Carmelita Caruana on Pinterest

The latest craze in social media
There was this little site that started in January 2011 called Pinterest. Called a virtual pinboard by its creators, it can be likened to an online scrapbook on steroids. It’s all about curating and collecting images and videos from every corner of the web. Pin an image to your virtual board, and whoever sees it can trace it back to its source.

That, in a nutshell, is the power of the site: potential customers can find you through collections of bright shiny things your admirers can’t resist.

The growth has been explosive: 389% from July to December 2011. Retailers and single users are reporting significant traffic spikes to their websites.

How it works
You can get an invitation from a Pinterest user, request one from the site itself via email (which may take a few days), or sign up immediately with an existing Facebook or Twitter account. From there, the instructions are easy. Create a few boards, which are simply collections of images based on a theme, and you’re off.

A quick Google search will give you some decent recon on how people are structuring their boards. You can also do a search on Pinterest without an account to see what kind of work is out there.

According to Pinterest etiquette, blatant self-promotion is against the rules. While posting some of your own work is fine, this is not a portfolio site.

It does, however, present incredible opportunities to showcase collections of work by like-minded creatives.

Who’s using it
Not surprisingly, 80% of account holders are women. The core group is between 25 and 44, and according to statistics from ecoconsultancy.com, fall into three groups: Boomers and Boomerangs, Babies and Bliss, and Families Matter Most. 25% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher.

This is where you inspect the bandwagon carefully to see if all the noise applies to you, or if this is a case of a big site that may fall into the category of There’s No Such Thing as Everybody. You can search the site without an account, and use Google to see if anyone you know is out there (provided they haven’t hidden their page from Google search).

Copyright and piracy
There’s no way around it: if your images are online, they’re prone to being swiped somewhere, sometime. Every image should be linked back to its origin, so you can consider a pin as an image in a magazine. You have to make a judgement call on the benefits and the risks.

You can hunt down your images by using this url: http://pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite and replace yourwebsite with your own URL.

So if we want to see what came from the lovely Carmelita Caruana’s Italian cooking blog, we do this: http://pinterest.com/source/blog.cookitaly.com/

To join or not to join
It looks like this juggernaut isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s big, it’s become hugely popular, and the ease of use is nearly as seductive as the images. With the growth of social commerce across the web, it’s a site, like Etsy, you shouldn’t completely ignore, even if it’s not appropriate for you right now.

Want more information? Check out the beginner’s guide on Mashable for more information (and here are some stats from leading retailers), or head on over to Pinterest.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and professional butt-kicker who is well on her way to becoming a social  media burnout. Rather kick it old school with email? Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. 

Painting, music, and video: A Story in Three Parts
Silk painter Lee Zimmerman and improvisational cellist Kathy McTavish create a beautiful collaboration for the performance of the musical The Secret Garden. The event takes place at the Duluth Playhouse in Minnesota in early 2010.

The video came my way just yesterday.

It’s also a brilliant promotional piece for Zimmerman, McTavish and the theatre where they performed. It’s traveled to faraway places as well as through time to reach new people.

Conversation and connection make their own kind of music
Inkwell Boutique in Halifax, Canada connects online with Bespoke Letterpress Boutique in Brisbane, Australia. Bespoke Letterpress features images of the shop by photographer Daniel MacDonald. The potential audience for all of them is over 6000 people on Twitter alone—reaching people around the world.

When potential numbers are translated into more realistic figures, the message is still received by a significant number of the right people (who are in their respective cities, shop local, and who love things both handmade and beautiful), who can then re-share their content and revisit their websites.

Market without “marketing”
The possibilities for artist collaboration are as varied and exciting as the participants. The tools available to record and share these experiences are both affordable and flexible. They allow creatives to create promotional pieces that are works of art in themselves, that take the dusty, grey stuffing out of “marketing” and transform it into an exploration of both medium and message. They provide backstage passes and glimpses into galleries and studios around the world.

These are the kinds of collaborations that people want to share. A beautiful website, stunning photographs, an inspiring and fascinating video—the experience is something your audience wants to be part of.

Some artists have admitted to me they dislike technology so much they actively avoid it, in spite of understanding the benefits to their businesses. They don’t see it as a medium to discover, a new resource in their creative toolbox. They can’t begin to imagine the fascinating people they can meet and talk to, and share an audience—or project—with.

