6 Truths About Promoting Your Handmade Shop

Handmade businesses are like sharks. We have to keep swimming, or we die. Swimming in our case is promoting.

And believe me, I know you hate it. We all hate it. But at the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious:  if no one knows your business is out there, they can’t buy your product.

This is true in a very literal sense- imagine you crocheted a hat to sell. Once you finished making the hat, you stuck it in a shoebox and stuffed it in your closet and never told anyone about it. It would be ridiculous to think anyone would buy it. They don’t even know it exists.

Fleece Shark Hat by ObeyMyBrain

Well then, let’s say you work up the courage to do this for real. So you set the hat out on your coffee table with a price tag. (Hey, everyone has to start somewhere.) Now maybe you get lucky and a friend or family member wants to buy it. What’s more likely is they’ll wonder if you’ve gone a little cuckoo-bananas.  (Jerks!)

Okay, so you’ll take it one step further and set up a little table on the front lawn. Maybe you’ll get a bullhorn so you can yell at cars passing by. Perhaps you’ll make a nice sign: Captain Obvious Crochet Hats! $25 each!

Now we’re getting somewhere. Instead of reaching the 2 or 3 people that might see the hat sitting on your coffee table, you’re potentially reaching all of your neighbors and everyone that drives past. Twenty people? Two hundred? It depends on a lot of things, but it’s way more than just inside your house.Read more…