Marketing Your Product

11th January 2016Leave a comment

This week Make with Annie was featured in Prima Magazine. Prima Magazine is a national publication which has a readership of around 263,893 (this is taken from the sales for the first half of 2014). Which means that my product has now reached a quarter of a million people and that is more than I would ever reach through social media at this point in my business.

The Feature is seen on page 139 of the February 2016t issue

As you can imagine I am overjoyed with the feature and even after only a few days I have made four sales and gained hundreds of views, and new follows on my Etsy shop and Facebook page.
You may be wondering how I managed to get my products featured in such a well known magazine, and I am going to show you just how I did it.

Make with Annie Felt Brooch Craft Kit

Back in September 2015 I started my craft business Make with Annie, creating felt brooch kits for young and old alike to make their own brooches and have fun too. I love crafting and I thought how great would a kit be for others to have a go at making felt brooches. Once I had created my kits, and worked on my packaging I set up my etsy shop and social media pages and then I sat down and created a press release.
It was the first time I had ever attempted such a thing, so I googled it and one of the key things I found on all the different sites was this;

Who are you
What are you doing
Why should they be interested
When are you doing it
Where can they find more information

These are really basic but you can find lots more on the different sites which I will add at the end of the article.
Once you start thinking about the answers to these questions you are starting to build your press release.
I’m going to answer them on behalf of Buster the Cat, CEO of Meow (you may remember him from an earlier post on his business logo), to show you what kind of information you want to think about putting in.

Who: Meow! is a new small craft business making handmade bow ties for cats and dogs
What are you doing: We are designing and creating bespoke bow ties for the animals in your life
Why should they be interested: Not only do the bowties make your animal look stylish and cool they are also functioning as a collar for you to add their ID tags
When are you doing it: Meow! is launching its online store on Saturday 9th January 2016 at 9am
Where can they find more information: Links to the website, etsy store, Facebook page, instagram, twitter etc…….

Now you have your outline its time to start making it stand out.
You want to make sure that your press release matches your business and your products, so if your making and selling handbags, make sure that the theme reflects this. If you google Press Release, you will see lots of images of wordy documents, and that is fine. This is what is expected of a press release and if thats your style then go for it. But don’t be afraid to make your press release stand out, be colourful and bright, add lots of pictures of your products and designs and it can be more than one page if you want it to be.
Here is a sample of the press release for Make with Annie and for Meow!;

Make with Annie Press Release

Make with Annie Press Release P2

Meow! Sample Press Release

You can see that I have added extra pictures of craft products I make as well as a picture of myself from my Etsy store and my business logo. I have tried to ensure that I caught the eye of the person opening the attachment.
Buster has created an informative but yet fun looking press release for Mewo! in the style of a newsletter.
Play around with your press release but make sure that it shows the reader who you are as a business.
Once you have your press release and your pleased with it, you need to find as many different publications as you can to send it to. Make sure that the publications are relevant, for example if you make bow ties for cats and dogs you would do well to send it to animal lover magazines, but perhaps not to tool buying magazines. You do need to send it to a lot of different people, I sent mine out to over fifty different publications, bloggers and writers and so far have only been featured in Prima Magazine, because your product might not be what they are looking for, or they might miss your email believing it to be spam, but you just never know what might come from it.
Give it a go! But one thing to remember is that if you do get a little success to ensure that you make the most of it. Since the feature has been published I have thanked the magazine publicly through my Instagram, Facebook and twitter account, I have shared my own posts on social media and tried to use the momentum to carry the feature through to my etsy shop and convert it into a sale. It takes some time to market your product, but if you want to make your business and products a success then you have to put that time in, as nothing happens all by itself
Links to useful resources:

Sinead's Silver Design – How I started my own small business

30th November 2015Leave a comment

Author Sinead O’Connor

Over the years I had done a few day courses on making jewellery, I then decided to do an evening course at Cornwall College which I did for a year. My course started with the basics, making a ring, a bangle, hammered effects, we then progressed onto bezel setting and toggles & clasps. Like a lot of crafters that I have met over the last few weeks I decided to change my hobby into a business when I could no longer work due to illness.
When I first started thinking about selling my jewellery I asked a few friends what they thought of my jewellery and was really pleased when they said that they would buy them but were they just being nice? Then they asked me could they buy it, result!
As I was growing up I quickly realised that unfortunately if someone was going to get caught doing something they shouldn’t, it would be me. So I then looked into what I needed to do to set myself up a business in crafting. The government hmrc site is really helpful.

So I registered as self-employed, I also set-up a business account with Barclays Bank in Redruth, (the ladies who work there are really helpful). Barclays gives small businesses their first year fee free to get you started, I also signed up for a card reader that will take payments with the use of my mobile phone. I needed to upgrade my phone but that meant that I transferred the payments for it to my business account meaning that I can claim it as an expense on my business. The only problem is that if the fayre is somewhere that you can’t connect to the internet and have no mobile signal you can’t use it.
A friend tipped me off in July to apply for Nancledra & Bedruthan Steps Christmas fayres. I was really shocked that you had to apply so early, who starts planning Christmas in July, I now know that crafters do! I was really disappointed when I got turned down for Bedruthan Steps, but they did send me an email to explain why and explaining how I could improve my application which was really helpful. I also got turned down for Nancledra.
I was by now thinking am I mad, is this really going to happen or am I just dreaming? I went to see Jo Wojtowycz, a friend of mine who is an experienced potter who started out on the craft fair markets. Jo told me that I needed to start out with the smaller fairs, school christmas fairs, local markets, charity events and that I would need to get a social media presence. The smaller fairs would give me the experience I needed on how to set-up my stall to display my goods the best, what sells well, what sizes to make and what I need.
So I set about creating a social media presence, I started with facebook and created my page Sinead’s Silver Design . I invited my friends to like it and so it began. I now check my facebook page regularly (I definitely needed the better phone) and I receive orders from it, I started with 2 likes and I am now up to 125, hopefully more once this is published. I now have an instagram and a twitter account as well, each of the accounts do slightly different things. The facebook account I use to promote fairs and put up some pictures of my stock, the instagram account will ultimately be used to show of my stock and the twitter account is news from the workshop. Facebook also has lots of crafters groups which tell you about fairs and give advice.
I applied for a few more smaller craft fairs and got accepted. I quickly realised what Jo advised me is correct, it has taken me about three fairs to get comfortable with how I want my stall to look. I have learnt that people want business cards with your facebook page details and an email address. Customers like their jewellery in an organza bag and love having a choice of colours. I learnt there is a real art to talking to customers, some want just a hello, some want to chat and some will be scared off if you chat too much. Customers like if you are making something and need the stallholders to be there, but not if they are scowling!
Christmas is the busiest time of the year for a crafter and I have a market or fair every weekend, my friends have also ordered jewellery for friends and family. I have realised that you need a fair organiser to be proactive with advertising, they need to choose a good location with either very good passing trade or with good parking. I have become a regular with the Saffron Trading Company in Camborne and with the Heartland Markets Events who are both very good promoters.
So my plans for the future, in January 2016 I am starting an evening course at Truro college so that I can learn about casting with silver and enamelling. I am going to develop my social presence more by designing a website, setting up a folksy shop and getting some more professional photos taken. I am also going to try and find out about getting insurance so that I can teach people how to make their own wedding rings or presents in my workshop.

If you want to find out more about Sinead’s Silver Designs head to her Facebook page.