But you can.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and professional butt-kicker. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Want more marketing info? Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. For high-speed inspiration, catch up with her on Twitter.

To speak out or not to speak out
Yesterday The Studio Source went dark as part of the protest against SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy legislation in the United States.

I almost didn’t participate.

 A couple of online friends asked if I’d be part of the strike. I’d already scanned an article on how to make the adjustments to my site, saw a bit of code, and moved on.

“I can’t do much but be in the cheering section,” I said, “but I’m watching developments. It will affect Canadians, too.”

It seemed like a reasonable response. But it wasn’t the truth.

When a reasonable response is anything but
This is what was running in the background:

“I’m working on one site that’s driving me crazy, I’m not going to muck around with code on one I can’t afford to break. Besides, I can’t vote on either bill.”

“I don’t have a huge readership. What difference would it make?”

“No one gives a damn what I think.”

Cue the sound of screeching tires.

The monster on your shoulder
The insecure knee-jerk happens from time to time; I’m sure it’s in the Universal Writer’s Handbook (if there was such a thing), right after the table of contents, and watermarked on every page.

Recognition came as quickly as the crashing white noise of self-doubt. The remedy was simple: shovel it up and spread it on the metaphorical rosebushes.

The deeper truth? That reaction had nothing to do with public political activism.



Denying your own voice

Creatives self-censor all the time. Not for the sake of good manners, but to fit into some imaginary idea of what’s acceptable when talking about their work-especially when they’re trying to sell it.

The aversion to being labelled a braggart or blowhard turns into dead-eyed blandness. The passion behind the creativity is squashed. Simple, strong words are whipped into a polysyllabic froth of half-understood jargon or meaningless catalogue-speak.

Sometimes you panic and don’t say anything at all. Emails aren’t sent, the phone remains untouched.

Sometimes denying your own voice goes way too far. The work—the song, the book, the painting—is never made.

Going public is a risk. So is remaining silent.

The middle ground is spongy. You poke your head up, but don’t say what you really mean. You settle for what you imagine people expect.

You try to make yourself small and say you’re being sensible.

Be bold, be smart
This is what I believe: that credit should be given where it’s due. That artists should be paid for their work. Piracy does damage, although if I’m being completely honest, I’m far less worried about the dented bottom lines of big movie studios than I am about independent artists.

I chose to join the SOPA strike because I think the legislation is poorly written. It doesn’t do enough to stop piracy and has the potential to do too much damage to legitimate (or just plain unwitting) users.

But mostly I spoke out because of the reek of censorship. That slope is too slippery. There are far too many artists, academics and journalists who have been intimidated, jailed, tortured or even murdered, to ignore the implications of SOPA and PIPA.

Some people won’t agree. Some won’t take the time to look past the headlines to try to understand the issue. Some will think any kind of activism has no place in business. And that’s okay.

Edit your message, don’t censor it
Whether I’m talking about marketing, mindset, method or missions in life or in business, I won’t self-censor. I will edit my message—weed out the words that don’t need to be there—to make it clearer and stronger.

I won’t call people names or beat anyone over the head with a virtual placard. There’s too much crazed shouting already, too many people basting their words in venom. I want to engage, not alienate, to spread ideas and help build revolutions.

The small amount of activism I do here is a conscious choice. I don’t take it lightly. Whether I talk about marketing or the mindset behind it, post a video to spark marketing ideas, or advocate change, my goal is always to enlighten and empower.

These are the things I believe in.

Do I get unnerved by any of it? Of course I do. Every time I hit Publish, there’s a small part of me that cringes. Will anyone read it? Will anyone care? Will what I say help someone move forward with his professional creative practice? Will it inspire someone to say yes to her talent and her potential?

There’s always a yes in there somewhere. Always.

The same is true for you. Say what you really want to say. Make your art.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and professional butt-kicker. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. The images she uses are through Flickr’s Creative Commons licensing. Want more marketing info? Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. Want to chat? Follow Stacey on Facebook.

Tangled in terminology
I just read a great article by digital marketing guru Mitch Joel about the goals of marketing in the wild world of social media. He talked about the difference between huge social media numbers compared to smaller numbers of the right people, and the difference between loud and thoughtful messages to that audience (I’m oversimplifying for the sake of brevity – check out the full article here).

The heading “Built to touch” jumped out at me, for what I hope are obvious reasons: the layers of meaning can become a seamless transition from the work you make to the way you reach your audience.

