Want to do craft demonstrations in your art festival booth but...

Don't have a helper to watch your booth and sell your crafts while you do them?

Veronica Campos-Hallstrom of one of my LinkedIn groups shared this tip and gave us permission to share it with you.

She said, "To take the place of live demonstrations, I use a digital photo frame, a photo book, and displayed photos of me at work for "proof" that it is actually me as the artist creating. You can show a step-by-step process in those means without loading up all the needed materials.

Depending on the space, I do also display a newspaper feature article so that locals can further connect my face with my art and read details about my art for themselves if I am engaged with someone else at the time they are interested in looking or speaking."

I think this is a great idea or you could take your laptop and play a YouTube video of you making your craft or a Power Point of you making them.

Also Read Karen's tip Crafts That Sell-Selling Customized Arts and Crafts and Holly's tip How Giveaways Sell Arts and Crafts.

Please thank Veronica for sharing this great tip with us by visiting her sites below:
Hand-crafted beads created by hand in clay and glass. Art That Sets You Apart.
One-of-a-kind beaded jewelry and home decor items.

Club Creative Studio Blog- Learn About Creativity

Follow the artist as Veronica interacts and shares information about her unique beaded art on Facebook

Found this fun idea for getting customers to buy jewelry (or any art or craft) at craft shows.

How to Get Your Jewelry Customer Buy at Craft Show Event.

Thank you Ooh-la-la Beadtique for sharing such a fun idea!

Also read Do Sales and Discounts Hurt Craft Show Sales? and 5 Places to Market & Display Your Handmade Jewelry for Free

How do you get your customers excited about buying?

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.

1. Be aware of what's going on around you.
2. An open safe is as good as no safe at all.
3. Have someone you trust with you in your booth at all times.
4. Have two adults make bank deposits during the show. Have them carry pepper spray.
5. It's better to give them the merchandise or money than to be killed if someone threatens to harm you. Give them what they want and call the police when they are gone.
6. Don't leave large amounts of money where it's visible.
7. Showing alone. Ask a vendor nearby to watch your booth while you unpack, pack and eat etc. Offer them a small piece of merchandise and to watch their items when they need.

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 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 had a new member join my Linked in account and contacted her right away with other places she could get more information. 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 LinkedIn. I still 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. I also worked on creating my profile on Fast Pitch Networking and added a few contacts there. I blogged about my experience working toward greater profitability this week.

This last week while checking my email and cleaning out my inbox I made a horrible mistake and downloaded a malicious file. I spent the whole last week trying to back up my files so I can reformat my computer. I didn’t accomplish many of my goals except blogging about this weeks experience.

What I learned over this 30 days is that although I didn’t always accomplish everything I set out to do by having a goal every day and working toward it I did improve my business. I am confident that my business will be more profitable in the future because of the efforts that I made this month.

Just as creating your art or craft is an art, turning a looker into a buyer at a show is also an art. You want to encourage each looker to imagine themselves at home using or wearing your product.

First you need to recognize that every person is bombarded with advertising/marketing materials for hundreds if not thousands of items everyday. They may need or want some of these items but don’t have time to sift through all of the information that they see to find the ones they need.

How do you bring customers who are most likely to buy your product into your booth?

Before the Show

Send a postcard to customers in the area who’ve visited your booth in the past. Offer them a discount for bringing in the postcard and a friend.

AutoWebBusiness.com or Constant Contact is a good way to let customers know about upcoming events. 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.

AutoWebBusiness.com Increase your sales by 100% GUARANTEED! CLICK HERE

Signage

Your sign should be visible from all the sides of your booth that your customers will be approaching from. It should be clean and in a clear font. It should tell the reader exactly what you have to offer them (not your business name).

For example:
If your product is baked goods your sign should say, “Delicious home made muffins, pies, candies, fudges, cakes, and cookies,” not Lacey’s.

If you product is woodworking your signs should say, “Woodturned pen and pencil sets, handcrafted wood utensils, unique wooden dishes, and original knotty pine picture frames,” not Jake’s Crafts.

