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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Marketing
  • Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:51:51 EDT

>How do you maintain a steady income?

There's at least a very simple answer to that question. You don't.


> >Other than word of mouth, how do you market yourself?

This must be prefaced with the fact that most cottage industry crafted items
are not things people buy on impulse. They look, think about it, contemplate
it, compare it, decide on it, change their mind, think about it some more,
.... and then some of them buy it.

I got a call this summer from a cooperative retail store made up of local
hand crafted items. A 22 year old woman wanted to buy one of my products
because
she'd seen it there when she was 16, could not persuade her parents it was
equitable, and so as an adult and settled in Denver, she came back to
Abingdon,
Va, asking for the item ... which was no longer there as I had parted ways
with the outfit years previous. The store and I made an exception to our
usual
M.O. and she got the item she came for. But it is not unusual for the
initial
contact and the sale to be eight years apart .... which goes somewhat to
answering the first question.

So ... if you are contemplating a specific item or type of item you are going
to make, look into the trade magazines. In my case a quarterly insertion in
the most popular trade magazine 4" x 3 1/2" costs about $40. The second most
popular magazine is $25. Also I have joined all the internet discussion
lists
having to do with the product I make and I have a signature line with my
website.

You can put the item on eBay "buy it now" for 30 days at a time. The cost is
minimal and although you might not sell it, you are permitted a link to your
website page describing it which itself can contain a link to the home page.
It gives you tremendous exposure for very little cost. Likewise there is an
outfit that only allows hand made objects for sale .... www.etsy.com

We have scores of festivals in this area every year. I do to some of those
and demo the product and pass out cards. No one buys one there, but a month
to
five years later they do. I have six items in the shop right now unfinished
and all of them are promised. A few months from now I may have ten in the
shop completely finished and no one making an offer for them.

James


"The master craftsman makes a cut. He does it one time and it's good enough."
(the late and very great luthier Robert Lundberg)










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