I left a comment about how so many creatives don’t trust the simplicity of engaging their audiences and used the word “marketing” instead of “promotion.”

I forgot where I was and went into blurt mode. Open keyboard, insert foot.

Mitch diplomatically reminded me that marketing is a combination of things, and promotion is just one part of the marketing picture. (The standard list, if you’re interested, is product, price, place and promotion.)

“Great,” I thought, as I hastily typed a follow-up, “he thinks I’m an idiot.”

Words to inspire, not intimidate

If I were to play by the rules, I’d talk about those four Ps and how they all fit together in a marketing strategy. I could really go overboard and talk about supply chain management, but if I did that you wouldn’t be here (and neither would I).

There are a couple of reasons I don’t do that: one is many people use marketing and promotion interchangeably. But mostly I don’t do it because the technicalities of terminology can really bog you down.

Granted, none of those words are very long, or remotely difficult to understand, but calling art, or craft, or design a product isn’t particularly inspiring. For many creatives, the mere thought of promotion can tighten your throat and make your hands clammy.

I talk a lot about promotion (without calling it that) because it’s the big scary part for most creatives, and the place where the wheels usually come off.

When you’re trying to wrap your head around things that unnerve you, how you learn is just as important as what you learn. So I don’t sweat the labels too much.

When the rules are mostly guidelines
If you like structure, you can use the textbook marketing Ps (and add a few more for good measure), or you can make up your own list.

How about this: there’s a what, who, where, how much, and “you had me at hello.”

Or this: put your work in the hands of the right people at the right price (for them and for you). Find them, bring a little wow, and make it easy for them to buy.

Or if you prefer to go visual, imagine the whole thing like a scene in a movie. Your work, your customer, the place where you sell it, and the money in her hand.

Whatever way you approach it, the big umbrella of marketing will get you where you’re going. As long as all the elements are in place and properly aligned, it doesn’t much matter what you call them.

What matters most
 in “marketing”
What matters is you don’t convince yourself you can’t do it, or that you need a commerce degree, or that you have to do things the “right” way, or in the “right” order.

What matters is you pay attention to what works, and what doesn’t.

What matters most is to remember that marketing, like your creative practice, evolves. You learn new things, you explore, you observe and execute.

What do you think? Do you prefer to play by the rules, or do you work better when you make your own? Or do any of those labels matter to you—is getting the work done the only thing you care about?

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and professional butt-kicker. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. Want to chat? Follow Stacey on Facebook.

Now that the holiday dust has settled…
Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?

Did you really want to make New Year’s resolutions?

I’m guessing you didn’t.

I’m guessing what you really want is for a bunch of things to happen for your business this year.

Say, for example, you want to finish your taxes done before the deadline, so you’re not in a panic.

Or you want to get more organized.

Or you have this vague notion about getting your marketing butt in gear. You know you need to do something, but you’re not sure where to begin.

Forget the resolutions.

Resolutions sound noble and courageous, but resolve is pointless if you don’t take action.

As in, right now.

Do one simple thing
Is the copyright notice on your website up to date?

Not yet?

Change it. Today.

That’s all you have to do.

Do one (more) simple thing
Since you’re there anyway, take a good look at your website—the virtual face of your creative business, the first thing anyone sees when they look you up online.

Is there an image that needs to be updated?

Just one.

Pick it.

Fix it.

One thing leads to another
Constraints can spark an extraordinary amount of action.

“But I can only change one image? There are three on that single page that need to go! This looks terrible! How did I let things go for so long?”

It doesn’t matter if you’ve let things slide, because that one simple thing just jumpstarted your marketing batteries.

All that matters is you’re ready to act. No lists needed, no lofty New Year’s resolutions to make, break, or feel badly about.

What’s your one thing?

What’s the one thing you can do right now to promote your creative business? To increase sales?

Name it, even if it scares you, because you’re not going to tackle a huge, complicated project all at once. You’re going to do one thing at a time.

What one thing can you do to promote your business this year?

What’s the one simple thing that will get you started?

Maybe it’s a phone call. Or an email.

Or maybe it’s as simple as changing the date on your copyright notice.

One thing.

Choose it.

Do it.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and professional butt-kicker. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. For high speed inspiration, follow her on Twitter.