This way a customer who has never seen your booth before knows exactly what you are selling before they arrive in front of it. By telling them exactly what you have to offer you remind customers interested in your product not to miss your booth from across the building.

Layout and Traffic Flow

The next thing to consider is the layout and traffic flow of your booth. Arrange your booth so that customers can enter (and exit) easily where they will be approaching from. Is there enough room inside your booth that many customers can shop and move easily or will people feel trapped inside?

Selling large items or if you have a large variety of items to sell ask the show promoter for an additional half (or whole) booth. You want to have plenty of space to display your items properly and still have room for your customers to move about freely. You also need a place for customers to make purchases that is out of the way of shoppers but where you can keep an eye on your investment.

Look and Feel

The look of your booth needs to complement your products. Use western style decor for western products, oriental style for oriental jewelry, if your make beach hats and bags you might use a beach cottage theme.

Color can add to or distract from your product so choose colors carefully.

Customers become attached to items through their senses. They see something they like, touch it and feel the texture, and finally try it on. Part of turning a looker into a buyer is to encourage them to see themselves using or wearing the item.

Encourage this process through your display by:

Selling wearables be sure and include a mirror in your display so they can see what they look like wearing the item.  Display items in a way that encourages people to try them on.

Selling furniture or home decor display your items as though you were decorating your own home with them. The customer can now imagine how the items would look in their own home.

The smell of food is one of it’s biggest selling points next to a sample of the product.

Display your products with these things in mind and see your sales increase.

Parts of this 7 part series have been reprinted with permission from the article “7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business” by Pam Grimm of Ideaco.

7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business

7.  No asking for the business: Not once did anyone say… “We want to be the store you come to for your crafting needs….we want your business!” There was no attitude of we want to impress you and guarantee your return to keep you as a customer. No one asked “Have we met your needs today?” They would say… “Did you get everything you needed?” instead of asking if there was more that they could do to meet my needs today! I was surprised at just how little interest there was in gaining my business.

How to Ask for Business

Remember that the value of every customer is equal to the total of their purchases over the length of time they will be your customer. When you remember the potential value of every customer over a life time of purchases it’s easier to offer exceptional customer service. Customers are looking for exceptional customer service something that sets your business apart from everyone else.

Remember make a positive impression, show your interest in your customers, share your product knowledge, and find the customers needs. Present the customer with the benefits of the product as they apply to them, offer the options they need like customization, ability to pay by check, money order or credit card, free gift wrapping and shipping to any address.

Ask the customer if you have met their needs and listen quietly to what they say. Take notes if necessary and carefully consider if you can provide their needs. Is the value of that customer worth the time and money that you will spend to meet their needs?

Meet the needs of your customers with a wow and they will keep coming back for more!

Entry 7 of 7 in the series 7 Ways for Your Art or Craft Business to Outsell the Retailers. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Why do you need a free Facebook business page for your craft business?

• There are more than 800 million active users on Facebook.
• More than 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.
• The average user on Facebook has 130 friends

More statistics from Facebook https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Facebook business pages appear on search results on their site.

Does that answer the question? 800 million people with 130 friends they interact with and influence in some way. Who wouldn't want their art or craft business out there interacting with them?

A craft business page gives you a place to post your business related messages including but not limited to:

• links to blog posts
• links to your craft web site or web store (Etsy, Artfire, etc.)
• information about upcoming art festivals and craft shows you will be attending
• sales, specials, or discounts on your handcrafted works of art or services you offer
• community events and fundraising you are participating in 
• other places people can get your crafts
• information about the materials and workmanship of each piece of art
• pictures of yourself creating your art
• personal discussions relating to the creation of your crafts
• business happenings, awards, contests, recognition you receive etc.

So are you asking how do I get my Facebook page?

First things first, you need to sign up for a free Facebook account-if you don't already have one-at www.facebook.com and choose a password.

Create your craft business page on Facebook here.

