I’ve told you the things I did on My 30 Day Plan to Greater Profitability and I promised that I would let you know some things you can do to increase the profits your art or craft show business receives.

1. Draw a marketing map that shows how the people you meet at craft shows are going to move from cold contacts, to warm prospects, to hot buyers.  Include on your marketing map all of your sales tools including your craft show booth, your fliers, business cards, website, blog, social networking, advertising, and more.
2. Make sure each sales tool mentioned above (and any others you use) moves your customer through a process that leads to them buying your art or craft.
3. Get a website. Click here for easy instructions on how to build a website.
4. Get your website search engine optimized.
5. Arrange to take credit cards.
6. Offer a payment plan.
7. Get email marketing (auto-responders). See my post on following up with your customers by clicking here.
8. Create emails for your current customers. Remember to follow the Can-Am Act for email. Send your customers useful relevant information. You want this to help your business reputation not hurt it.
9. Create emails for your warm prospects.
10. Create emails for your cold contacts.
11. Sign up your customers to the proper groups above. Ask permission before signing up people for your emails.
12. Check if your business cards, fliers, etc. look professional and are updated. Be certain they have current contact information. Make sure they mention your website if you have one.
13. Collect names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the people who are interested in your product. Ask if they would like to be signed up for your emails.
14. Sign up for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Fast Pitch Networking or many others. Let your customers and prospects know they can follow you there. Post regularly.
15. Create a blog. Post regularly. Mention your social networking sites and your website often.
16. Make sure your posts to your blog automatically post to your social networking sites.
17. Pick up the phone and call a customer that you haven’t heard from in a while. Renew your relationship with them. Tell them the news from your business. Offer to send them free information or ask if they would like to sign up for your newsletters.
18. Send an email to customers that haven’t bought in a while. Renew your relationship with them.

There are several ways to advertise your art and craft event to vendors. The idea is to find the most effective ways and stick with them. You must test and record the results of your advertising to know what was most effective.

Advertising is best done when it reaches a target audience. Your target audience is artists and crafters who sell merchandise at art and craft shows, advertise where they are most likely to see it.

Places artists and crafters look for shows include (but are not limited to) Art and Craft Show Publications, local Chambers of Commerce, visitors centers, fairgrounds and events centers, bulletin boards, the internet, newspapers, radio, and TV. Have a successful show already? Maintain a mailing list. Art and craft vendors also ask other artists and crafters at events they are attending if they know of other great shows in the area.

Art and Craft Publications
Art and craft publications are also known as craft fair guides, art and craft show listings, and many other names search the internet using the right keywords and you will find more than a few.  Art and craft publications contain many listings of art and craft shows. They also usually contain some advertising for event insurance, outdoor canopies for shows, displays, and art and craft supplies. They usually cover a specified area such as one state, several states, a region, or the nation. Some will also contain hints and tips, checklists, book and product reviews, display ideas, etc.

Now for a quick message from our sponsor, smile:
My favorite, The Extravaganza Craft News, covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Local Places Artists and Crafters Look for Events
Local places artists and crafters look for events include the Chamber of Commerce, visitors centers, civic centers, fairgrounds and events centers, basically any where an art and craft show might be held. Ask when booking your event if they will include your event on a calendar of upcoming events. Be sure they inform their employees of your upcoming event so they will be ready to refer artists and crafters your way.

Bulletin Boards
Artists and crafters will also check bulletin boards in grocery stores, gas stations, art and craft stores, on college campuses, in salons, at local restaurants, and many other businesses.

Hang posters, postcards, or business cards on bulletin boards everywhere you go. Be sure your advertising has a headline guaranteed to get the attention of artists and crafters who want to sell their merchandise. Don’t forget the basics a date and time for your show and a way to contact you including (at least) your name and phone number.

The Internet
The internet is a great resource and you don’t have to spend a fortune on a webpage or webdesigner anymore. You can buy a website and everything you need to run it for under $100/year. You can get one that has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get editor) so that you can design and run it yourself or hire someone to run it for you. A website is a great place to tell artists, crafters, and customers about your upcoming shows, and to upload your applications. Need simple instructions for building a webpage visit Build a Website.

Newspapers
The problem with advertising anything in newspapers is actually reaching your target audience. Reaching thousands of people who don’t sell their art and crafts at shows probably won’t help your business as much as reaching 100 people who do.

Newspapers do have other resources available other than paid ads. Call the paper and ask about their policy for press releases, people in business, guest written articles, and calls to artists and crafters. Ask who you send them to and the correct address. Send a press release and call to artists to many local newspapers. The free resources will probably benefit your business more than paid advertising at this time, but if they won’t run your articles ask if they offer a deal on paid advertising with submissions.

Ask if they have a (printed/online) calendar of events and how soon your event will begin appearing on it. Don’t forget your contact information.

Press releases are informational articles sent to the newspaper. They inform the public of events (art festivals, craft shows, bazaars, musuem openings, and so much more) happening in the area. They are free and printed in most publications as space allows (so send yours early and often). Read Press Releases for Art Festivals and Craft Shows.