A Christmas gift gone way wrong
Once upon a time there was a couple named Dick and Jane (not their real names).

Dick wasn’t the greatest gift buyer in the world.

One Christmas Dick was especially stumped. He had to get Jane stocking stuffers and buy her a proper gift, and that particular year he ran out of ideas.

He’s wasn’t sure what to do, so he froze up. He didn’t think much about Jane’s reaction, he just wanted to get the whole painful thing over with.

Then Dick made a mistake. He bought a Very Bad Gift.

Fortunately, Dick enlisted the help of a family member to wrap his gifts. When Betty (not her real name) saw the item in question, she knew Jane would not respond well to her Christmas celebration being turned into that meaningless ritual of I-have-to-buy-you-something-so-what-the-hell.

Betty realized Dick was in serious danger of being bludgeoned with a gravy-soaked turkey leg. She concealed Dick’s Very Bad Gift in a closet.

Crisis averted.

This is not a new story
Dick’s dilemma may sound painfully familiar.

And you probably figured out we’re not really talking about buying Christmas gifts here.

Fear leads to marketing mistakes
That forced fictional gift, and the reaction, is a classic marketing scenario. The seller is at a loss about how to connect with her customers, so she falls back on what seems easiest, or most practical in that uncomfortable moment.

Trust me on this: it’s not the way to go.

The solution to Dick’s dilemma is simple.

Great marketing starts with attention
He could pay attention when Jane says things like, “This is great! This is so much fun! I love that colour/musician/store/restaurant/spa/author…”

Or he could do a little stealth research. He could ask Jane leading questions. In July, maybe. Or October.

He could look at the books on her bedside table. Or check the titles of her online book club. Or see what shops or music she has listed as favourites on her Facebook page.

Or he could just ask outright: “What’s the best gift you ever got?” Or “I think this is pretty cool. What do you think?” If Jane hates that thing Dick mentioned, she might tell him why, and maybe get enough of a rant going to reveal excellent information about what she does think is cool.

Don’t let fear trip you up
Dick shouldn’t tell himself he can’t figure it out. In spite of his near-tragic holiday purchase, Dick is a pretty smart guy.

He just convinced himself his task was impossible, that this whole gift-buying thing was mysterious and had rules he didn’t know.

He convinced himself it was better to do something lame than to take a risk: to try something remarkable, even in a small way.

It’s the thought that counts
The thing is, the thought really does count. And the effort—to pay attention, to work on the details, to present something that delights the recipient—is worth it.

When marketing deteriorates into a meaningless ritual, it looks like you don’t care. People don’t like being around someone with that mindset.

Going through the motions is a bore.

You don’t want to do it, and your customers have seen enough of that kind of marketing. They want something a little more sincere. They want to know you’re interested.

Great marketing is personal
That thing they buy from you is like a gift. It doesn’t matter if it’s something personal or a creative service to make their own business more successful. It means something. There is always emotion attached.

That little spark of Christmas morning is what turns marketing into something great.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and artist who believes successful creative ventures run far deeper than snazzy sales pitches. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. Stacey also wants you to know a toilet brush makes a really lousy stocking stuffer, and wishes you a very happy holiday season filled with your favourite things.

Classy social media marketing
Lots of people talk about social media, but many don’t quite know what to do with it. Organizations and artists get a twitter account and it sits idle, or it’s used as a very bland billboard, with occasional announcements and little sense that they’re interested in talking to their customers.

Jennifer Barnable is someone who knows how to promote her organization and its talented membership through social media. She’s the Communications Director at the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador, and she generously took time out of her hectic pre-Christmas event schedule to share her considerable expertise.

This might seem like an odd question to you, but I get lots of blank stares when I talk to creative people about social media. Where did the idea for your Twitter and Facebook promotion originate? 

The Craft Council had been dipping its toes into social media little by little in recent years, but really began having a stronger Facebook and Twitter presence in the last six months. As far as the Craft Fair social media promo plan went, it was an idea for a new way to promote the Craft Fair event as well as its individual exhibitors—and to identify ways of engaging people online to drive them to the Fair.

Social media is an incredibly powerful tool. I always say its benefits are three-fold, and it has 3Fs: it’s Fast, Free and Far-reaching. We wanted to harness that and generate excitement about the fair, spread the word around the city and province, and help promote our members and exhibitors in new and different ways.