Here are some links to articles that might help you understand how Facebook and other social media can help your art or craft show booth flourish.
Why is a Page Better than a personal account?
How Your Facebook Page Helps Your Art or Craft Business Know Who Your Customers Are
5 Ways to Use Facebook to Sell More Arts and Crafts
Use LinkedIn to Build Your Art or Craft Show Business
Art and Craft Group "Facebook Like" Exchanges on LinkedIn
Is Facebook and Social Media Selling Arts and Crafts?

When you are selling your art online little is more important than the quality of your pictures.

You won't get many sales if the quality of the pictures make it hard for the buyer to see the quality of your art or craft. Worse yet the quality of the pictures can make the buyer picture in their mind that your items are poor quality because you didn't seem to care if the photos were low quality.

Taking pictures of our handcrafted items is something that overwhelms and irritates many artists and crafters. It seems like it is too complicated and our photos are never good enough causing us great frustration.

I was very excited to learn of an inexpensive tool that can help us all take better quality photographs of our crafts. I would like to thank Nancy for this wonderful information please visit her sites below and say thanks.

Nancy's blog
My Artfire shop
Nancy's Etsy shop
Find Nancy on Facebook

Nancy uses a light tent by CowboyStudio on Amazon.com to take pictures of her jewelry. Actually I found quite a few there and was pleasantly surprised at the price.

Nancy's described her lights as "just clamp lights, about 8 bucks at Lowes, with 23W 5000K natural daylight compact fluorescent bulbs.

Nancy also shared with us this link to a great video tutorial on product photography. http://www.prophotolife.com/prophotolife-instructional-video-diy-studio-product-photography/

Thanks again for sharing such great information with us Nancy!

Parts of this 7 part series have been reprinted with permission from the article “7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business” by Pam Grimm of Ideaco.

7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business

2. Lack of interest in customers:

It surprised me how often I could walk into and out of a store without having a single conversation with anyone. No one seemed interested that I was even there. When we did come in contact with staff, they really didn’t know how to conduct small talk to establish some kind of personal relationship connection. It was all business. Why is this important? Because the personal connection made with the store is the core of a positive experience…making a connection that makes you want to come back to that store, think of that store,and become an advocate for that store. Another “dropped ball” was in the lack of gathering contact information. In over 95% of the stores, we walked out with no way for the store to ever follow up, market to us, or make another connection with us.

How to Overcome a Lack of Interest in Customers

As I mentioned in part 1 everytime a retailer misses a sale they leave an opportunity for you to make the sale, if you have a product of similar quality and value. I feel like it is obvious that if a customer walks into your booth and leaves without even a greeting that you have missed an opportunity, but since it happens so often in every industry it bears repeating. If a customer walks into your booth and walks away without having a conversation with you, you have missed an opportunity for a sale.

I admit it is hard to find the motivation to happily greet every customer when a show has few customers and sales are slow. Remember it is more expensive to find new customers than it is to sell to those who have already purchased from you. It’s not the purchase one customer is making that will make your business profitable it is the many purchases they will make in the future that will. Retailers who fail to greet their customers aren’t seeing the full potential of each customer. Every customer has the possibility of one sale or one thousand sales depending on what you do to earn their business. If you follow up with correct marketing principles with the customers who have purchased from you approximately 20% of them will make 80% of the future purchases from your business. By treating each customer like your best customer you won’t miss your next golden opportunity.

A customer walked into your booth, saw something there that interested them, your job is to establish a relationship of trust with the customer. Find out what is was that brought them into your booth, and ask for the sale. How do you establish trust with someone? What makes you trust someone? Establish trust by getting to know them, find out what it is that they want and give it to them. You can’t establish trust if you haven’t spoken to them. Start off with a simple, “Hello.” Don’t ask, “How are you today?” unless you truly want to know, customers know when you care and when you’re just asking to start a conversation. If you ask, “How are you today?” you must truly care how they are today. Ask where someone is from, or what brought them to the show today, ask what they are looking for, or if you can help them find something. Ask if there is someone they are shopping for or if they are shopping for a special occasion. Ask if they are looking for a particular style or if they are looking for something in a certain price range. Listen carefully to their answers without trying to figure out what you are going to say next. When they are finished speaking then take a moment to consider what to show them. When you have narrowed the choices to a few of their favorites ask for the sale by saying, “May I wrap those up for you?” or “May I take those to the counter for you?” If they’re having a hard time deciding, offer to give a small discount (10% off) the lower priced item if they buy them both.

