Creating A Niche For The Craft Business Online: How to Market Your Craft Business Online

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Creating A Niche For The Craft Business Online
How to Market Your Craft Business Online

• Pamela J. Brown, Ph.D.
• Associate Professor
• Extension Entrepreneurship Specialist (Retired)
• Texas Cooperative Extension
• Texas AM University System
• Funded through a grant from the Southern
  Regional Development Center, Mississippi State
  University

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Module 3How To Market Your Craft Business Online

• Objectives
• Develop a market plan
• Conduct simple market research
• Understand e-commerce trends
• Identifying target craft consumer
• Marketing online and offline
• Application to craft busines
• _________
• Presented by Ashley Lovell, Extension Specialist
  Economic Development, Texas Cooperative
  Extension, lovell_at_tarleton.edu
  Draft 052907

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Are You Flying Blind?
Insert graphic of bird with sun glasses or
something similar
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Marketing My Business

• List all the different kinds of marketing you do
  for your business
• 10 minutes
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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Do You Have a Plan?

• The product
• The industry
• The customer
• The strategy
• Marketing is EVERYTHING you do on behalf of the
  business

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How Can You Develop A Plan If Youve Not Done
Your Homework?

• Market Research, limited but search
• Do it before going online!

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Know Your Industry

• Hobby crafts
• Fine art
• Tourist souvenirs
• Museum art
• Furniture

• Interiors
• Toys
• Gifts
• Folk art
• Wearables

Activity Search for information Size,
location, support, competition, trends, types of
ecommerce
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Hobby Or Business?

• Are you a hobbyist making craft that you hope
  will sell,
• OR
• are you an artisan that makes what will sell?
• As an artisan, the answer should shape your
  marketing plan!

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Read About An Artisan

• Go to these sites
• http//craftsreport.com/october05/oe.html
• Or
• http//www.gourmasque.com
• Or
• http//www.garyweeks.com/global_village.htm

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Define The Handcraft Consumer

• Demographics
• Identifying AND defining your market
• 30-50 Urban
• Affluent Educated
• Psychographics how people use/spend time
• Targeting your customer
• Form Quality
• Function Travel

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Target Everyone - NO
Segment customers to understand what they want

• Caution - Dont assume potential customers
  value
• Good design
• Quality materials
• High prices
• Unique design
• Time for creativity/process
• Demographics of online purchasers will change as
  online use and access increases!

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More Resources For Artisans

• Texas Commission on the Arts
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/craft/ciform.asp
• A registry for Texas artisans
• American Crafts Council
• http//www.craftcouncil.org/
• Craft Organization Directors Association
• http//www.coda.org/

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Who Is Using Internet?

• U.S.
• 81 of teens
• 63 of adults
• 18-29 80
• 30-39 74
• 50-64 60
• 65 26
• 60 women
• 66 men
• Ethnicity
• Whites -68
• Blacks -42
• Hispanics -60
• Sourcewww.pewinternet.com

• GLOBAL
• 445 Million people
• 51 of most developed countries
• Source www.clickz.com

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Internet Usage By Age Group . . .Who Are YOUR
Customers?
Primary purchasers of craft
Pew/Internet, Pew Internet and American Life
Project http//www.pewinternet.org/
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The New Normal American Way of Life
Total U.S. online gt70 million Broadband access
will change who and how people use the Internet
Source PewInternet.org, 2005
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Finding Customers

• Like fishing, you have to think like a fish to
  catch a fish!
• Think like your customers, not as an artisan
• What do customers want?
• Where do they shop?
• What do they shop for?
• What do they search for online?
• More???

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How They Are Buying?

• 28 of online consumers do not buy online
• 59 search aggregate sites, not merchant sites
• Value the in-store, personalized experience
• Delivery costs and time
• Credit security
• Delay in purchase satisfaction
• No credit
• Seeing is believing
• Too complicated

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Why Consumers Dont Buy Over The Internet

• Cost of connectivity
• Access at work?
• Disrupts home/work routines
• Too complicated
• Communication challenging
• Ordering not dependable
• Trust
• Overall consumer-buying experience

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Will Customers Be E-loyal?

• Multiple retailers
• Price
• Good service
• Emotional connection/loyalty
• Relevance to customers
• Keep customer as central focus of e-commerce

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Craft Retailers With Web Sites
Source The Crafts Report, 2004
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Activity

• Do a search to find your businesss target market
  characteristics.
• Hint
• Search for demographic info
• Search for psychographics
• Search by age, location, income, ethnicity, etc.
• http//americandemographics.com
• http//cyberatlas.com
• Resources to learn about customers
• Research publications
• Trade Journals
• Conferences
• Periodicals

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Search Results

• Who are your potential customers?
• Where do they live, what will they buy?
• What are their favorite activities?
• Are you offering what they want at the right
  price?
• What can you do to target these folks?

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Looking At The Competition

• New products, marketing ideas, news
• Search engine specialties
• Google - Lycos
• Yahoo - AltaVista
• Excite - Hotbot
• Infoseek - Northern light
• http//www.searchenginewatch.com/

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Find Your Competition

• List competitors
• List keywords to describe your products/services
• Use meta-search engine to search keywords
  http//dogpile.com
• Use other search engines
• http//www.ceoexpress.com

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Activity

• List the key information about your competitors
• Advertising
• Prices
• Packaging
• Hours of operation
• Target market

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Artists On Line
Source The Crafts Report, 2004
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Craft Producers (Artisans) Using E-commerce In
Business
Source The Crafts Report, 2004
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Reasons For Not Having Web Page

• No knowledge
• Lack of resources
• Inability to connect store and web
• Lack of training
• No plan
• Lack of flexibility

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What Help Is Out There???Learn From Multiple
Resources
Canada
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An Example Of A Log Analysis

• http//www.HerbalTurtle.com

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Check This

• http//www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/software/print
  .php/3578366

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Are You Ready To Expand The Business?

• Costs
• Personnel
• Inventory
• Sales
• Time/energy

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Art Organizations As Promoters

• http//www.artofohio.com
• http//www.tamarackwv.com/
• http//www.arts.state.tx.us/txoriginal/index.asp

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Doing Good Business Practices

• http//www.newyork.bbb.org/goodbusinesspractices/?
  lid1pagesell
• http//www.artofohio.com
• http//www.bbb.gov
• http//www.thecraftsreport.com
• http//www.ftc.gov

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Market Venues

• Selling retail vs wholesale
• Exclusivity
• Trade Shows
• Sales Reps

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Market Price Potential

• Define market area
• County, state, region, nation, globe
• Who is most likely to use or purchase your
  product or service?

• Know your break even point/compare
• Know the price points that WILL sell
• Include profit!
• Evaluate/adjust

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Customers And Competition

• Know both or lose!
• Its your job
• Stay current
• Listen to both customers and competitors
• Be flexible