We did a one-week lead up to the fair with “Tweet Cards” (mobile phone friendly-sized ad teasers) that showcased items from 30+ exhibitors leading up to the Fair, which we also posted online on our Facebook page. We also circulated a series of 20 Tweet Cards to promote the online shop, featuring those items that were available at a click of a button from anywhere in the world.

Showcase your organization and your membership

Both sets of “mini ads” built up a lot of excitement and dialogue online the week before and the week of the Fair—people loved them (both craftspeople and the public).

We saw a major spike in our online activity, both on our website and our Facebook Page. We went from having 60 weekly viewers on average, to 805—and an average of 163 hits to our website per day to 1,106 per day during Craft Fair lead-up week and event week.

Throughout the five-day Fair, we posted a constant stream of live Twitter and Facebook updates with plenty of personality and photos from on-location at the Fair, capturing and creating the buzz and atmosphere. Our social media channels were lit up with activity, both incoming and outgoing, which was exactly what we wanted to see happen.

The social media promo campaign for the Craft Fair was quite a large undertaking and commitment, but it paid off for us. We’ve been hearing feedback that this was the most talked-about and most visible Craft Fair we’ve ever put off. So that’s a wonderful thing to hear!

People get hung up on the idea of building community. They’re intimidated because they see it as a structured activity, with rules they don’t quite understand. Do you approach social media as a community-building and promotional effort, or is it more natural, like sending friends a postcard from your fantastic holiday?

It’s both. We build the community and promote craft by being natural, authentic, and looking for creative, fun ways to connect with people.

The reception to our social media promotions for Craft Fair (and all of our other events and projects) has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s generated so many conversations online, connected the public to our members, and brought creatives together with other creatives.

The Craft Council is like a “mutual friend” in this online world of networking and community building—and it does seem to happen organically with a natural feel to it.

There’s often a clash between sales and marketing. Sales is all about grabbing customers right now, and marketing takes a longer view. Tell us a little about the importance of getting people to your events as well as building your reputation to an audience that is potentially anywhere in the world.

If we can get people in the door, we’ve achieved that first step to building a relationship face to face.

With online efforts, our goal of connecting with people worldwide helps connect the community of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, offers them a link to home, and creates the opportunity to send or acquire a piece of home through the Craft Council online shop.

We launched the online shop officially at the Craft Fair in November and were pleasantly surprised by the attention it received worldwide, from New Zealand to New Hampshire. During Craft Fair lead-up week and event week, we saw 16,643 views to our new online Shop section of our website and made our first sale within hours of the launch. It was very exciting!

Great promo pic. Who wouldn’t want to meet this guy?

I followed your Twitter feed during your five-day Christmas Craft Fair in St. John’s. As the show progressed, there was a real sense of narrative as you took us though the venue, introducing us to exhibitors and their work. Was telling a complete story part of your plan from the start?

Yes. You always have to complete the promise of invitation, anticipation, satisfaction and resolution that a story offers.

The story unfolded rather naturally, in an almost photojournalistic way, with our Facebook and Twitter posts.We told the “pre-story” with the lead-up teasers as a promise of things to come, and on opening day at the Craft Fair, the story went from there.

We wanted to show the setting, the people, the products, the ambiance, the faces and reactions. It was definitely time-intensive but, we feel, very fluid and complete as well.

We wrapped up the story with great pictures of the Craft Fair Raffle winners and the “Buy Me, Tweet Me” contest winners and posted media coverage on our Facebook Page and Twitter feed to bring everything full circle. We’re looking forward to doing the same thing next year to keep the momentum going.

What’s the core demographic of your customers? Were you confident you’d reach them through Twitter as well as Facebook, or were you looking to find some new people?

We were looking for new people, especially a younger demographic. We need to grow the future market of the Craft Council.

The current market is much older, and while extremely important, we also need to meet needs of other buyers/customers as well. Both our older and younger demographics have discerning tastes and we found that through social media promotion, the younger audience has just as much appreciation for fine craft and supporting local makers as the older audience.

The younger seem to also appreciate the novel, quirky and non-mainstream products that can be found as well. Our followers and supporters (on social media and off) are our best ambassadors. When they’re engaged and have had a great experience at the Craft Fair or another event we put off, they carry our message with them. Whenever they post a comment, review or photo on Facebook or Twitter, about the Craft Council, it brings us to their network of friends and colleagues, and so on and so on.

