5 Marketing Mistakes Your Craft Business is Probably Making

Let’s be honest. Most of us small business owners don’t want to spend time on marketing. But if we don’t, no one will know about our business or its products. 

So it’s a necessity. 

And if we’re going to spend time doing something we don’t love, we’d better make sure we’re doing it right. 

These are some common mistakes you should avoid so you don’t waste time when marketing.

 

1) Not marketing before & after craft shows

Before a craft show, you probably think: I’m busy enough. I paid the organizer good money to get people to the craft show. I shouldn’t have to do it for them. 

And then after a craft show, you may be so tired you don’t want to think about your business for a week.

But before and right after an event are ideal times to market.

Letting your fans and followers know about an upcoming craft show is a good way to get “warm leads” to your table (people who have already shown interest in your business/products).

And warm leads require less time (you don’t need to explain your business/products to them), are more likely to buy, and may even spend more money when buying.

The same idea applies after a craft show.

You’ve just met dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of new people who are now warm leads. They may not have purchased from you at the event, but instead, signed up for your newsletter, or followed you on social media.

Strike before that warm lead gets cold and send out a newsletter and post to social media, reminding them of your amazing products and letting them know what’s still available.

 

2) Focusing on features instead of benefits

If you don’t like marketing, it may be largely because you don’t know what to say with your marketing. 

And when you don’t feel like you have anything important to say, you can lean too heavily on product features.

For example: “New colors available”

But that’s a boring marketing message.

Your marketing should keep your target market top of mind and align with what they care about and what drives their purchases. 

Don’t tell shoppers what you’re selling. Focus on why your target market should want it.

Perhaps my bags in new colors are:

• Perfect for a Mother’s Day gift
• On trend for Spring and the perfect way to refresh a wardrobe
• In a durable fabric that will hold up to Spring showers

Try to explore the real reasons your target market would care about your products.

 

3) Only marketing when you need sales

Marketing was often panic-based for me. 

I’d realize my traffic/sales weren’t where I wanted them to be, then panic and start posting to social media, sending newsletters, writing new website content, etc.

Much of the marketing you do today won’t have an impact until weeks, sometimes even months later.

Not to mention, some of the most effective marketing can’t be done last minute. 

For example, when sending out press releases, you need to plan way ahead. The bigger the publication, the more time they need. 

If you want to be featured in a magazine, on a blog, or on an influencer’s social media page, you must assume they have a good chunk of their year’s content already planned. 

Plan ahead and stay consistent so you don’t work in panic mode.

 

4) Too much asking (not enough giving)

If every other Facebook post from a friend was asking for help with something, you’d probably start to get annoyed and tune out their posts.

But if most posts were offering to help others (e.g. I have an extra ticket for ____ event, if anyone needs help with snow removal I can help, I’m making dinner this Sunday…who’s available? etc.) and asks for help were mixed in, you’d be more likely to pay attention to their posts and even to offer your help when they ask.

If your marketing messages tend to help rather than ask (i.e. asking people to buy), your target market is more likely to pay attention to and interact with your posts/newsletters/articles/etc.

Helping may be sharing:

• entertaining stories
• helpful tips
• freebies and savings
• etc.

>> Here’s an article explaining how your marketing can be more helpful

If most of your newsletters, social media posts, website content, etc. are helpful, and your fans/followers/subscribers/etc. truly feel they’re gaining value from your business (without having to spend money every time), they’re more likely to feel compelled to support your business and buy when the opportunity is right. 

 

5) Not tracking ROI

Many marketing tasks are done without tracking how much time and money is spent on them and/or how many sales that specific marketing task created.

There will be times you won’t know where a sale came from, but you should keep tracking in mind when planning your marketing.

For example, don’t spend hundreds of dollars on an ad in a magazine without being able to determine if that ad drove any sales to your website. 

You may promote something specific (e.g. a specific product and see if sales for that item increase the week the magazine ad comes out), share a unique QR code, or direct users to a specific page of your website (e.g. instead of sharing your basic URL (www.yourwebsitename.com) share a page, as long as the URL is simple (e.g. www.yourwebsitename.com/spring)).

Other ways you can track marketing results:

• You might ask people who stop by your craft show booth how they heard about the event (it may be due to your marketing rather than the organizers).
• Set up Google Analytics for your website so you can see where traffic is coming from and which pages they’re landing on.
• Stagger your marketing efforts so you can see if a post to a specific platform caused a spike in traffic.
• Use different promo codes for each marketing effort so you have a better idea of where sales come from. For example, you may share one promo code on Facebook and another one at a craft show. Which promo code produced more sales?
• Add an optional field to your checkout form asking people who have just purchased how they heard about you.

You should also be tracking how many hours and how much money you spend on each marketing effort so you’ll be able to calculate if you made money, lost money, or broke even.