When ringing up the a customers purchase always offer an upsell. An upsell is an additional complimentary product for example McDonalds offers a larger fry and drink with every hamburger (or hamburger meal) purchased. Done correctly chances are some customers will make the extra purchase, but no one will if you don’t offer. Don’t forget to collect the customers contact information during this step. They have purchased from you showing a need or want for your products so you should follow up with them to find out if they have additional needs, You can’t follow up if you have no way of contacting them again. You can collect their personal information by using duplicate receipts and including their name, mailing address, phone and email on every receipt you make out. Be sure to ask if you may include them on your mailing list and mark that on the receipt. Only mail to those that gave permission to be included.

Treat every customer like a golden opportunity. Follow up with them multiple times and soon you will be able to sort out the customers who will make many multiple purchases in the future and focus the largest part of your marketing budget on them and your profits will definitely grow.

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Your customers won’t buy art from you if:

• They don’t know where to find you or your product.
• They aren’t prepared to buy now. For instance they weren’t expecting to see a product they wanted so they don’t have money right now.
• They don’t know what you are selling.
• You aren’t selling what they want.
• If your handcrafted product is hard to get, the wrong price or bad quality.
• You haven’t asked them if they would like to buy.

We were selling World’s Finest Chocolates as a fundraiser to earn our trip to Jamaica with ROC Wheels in March 2011.

The first day the kids sold chocolate bars, they sold very few. The next day more people knew they were selling them and several bought. The third day their sales increased again because people knew they could count on them having them and had their money together.

Problem: Not knowing it was available!

Solutions: Consistency, advertising, marketing your finished crafts to correct market, having a website or blog to show case your art work, email marketing.

One day my son took the chocolates to school. A child asked him if he had Mint Meltaways. He answered yes and was swarmed by kids who wanted the mints. They hadn’t bought before because they didn’t know he had them.

Problem: Not knowing what was available! Not offering enough variety.

Solutions: Better advertising and signage, having a website or blog, email marketing. Offering the right product to the right customer.

We arranged to sell the chocolates at a grocery store in town, set up a table and sat down to wait for our first customer. I noticed that although we were directly in front of the door many people walked right by or bought a product right next to us without even seeing we were there. When we asked if they could use chocolate for stocking stuffers many people checked out what we were selling.

Problem: Not knowing where to find you. Not knowing what you are selling.

Solutions: Consistency, better advertising and signage. Not being afraid to offer your product and ask for a purchase.

The favorite chocolate we are selling seems to be the caramel candy bar. Chocolate sales increase when we keep those in stock and decrease greatly when we run out. Some people will buy another variety, some won’t.

We noticed however that when we sold to a wider variety of people (at the store instead of the school) the different flavors all sold about the same.

Problem: Not selling what the customer wants.

Solutions: Find the right market for your product by selling to a different group of people. Change your product to meet the needs of the group you are currently selling to. Offer a wider variety of products or narrow your products to the ones your customers buy.

People at the store weren’t expecting to see us so they didn’t have a few dollars cash on hand. They usually went to buy groceries and came back with money to spend.

Problem: Customers aren’t prepared to buy now.
Solutions: Follow up through mail, email, a website or blog or even an occasional phone call. Remember just do it respectfully always giving the customer something they want for instance information they need, a discount, or even a special just for them.

One problem we didn’t face was resistance to price or quality. The problem is that a low price can give the idea that a product isn’t high quality, but if the price is too high customers won’t buy. The solution is to do your research and carefully set your price within a range the customer will pay. Decide if you want to have the lowest price, the highest price, or some where in the middle.