The reach is impressive. We really enjoy generating discussion and having fun with our social media activities, which in turn engages our core and targeted demographics.

Were exhibitors skeptical, or are many already using social media?

And how did you get people looking so comfortable in front of the camera?

I’m a photographer by trade and also relied on my good ol’ Newfoundland charm to put people at ease and capture them just really enjoying the event.

Social media is just that. Social. It’s not just a set of thumbs typing furiously on a mobile phone, or stooped over a computer monitor sending messages out into outer space. It’s a very human experience and allows for a lot of expression and humour and sharing and helpfulness.

It was easy to engage with the exhibitors, the fair-goers and the social media shoppers who were popping by all week and spreading the word with their own enthusiasm.

The morning of the Fair I came up with an idea, out of the blue, for a way to get shoppers on social media to engage in the promotions and get involved while having fun. It was called the “Buy Me, Tweet Me” contest, where fair-goers tweeted a picture of their favourite Fair finds that they bought for an entry to win a special prize. It went over really well.

If you had one piece of advice for arts organizations and creatives to best promote their work, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid.

Even if social media sounds like Swahili to you at first, give it a chance. It really is a powerful tool that can help you get a great deal of exposure for your work, and connect you with others in your field, too.

Take your time, learn about Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Ask questions, read up online and then give it a good shake.

If you invest a little time into learning how, you’ll see results pretty quickly. Social media is a bus you do not want to miss.

Brilliant, is she not? To see how Jennifer promoted her organization’s events and its talented members, and to enjoy more images, check out the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador on Twitter and Facebook. 

This is part two of a series dedicated to retail craft and art shows. Part one was about marketing, and how creatives can no longer depend on show organizers to connect with their customers. Today it’s about how one simple (and painfully common) mistake drives existing customers away.

Words you don’t ever want to hear

Dear exhibitor:

I spent nearly 10 minutes looking for a parking spot, then walked three stinking blocks in freezing drizzle. Then I see your vehicle parked less than 100 feet from the door (maybe next time you should take your decal off the window).

Then I get the unparalleled privilege of paying $7.50 for admission to the building, and to put the sprinkles on my soggy cupcake, when I finally find your booth, you don’t look up from the book you’re reading.

I can get better parking and deal with equally disinterested people at the mall.

Sincerely,
The customer who won’t be back

Do you really know where your customers are?
Customer traffic has dropped significantly at many retail craft shows and art fairs. Some of it has to do with poor marketing, some of it has to do with competition, but there’s another reason people walk away.

It also applies to high end shows and online selling.

The reason is multi-faceted, but very simple: the customer has been dropped from the equation.

You have to do more than put in an appearance
I once met a creative entrepreneur almost by accident. I say “by accident” because if I hadn’t recognized her business name, I would have walked right past her.

Her display was minimal. Rented pipe and drape, with a couple of shelf units sitting on one of the tables provided by the venue.

She told me a full booth would be very inconvenient for her to set up.

And that’s the problem.

Your customer’s experience isn’t about your convenience.

Being successful in business requires you focus on the person with the money in her hand.

Because without her, you’re done.

Walk a mile in a customer’s shoes
Picture this: from across the aisle you catch sight of a sea of black, with small, unidentifiable objects on display. The exhibitor is skulking at the very back of the booth like an unhappy bear in a den.

She’s not doing great business.

Bad for her, but it doesn’t hurt the show much. The overall impression of the show is one of quality, so you ignore her and carry on.

The slippery slope that kills a show
Now imagine: among several well-dressed booths there are a number with rented pipe and drape, and tables covered in plain cloth. You have to bend forward to see the items.

Some of those booths don’t have lighting.

How does that make you feel?

You encounter exhibitors sitting in standard height chairs. Some of them are seated across from each other, chatting at the entrance of the booth.

You don’t go in, because you feel like you’re interrupting dinner.

You’re not in a crafty-craft show with things made from kits and copied from magazines, these people are supposed to be professionals. At least, that’s what the show poster promised, and that’s the way the show used to be.

Selling is not about logic—it’s about people
Think about how you’re feeling now.

You’re the customer, looking for something special.

You hunted for a parking spot.

You paid to get in.

You were planning to spend an hour or two, enjoying the work as well as the atmosphere.

But you have to work harder and harder to see past ho-hum booths and surprisingly apathetic people.

