How To Turn $5 Craft Show Sales into High-Value Customers

In my last article, I shared the importance of a gateway product and key elements to create one.

You can learn more here: Every Craft Show Table Should Have a Gateway Product

The purpose of offering gateway products it to make a sale (even if it’s a small one), and to warm up that lead in hopes that they become a repeat customer who buys your core products.

So how do you help ensure customers of your gateway products come back to buy again?

This article shares 6 strategies to ensure more customers who buy low-priced items return to spend more money.

 

1 – Offer the right products

Your gateway product must be related to your core products. But really, your entire product line should work together.

If a vendor selling leather wallets is also selling:

• candles
• paintings
• cutting boards

There’s no connection from one product to the other.

Even if everything on their table is made of leather:

• leather wallets
• leather knife holder
• leather camera straps
• leather guitar straps

There’s still not a strong connection from one product to another.

Each item targets a different market or serves a different purpose:

• Wallets – purpose is accessorizing (or they may target a specific person. For example, wallets with a space for a passport would target travellers)
• Knife holder – targets hunters or outdoorsmen/women
• Camera strap – targets photographers
• Guitar strap – targets musicians/guitar players

Choose a purpose and/or target market for your product line and ensure each item is related to that purpose and/or appeals to your target market.

That ensures the person who buys one item will be interested in almost every item on your craft show table and more likely to be a repeat customer.

>> Learn more here: How To Sell More to Each Customer (w/ a Ladder System)

 

2 – Stay in touch

Encourage each customer to join your newsletter, as it’s the best way to stay in touch with and market to your cold or warm leads.

>> 7 Steps To (Finally) Start your Handmade Business’s Newsletter

>> How to Grow your Newsletter at a Craft Show (free printable signup forms)

Give customers a reason to join your newsletter…meaning, “Do you want to sign up for my newsletter?” won’t cut it.

Instead, you might try:

Do you want to sign up for my newsletter?…

>> I have a giveaway each month and one newsletter subscriber can win ____

>> Subscribers get first dibs on limited-edition product launches or are the first to know about sales

>> Subscribers receive a coupon for X% off their next purchase

>> You’ll receive a free guide for _____ (something your target market will find valuable. A customer of leather products may want to know how to care for the leather so it gets better with age. While a customer buying a piece of jewelry may want to know the latest accessory trends).

Once you have a newsletter set up, and your first subscriber, be sure you’re sending regular emails to stay in touch with existing customers, marketing to them, and encouraging them to come back and buy again.

Don’t know what to send subscribers each week? Here are some articles to help:

>> 13 Non-Promotional Emails to Send to your Newsletter List

>> 12 Types of Promotional Emails to Send to your Newsletter List

>> A Year’s Worth Newsletter Ideas for your Handmade Business

 

3 – Plant the seed

If a craft show shopper is buying a gateway product, during the checkout process, you can plant the seed for which products customers typically come back and buy.

For example, the leather wallet vendor might say:

Great choice! Most people start with this money clip and then come back to buy the wallet.

This not only gets them thinking about the wallet, but it also creates social proof:

• Proof that you have customers who trust you and buy multiple items
• Proof that the wallet is popular
• And proof that others are doing it, so it’s a good idea for them to do it too (buy the wallet)

You could also create marketing material that does the job for you.

For example, the leather wallet vendor may create a small postcard that shares leather care tips on one side, then shows the most popular collection or bundle of products on the other. 

They could add a postcard to each shopping bag.

 

4 – Create a natural progression

If the price of your gateway product is a long way from the price of your core products, you may consider introducing other products to fill in the price gap.

For example, let’s say the leather vendor sold leather keychains and leather briefcases.

The price jump from a keychain to a briefcase is a big one. It may take a keychain customer a long time to warm up to the $100+ price tag of the briefcase…they may not even be a target customer.

The leather vendor needs to continue to warm up their leads/existing customers and nudge them toward a bigger sale.

>> A money clip may be a small bump in price from the keychain.

>> A wallet will be a small bump up from the money clip.

>> A laptop case will be a step up from the wallet.

And so on and so forth.

Offer products that bump a customer up in price by small increments.

 

5 – Create urgency

You don’t want the next purchase a customer is thinking about making to stay in “someday” land forever.

You might:

• Let them know that the line they see today is limited edition and once they’re gone, they’re gone.
• Offer a time-limited coupon; a coupon (code) that’s valid within 30 days of their purchase.
• Mention that you create seasonal collections so there will be something new for them to check out in the next 1-3 months (and the current collection will be no longer).
• Mention order cut-off dates. If it’s around a gift-giving holiday, you might let shoppers know your products are popular for gift-giving and that you have order or shipping deadlines.
• Add signage by certain products on your craft show table that let shoppers know: bestseller, limited quantities, this item always sells out, etc.

 

6 – Build a connection

If craft show shoppers felt a connection to you, your business, and its products, they’ll be more likely to remember you and your business and want to support it again.

“Thanks for your purchase” will make them feel like just another customer.

Be sure you treat each sale equally and make the person buying a gateway product feel just as important as the person buying a core product.

And during the shopping process, be sure to chat with shoppers. Let them know about the story behind your business/brand/products or simply find a common interest.

You might love their glasses and have a conversation about where they got them and how you love that particular style.

Spending 5 minutes talking with someone about the weather will create more of a connection, memory, and desire to support you in the future than letting them shop in silence (although sometimes that’s what a shopper needs and you should allow that).