People in general require 7 or more contacts with a person or business to become comfortable with them.

Most people only buy from your craft show business after 7 contacts with it although there will be the rare person who will buy from you the first time they come into your show booth.

Do you see the same customer walk into your craft show booth very rarely, rarely, sometimes, regularly, often? Are those contacts daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly?

You are making a common mistake if you answered that you very rarely, rarely, or sometimes see the same customers at craft shows. Many crafters spend too much time and money chasing new art and craft show customers and don’t spend enough on turning people who are already interested in your crafts (your prospects) into buying customers.

You are losing most of your sales if you don’t follow up with customers who come into your booth.

Follow up with your customer by creating a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a very simple guide for your business. It shows you what you are doing to guide your prospects through your process to buying your arts and crafts.

Quickly make a list of everything you use to create a contact with your customer including business cards, fliers, emails, website, blog, art and craft shows, direct mailing pieces, phone calls, and social networking. Leave lots of space between each item so you can write down the goal of each thing. Decide on and write down a single goal for each marketing piece.

Goals can include things like getting prospect to:

• visit my blog
• follow me on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or other social marketing
• visit website
• give me name and contact information
• share their email
• tell me their needs
• getting a testimonial
• visit my craft show booth
• buy something

The goal of each marketing piece will help you determine where that piece of marketing will go in your marketing plan. Make sure to emphasize the desired action you want your customer to take in each piece of your marketing so that your prospects can easily tell what action you would like them to take.

Customers aren’t likely to trust you enough to buy handmade crafts from you on the first contact. Now draw a map of how you would like to encourage your customers from their first contact with you down the path to buying crafts. Remember to continue to encourage those who come into your booth and have purchased crafts from you before to come back to your craft show booth or website.

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.

Pricing an art or craft show product is more of a science than an art. You can’t just set a price that you think is okay and expect to sell a lot of your product for a profit.

First of all you need to know what it costs you to produce your product. You want to include the costs of the goods used to create your product plus a little more to buy extra supplies.

Second you need to include your wages. What price per hour would you like to make? How many hours did it take to create your product?

Third you need to add in the price of your other expenses. Don’t forget to include things like the cost of your studio, electricity, advertising, cost of travel, cost of shows, in this figure. Then spread these costs out over the price of all your products.

NOTE: You will recover a small portion of these miscellaneous costs each time one of your products sell. For example your miscellaneous costs add up to $2000 a year and you sell approximately 1000 products a year that means that you need to add $2 to the price of each product to recover those costs.

In order to make a profit you must build one into your price. At this point adding 1or 2 dollars to your price probably won't hurt sales but...not doing it can hurt your business.

Last and definitely not least you need to know what price the market will support. What this means is that your price can’t be higher than the amount the people who buy your product are willing to pay for it. IF you sell a product that is similar to a retail product you can go to the stores and see what price products like yours are selling for.

Then you need to decide if you can make your product for that price.

Here is a formula to help!

A. Cost of goods used x 1.5 = cost to replace supplies used + costs of new supplies

B. $dollars per hour I would like x #number of hours it took me to create product = my wages

C. Miscellaneous expenses for the year divided by approximate number of products I can sell a year = cost of miscellaneous expenses per product

D. Whatever Profit you would like to receive.

E. Add A + B + C + D=Total wholesale cost of product. This is the price you would receive if you were selling to someone who would resell your item to someone else at a significant markup.

It is not necessarily the price you should charge a retail customer, that price will usually be almost twice your current figure.

F. E x 2=Approximate Total retail price

Compare the answer you got in F to retail prices in the area to know if your price is inline with market expectations.

It may take some adjustment to find the price point that sells the most product at the best profit. Read Are You Pricing Your Original Art Too Low? to know why pricing your crafts too low isn't a good idea.

Here is a link to a simple example of how this works http://www.whatthecraft.com/arts/pricing.htm

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. Visit 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.