Think about how you feel.

Do you want to be there?

Do you want to go back?

Join the crowd.

Want to be memorable? Bring it—all of it
Anyone who thinks making the work should be the end of their efforts undermine their own businesses and drag everyone else down with them. 

“Handmade” isn’t enough to attract customers anymore. With a site like Etsy boasting hundreds of thousands of sellers, handmade is no longer a rare and wonderful thing.

The rare and wonderful rise above the hacks and hobbyists, and savvy customers look for the cues.

They don’t have much patience when they feel let down.

The pros are serious about delighting customers
Anyone can throw a cloth on a table and sit on a lawn chair for three days. Or sign up for a Blogger account (which they then neglect), or set up an Etsy shop (complete with out-of-focus photographs).

Professionals take the extra step. They think about how customers see their entire business and create a remarkable experience, in person and online.

The pros know the magic is in the details.

They know customers rarely speak up, but will tell their friends about their disappointing buying experiences.

The professionals know a negative impression is incredibly difficult to erase.

Follow the right crowd
“What can I get away with?” is exactly the mindset that will drive away business. There are too many people following that crowd. Certain bloggers will encourage you to “fail fast” or just throw something out there and fix it later.

It sounds great, doesn’t it. Easy. No real commitment.

It’s sound advice when you’re making new work. Experimenting with creativity is part of the job.

But your customers rarely see that part of it. They’re not meant to.

Getting lazy when it comes to selling is a massive mistake.

No ifs, ands, or buts
You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to display your work.

Your customers don’t expect you to be corporate-polished perfect.

They expect you to bring the Wow. To be interested, and fully present.

They have every right to.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and artist who believes successful creative ventures run far deeper than snazzy sales pitches. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. For high-speed inspiration, follow Stacey on Twitter. 

A view from the creative front line
I just spent four days in an athletic facility with air so dry you could load in on Thursday with a bunch of grapes, and load out on Sunday with raisins.

It was a Christmas craft retail show, and I was there with my other business (the one I don’t talk about, but that’s a story for another day).

Both Friday and Saturday traffic looked like a Sunday, which is to say customer numbers were down substantially.

There was the inevitable knee-jerk reaction from some exhibitors.

“I’m not doing this show next year.”

“The venue should be advertising.”

The venue did advertise. That wasn’t the problem.

Shopping patterns have changed. But that’s not enough to kill a show.

From where I stand, as a designer, maker and marketing specialist, the extinction of the retail show is by no means inevitable.

The buying environment has changed
The decrease in customer traffic wasn’t sudden. I watched it happen over several years, worsened by the recession of 2008. The middle class is shrinking, and the slow economic recovery has left its mark.

A few exhibitors told me sales were down across the board, for all their shows. That’s not surprising, given the current economic climate. The number I heard more than once was 25%—ironically, the same amount as the increase Amazon.com boasted for the same weekend as the show I attended.

Consumers haven’t stopped buying.

A couple of customers told me the malls were packed on the weekend. Canadian retailers have jumped on the Black Friday sale bandwagon, minus the holiday—here in Canada, Thanksgiving is in early October.

Eyeing the obvious villains 
We’d like to tell ourselves the big retailers, with their ability to slash prices and sway consumers with big advertising budgets are to blame. It would be easy to attribute the craft show decline to online shopping.

When you’re bone weary and stressed because sales are down, the temptation to point the finger at show organizers for not doing enough to get customers into the building is nearly irresistible.

To some extent, it’s all of these things.

And it’s none of them.

There are elements in the buying environment you can’t control (so stop tearing your hair out)
You can’t control the economy.

You can’t control the carnival side show otherwise known as the stock market, and the effect it has on consumer confidence.

You can’t tone down hysterical media headlines about the state of our money, or share a little common sense with the people who don’t look past them.

What you can control is your marketing.

It’s time for artists and craftspeople to raise the bar on marketing
If you did a poll of the 100-plus exhibitors, you’d see a pattern emerge.

Many of them put a notice on their website with their show dates and hoped customers would notice.

Some don’t have a website at all. Or a blog, or an email newsletter, or paper newsletter.

They weren’t thinking about how important those things have become.

Up until very recently, show organizers could make their announcements, buy newspaper space, book television spots, put up posters, and the customers would come.

It’s not enough anymore.