Radio and TV
Radio stations often offer a discount on large numbers of ads. Ask them if they can offer you a deal if you order ads now to advertise to artists and crafters and again later to advertise to customers. They also offer package deals for onsite advertising. Ask the radio station if they would like to sponsor your event and have their logo included on all your advertising.

I have never used TV advertising but I hear that cable ads aren’t that expensive and can be targetted to reach people in the area of your show. Again ask a TV station if they might like to sponsor your event. Feature a happy artist or crafter in your ads looking for vendors.

Don’t ask more than one radio station, TV station, or newspaper to sponsor your event and ask them if they only work with specific people i.e. ABC Radio only works with XYZ News.

Mailing List
Tell artists and crafters which publications they can find your listings in. Contact art and craft exhibitors who have attended your show in the past. Keep them happy and they are likely to return. Keep your list updated so you don’t waste money mailing to bad addresses.

Email autoresponders from AutoWebBusiness.com or Constant Contact make it easy to stay in contact with vendors. I highly recommend you check out these two companies if you don’t already have some kind of automated follow up/email system in place.

Word of Mouth
Many artists and crafters still only hear about shows through word of mouth. Keep your vendors happy and they are more likely to tell others only good things about your show.

List your show with The Extravaganza Craft News now!

While attending an art fair in my area a few years ago I visited with artists and crafters. We discussed my newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, and if I should include artist and crafter reviews of shows. I found this an interesting topic as I had never really considered all the pros and cons of show reviews before.

The only positive point I see to show reviews are that artists and crafts people hopefully don’t get suckered into doing bad shows where the promoter is not truly doing their best to advertise the show.

There are many factors involved in if a vendor has a good show. Factors ranging from their financial and emotional investment, what is happening in their lives-before, on the way to, during, and after the show, what they are selling, how they are displaying their items, their own marketing skills, their own attitudes and actions in their booth, to the purchasing habits of the customers at the show. Even the placement of your booth and the weather (too good or bad) could affect sales at a show.

As the artist who prompted the conversation pointed out some crafters who know of really good shows wait years to get juried in. They might not want extra competition either getting in or competing for sales so they might hesitate to tell you everything they know about the show. On the other hand everyone who has ever experienced a bad show is pretty quick to tell you about it.

So how do you know if you can trust a show review? I suggest using your best judgement. Reviews by someone selling merchandise similar to yours should be more valuable to you than those by someone whose product sells in a whole different category, but then again they are your competitor.

Compare the number of bad reviews to good, remembering it’s nearly impossible to please everyone all the time. Ask lots of questions about why people felt that way about the show and which factors might have played a part, while talking to crafters personally about shows. When possible consider the values and motives of sources.

Better yet, attend shows as a customer if possible before entering as a vendor. Look closely at the number of people attending, look at what booths are busy, what is selling, how much money is being spent. If booths in one area of the show are making lots of sales while others aren’t see if the set-up allows for proper flow of traffic to all the booths. Is your most likely customer in attendance, are people buying products that are the same style as yours and that sell in your price range? How many competitors will there be in your category?

Remember while it is the promoters job to advertise the show, it is your job to advertise your product.  How much better would every show be if, every vendor told 100 other people about the show?

What do you think are art and craft show reviews worth their weight in gold?

One day I was riding in my sisters car. The roads were slick and the car slid off the road into a deep snowbank. The car was very stuck and trying to drive it out did no good. Along came a car with 5 guys in it. They couldn’t pull the car out using their car. They all got out and stood at different points around my sisters car then lifted up her car and put it back on the road.

One guy couldn’t have lifted the car alone, but together the 5 of them easily moved it.

Business is like lifting heavy objects. Doing it alone it’s too heavy but with many people working toward the same goal it becomes light.

Craft businesses often go out of business before they even get a good start when business owners try to do it all alone. There is just too much work to do and too many things to learn for one person.

Have you noticed that KFC and A&W teamed up? Have you thought about why they would do that? I have.

KFC and A&W are in direct competition with each other.

They chose to work together because they share costs and reach a wider customer base.

• They rent/own one building instead of two as well as sharing equipment.
• KFC and A&W share advertising costs. They put out one ad with both chains specials mentioned.
• They both use one set of employees rather than each company having to hire their own.
• KFC and A&W foods compliment each other. You might want rootbeer and ice cream with your fried chicken and mashed potatoes. You might want fried chicken and mashed potatoes while your friend wants a coney dog and tator tots, and everyone wants a rootbeer float. Both companies get more sales by working together.

In the business world working together is called a Joint Venture (JV for short). Jeff Dedrick says doing a joint venture isn’t like if I would make $1000 selling jewelry and my friend would make $1000 selling hair bows that we would make $2000 together. He says that if I would make a $1000 working alone and she would make $1000 working alone it’s possible that we would make $5000 working together.

So how do you make joint ventures work for your art or craft show business?

