality is that if you don’t market them, they won’t sell.

What works in marketing now…

Marketing has changed over the last few years and what used to work before is slightly less effective now.

The problem is that nobody really wants to be sold to. Traditional newspaper or magazine advertisements are only effective for well established brands and plus you have the problem of getting readers who read real magazines to switch on their computers and get them online to visit your website or online shop. It’s much easier to market to people who are already online.

People know when they are being sold to and direct selling techniques rarely work these days. People want to feel that they are making their own choices and that they have power over what they buy. In the case of handmade, people want to connect with the person who makes the products, hear their story, feel part of their little inner circle and by buying your product they want to have a bit of your lifestyle and your story.

That’s why marketing is becoming much more subtle and sometimes you might not be even aware you are ‘being sold to’.

So, what’s the best way to market your creative business?

There is already tons of good advice out there, so rather than showing you how to set up a facebook page, I wanted to focus more on the strategic points of marketing your creative business and your online shop or website.

I’m sure that you are already doing some marketing, so now is a good time to review it. This is the only way to make sure that the precious time (and money!) you are spending is spent in the right places.

Ideal Customer

Do you remember the ideal customer exercise we did in the first module of this creative challenge? Now it becomes even more important. With your marketing, you can’t possibly market your business to everyone, so focusing on a smaller group of people – your customers – makes much more sense.

How often should I promote my creative business?

It’s simple – the more you do, the more you get in return. When I started to promote my first business I set myself a goal to promote it every day. Every day I did something – it might have been just to tell my neighbour that I started a business or post an update on Facebook or contact a local paper for a feature. Over time it just added up and the business grew.

Set yourself realistic goals, make a plan if you want to and schedule your ideas in your diary. Mix thing up a little. There is no way you can write a blog post every single day for the next 2 weeks to promote your shop, but you can write one a week.  On the other days, update your social media and do something a little less challenging.

If you are just starting out, we have created a marketing planner for you, which you can download and make your own.

How do I know what works?

I’ve included most types of marketing that work for creative businesses and that are either free or low to medium cost. I’m sure there are many more and I’m sure that although they do work for most creative business, not everything will work for you. What works and what doesn’t partly depends on your business niche, your customers and what you feel comfortable taking on. It will also depend on how much time you put in.

But no matter what you do, you should definitely start tracking your marketing efforts. (I’ve included a simple marketing tracker spreadsheet in your resources). This is the only way of knowing, what works and what doesn’t.

If this feels a bit vague, let me reassure you that even big companies often don’t know what works for them and what doesn’t. They simply have a marketing budget that they spend and their sales might not even be linked to the actual marketing. Some large companies spend money because they need to/want to show off to their competitors (not their customers!) or I’ve also come across companies who use marketing expenditure as a way of taking out a competitor (they know their competition can’t afford the advertising, so they run a big marketing campaign to encourage the other company to do the same..).

I’m now talking about ‘big’ national and international companies, who have very little to do with our handmade world. But I’m mentioning this because somehow we (small creative businesses) often feel inadequate when do don’t run big marketing campaigns or take out a large magazine advertisement.

Marketing is s huge subject, so there is no way we can cover absolutely everything in this challenge. You always need to start with what you have, review it and then add more types of marketing as you go. Here are some suggestions:

Website

SEO

Blogging

Guest Blog Posting

Email Marketing

Email Signature

Social Media

Creative Networking

Competitions & Giveaways running

PR

Directories

Craft Fairs & Shows

Leaflets

Business Cards

Facebook Advertising

Online Advertising

AddWords

How to know if my marketing is working

It’s sometimes tricky to pin point exactly what works or doesn’t, so here are some general numbers that you should keep an eye out for in your business. You should also track any additional increase in these numbers or interest in your business after each marketing effort.

• Number of website visitors month by month
• Number of contacts added to your email marketing system
• Number of click throughs to your website generated from your newsletter
• Number of visits to your website from your Social Media channels
• Number of sales
• Number of inquiries
• Any other benefits? (support, networking, referrals, magazine feature, invitation to guest blogging etc.)

You don’t need to have anything fancy to do this, just create a simple spreadsheet (or write it into your diary at the end of each month).

How do I know which type of marketing is working for me?

The answer is relatively simple: You always ask how people found you when they buy from you or when they make an enquiry.

The execution of this is slightly more complicated (and not always 100%), but there are a few ways of making sure you do know.

If you run a newspaper advert, competition or promotion, use a simple code that customers will need to use when they purchase from you. To incentify them to use the code, most people add a small discount (say 10%) to the advertisement feature. That way the tracking code can also be the discount code.

What does this mean? This means that you will be able to separate this particular marketing campaign from any other (by analysing the purchases made with this particular code) and see whether it works for you.

The next basic thing to do is make sure that people can let you know how they found you on your website. This is usually done as part of a checkout process or when people are signing up to your newsletter. Add the most obvious options to the drop down menu and leave one option for ‘others’. The options can include:

Newspaper Advertisement

Word of mouth

Google search

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Instagram

(or just mention Social Media)

etc.

If you have the opportunity to ask in person, do that too. This way you get much more in dept insight into how people found you and what works best for you.

Review your marketing efforts regularly and never assume that what’s working for others will automatically work for you.