The Friends And Family Network - The First Step To Marketing Your Crafts
December 4th, 2008

You've always had a knack for creating charming homespun crafts, and now you've created something highly original that always gets a good reaction when you show it off to friends, family, and co-workers. In fact, your friends and family gush about your work, and even encourage you to sell your crafts. In short, you've got a passion for your craft, and it shows.

You want to start selling your crafts, but how do you start? The easiest way to begin is often one of the most overlooked. Start at home! Using your friends and family network as a stepping stone, you can begin to make contacts that will allow you to market your craft to potential buyers.

Put on a Home Show

If you're starting from scratch, a good way to reach out to potential buyers is by putting on a home show. Invite a few close friends and family members, and ask them to bring along another person who has expressed interest in your craft. Organize the show as a very casual, no-pressure event, providing your guests with light refreshments and games.

You might want to prepare a theme for the show. For instance, if you specialize in creating ceramic pumpkin pots, a good idea would be to organize a ‘Fall Festival' theme show. You should always try to schedule your home show around a holiday. The most obvious choice is to put on a home show around the Christmas holiday season, where the interesting and demand for handmade crafts is always high. But don't feel restricted to market your craft during the winter months. Competition is high around Christmas, so you might do even better by putting on a home show at a less busy time of the year.

Compile a List of Contacts

Your friends, family members, and co-workers are an invaluable source of information on potential clients. If your friend simply adores your hand-crocheted scarves, does she know anyone else with similar taste who might be interested in purchasing one? Does your co-worker's sister happen to collect animal figurines? By all means, don't be shy to ask your family and friend network to help you in compiling a list of contacts. Even if you don't intend to contact the people on your list right away, this is invaluable information to have in case you ever expand your business and decide you need to market more aggressively.

Sell Your Crafts at Local Events

Do you, or does someone in your family, attend a local church? Are you, or maybe a friend, involved in local community festivals? Church bazaars and other community-sponsored events are great venues to begin marketing your crafts. Ask friends and family members who belong to local organizations, clubs, or churches to see if there might be any upcoming events where you could sell your craft. You'll probably be surprised at the number of local events where your craft would fit right in.

Tap Into the Power of Your Own Personal Sales Force

If you're lucky, your friends and family will be your ultimate support network, your cheerleaders in life, if you will. If they believe in the promise of your product, they will probably be happy to act as your own personal sales force. Enlist friends and family members to take samples of your crafts to work. Make up high-quality flyers for them to take to work and put up on the bulletin board in the worker's lounge. Make sure to include pricing information, and maybe you'll want to include a sales order form for ease of ordering. Remember, it's especially important to complete all transactions as smoothly as possible since you're dealing with your friend's co-workers.

The last thing you want is to make any transaction difficult or uncomfortable for your friend or family member.

Just Like Martha

The most important thing to remember when you're just starting to market your craft is that everyone started out small. When Martha Stewart got started, remember, she worked out of her basement. The best and easiest way to get your feet wet is with the invaluable support and help of your family and friends network. With a good product and a good support system, you can begin to build the foundation for a successful crafts business

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