1. Choose someone with similar products but not exactly the same.

• Jewelry-Handbags-Accessories-Clothes-Other Types or styles of Jewelry-Makeup
• Woodworking-Furniture-Home Decor-Pillows-Curtains-Florals-Pictures-Light Plate Covers-Wood Carvings
• Pottery-Table cloths and place mats-Furniture-Florals
• Body Care-Embroidered Towels-Bath Fixtures
• Rugs-Furniture-Lamps-Curtains

2. Choose someone with a different style than yours if you choose a product that is very similar to yours. For instance two Asian jewelry artists can work together if one does very elaborate work and the other does only very fancy work. They would be able to offer products that closely match their target audience but would be able to offer a wider variety of price ranges, making more sales. Both jewelry artists would be experts in the same field and able to share information on the use and care of Asian jewelry.
3. Ask show promoters if it’s okay to share a booth or rent two booths next to each other and mix products.
4. Make an agreement to know each others products and to offer them equally if someone is looking for that item. Offer each others product as an upsell or downsell.
5. No one likes to work for nothing. Be honest with your partner and keep good records making sure they get paid for their items that sold.
6. Evaluate partnerships and adjust or discontinue as necessary

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

Week one I worked on catching up on left over unfinished crafts and business projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Week two I learned new things about my email marketing to keep my messages from being flagged as spam. I joined a networking site I’ve been meaning to join for months when they ran a special I couldn’t pass up. I did a client consultation which was a new service for me. I blogged about what I was doing and I did all this while keeping up with requests for information about my business.

Week three I mailed coupons to show promoters, had a second client consultation, worked on facebook profile and group pages. I created a profile on Fast Pitch Networking and added a few contacts there. I worked on cleaning out my email box, and signed up for a MySpace account, and I blogged about what I had done to make my business more profitable this week.

Week 4 what I accomplished.

• Power Pay contacted me but then never got back to me. I guess I still need to call them next week.
• I remembered that I had a Linked in account and had a new member join there.
• I found my friend that was already on MySpace and reconnected with her.
• I created an email I can send to all my customers and prospects reminding them that they can follow me on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Linked in. I need to finish formatting it and send it to everyone. I remembered to tell a client over the phone that they could follow me all these places.
• Worked on creating my profile on Fast Pitch Networking. Added a few contacts there.
• Worked on cleaning out my overly full email box which got even fuller despite my efforts.
• I blogged about my experience working toward greater profitability this week.

Here is what I didn’t accomplish.

• I still didn’t get my accounting done.
• I didn’t call the people I just mailed free newsletters to in the last few weeks to ask them what they thought of the newsletter. It is probably too late but I will try to fit this into next week anyway. Call your prospects right away they are only interested about 7 days!
• I didn’t create any articles to send to show promoters that will encourage them to list their shows with me.
• Since I didn’t write the articles I also didn’t start calling my huge list of show promoters. Obviously I didn’t sign them up in my email marketing system.
• I didn’t get the article written for my newsletter although I have some very good ideas to write about.

I hope that this series is inspiring you to work along with me to improve your businesses profitability by doing something each day that will make your business stronger. I know that I’m a bad example but I would really suggest that you write your goals down on a calendar. This way you can truly see what you did accomplish and will remember what you didn’t get done so you can work on it in your spare time or in your next 30 day plan.

The plan for the next 8 days:

Day 24-Write and send a quick email to all my customers from the past asking them how their businesses are doing? Tell them how my business is doing and showing them where they can get more information from my business. Sort of bring them back to take another look at my business.

Day 25-Write the article for my newsletter.

Day 26-Finish writing my book.

Day 27-Clean out my email box.

Day 28-Do my accounting

Day 29-Create articles to send to show promoters who haven’t listed with me yet.

Day 30-Call show promoters and ask them if I can send them free articles.

Day 31-Blog about my 30 days to Greater Profitability for my art and craft show business.

Entry 4 of 6 in the series My 30 Day Plan to Greater Profitability.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.net to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

Don’t forget to to visit the Commonwheel Artists 38th Annual Labor Day Arts & Crafts Festival in Manitou Springs, CO this Sep. 1 to 3, 2012

Handcrafted arts and crafts festival vendors contact Julia Wright at 719-577-7700 to reserve your show booth now.  Remember to tell her thank you for listing her show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in Montana each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at www.extravaganzacrafts.com.

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

• Day 1-Set a goal to do something to make my business more profitable each day for 1 month.
• Day 2-Make a plan. Get out a calendar and write down the goal for each day until calendar contains one goal for each day. Make each goal one that can be accomplished in a time frame of 1 day to 1 week.
• Day 3-Finish writing down goals on calendar. Breaking larger goals down into step by step goals if necessary.
• Day 4-Clean office so I can find everything I need to accomplish goals.
• Day 5-Do projects I’ve been putting off for the past month or so especially accounting.
• Day 6-Finish projects I’ve been putting off for last month.
• Day 7-Blog about my experiences this week.

Entry 1 of 6 in series My 30 Day Plan to Greater Craft Show Profitability. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.