You can’t rely on the venue to reach your people for you. You never should have, but now that expectation has become completely unrealistic.

The marketing wake-up call
There has never been more competition for customer attention. People are overscheduled and distracted.

If you want to keep their eyes on you, to remind them the mall isn’t the only place to shop, you have to draw them in. You have to stay connected, and there have never been more opportunities for you to do it.

Social media, blogs, email newsletters, powered by free or low-cost technology all allow you to meet your people, face to virtual face, without depending on shows, special events or seasons.

It’s a necessary evolution in the profession of creativity, for those people who want to put the things they make directly into the hands of the people who buy them.

The change will be painful for a lot of artists and craftspeople.

We assume Millenials are digital natives, hard-wired into social media, but many of them are as reluctant to do their marketing as Gen Xers or the Baby Boomers. Anyone who’s been in the business for more than half a dozen years would have enjoyed the days when shows still had good traffic without a whole lot of effort.

The playing field is more level than you think
You can’t force customers to stay away from the mall. But the mall can’t force customers to stay away from you.

Talk to your people. Not just random people who might be willing to pay the fee at the gate, talk to your people.

Talk to them, not waving sale signs and shouting sales pitches, but as one real person to another. Yes you’re selling, but you’re still you.

Do your best work. Show it off.

They won’t forget about you when it counts.

(Next time I’ll talk about another big reason customers stop going to shows. It’s a crucial element in marketing, and another big piece of your business you can control.)

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and artist who believes successful creative ventures run far deeper than snazzy sales pitches. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. For high-speed inspiration, follow Stacey on Twitter. 

Image by Becky Wetherington

A day in a creative life
She stares at the half-finished piece on the table in front of her. The twisted bulb, too close to her head, hums and crackles, bathing her tiny studio in a flood of alien light.

The knot between her shoulder blades is hot. She imagines herself bursting into flames, nothing left for the coroner to find but a small, unrecognizable pile of ash.

And that bloody damned thing would still be sitting there, a final, glaring testament to an utterly failed artistic career.

She winces as she straightens up on her stool, rubbing her neck. A headache lurks at the base of her skull.

And right on cue, there’s that hollow, spinning place in the pit of her stomach, the familiar, growing panic she feels every time she tries to do something ambitious.

She wants to run, change her name, go to dental school and pretend she never aspired to anything other than the endless joy of being utterly average.

Beats the hell out of being second rate.

She paces the length of her small table, eyeing the piece with disgust.

No one will ever want this. Why can’t I get this right? Why can’t I get anything right?

She tries not to think about what she’s really thinking.

Oh, well, mediocre and meta all at once. Aren’t we clever?

About what she really wants.

Why can’t I be as good as—

She stops, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

I don’t want to do this again.

I don’t want to ever do this again.

She could quit. Just chuck it all.

No relief there. Not really. She’s done it before. That kind of comfort is false.

Wherever you go, there you are.

She stands over her work.

It’s better, isn’t it? From when I started. Isn’t it?

The answer comes creeping quietly, from somewhere still and deep, slowing her churning stomach as it rises.

Yes.

She frowns. She’s done any number of off-the-self-help-shelf pep talks, and none worked. Could it be as simple as just deciding to stop beating herself up?

The drama queen has abdicated. Huzzah, the peasants are revolting.

She snorts.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is how this moment feels, right here, right now. The panic has faded.

It’s better.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Where you are is the perfect place to start
There are a myriad of things that can stop you in your tracks. Comparing yourself to someone you see as wildly successful, telling yourself you can’t “do marketing,” that you aren’t smart enough to master the simplest technology.

You can tell yourself other things. Better things.

Truer things.

Things that don’t make you feel ill.

Business skills are learned, not bestowed
Most of this business we call creativity is about learning, whether it’s artistic technique, a new medium, or marketing.

We all start somewhere, learn in different ways and in our own time.

There’s no shame in that.

“I want this to be better” isn’t a reason to stop. It’s a reason to push forward.

That desire won’t derail you, it’s the baggage you bring along for the ride.

Ditch the baggage. Do your work.

About the author: Stacey Cornelius is a writer and artist who believes successful creative ventures run far deeper than snazzy sales pitches. She helps empower artists, designers, writers and craftspeople to do their best work and show it to the world. Sign up for her free, jargon-busting foundation marketing email class right here. For high-speed inspiration, follow Stacey on Twitter.