Advertising/Promoting Your Business

Sugar_Coated_Owl

Where is the best place to advertise/promote your business? Initially I want to give away the kind of items that I make but I need people to make them for. I did make a thread on here and 2 other forums but apparently it broke the rules so it was removed. I just don't know where else to go. I don't mind paying a small fee to advertise. Can anyone help?

punkpink

Could you try a group on facebook initially? Until you have managed to gain a group of followers? That way people could invite others to join if they like them and your business base could grow with every different persons friend groups?

Sugar_Coated_Owl

That is a good idea - thank you.

paulwf

It is very hard to give advice without knowing the target market. For example a product marketed for teens needs marketing in different ways to a product for seniors.

If you can please post more details here. If you want to keep the idea quiet for now all I can suggest is defining your target market as carefully as possible and then tailoring your advertising accordingly. It will both save you a lot of money and also be much more effective.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

It's no secret what I do. I make handmade wooden wall letters and plaques. The wall letters are really intended for children's bedrooms but I suppose some people might want them in the kitchen. The plaques can be placed anywhere.

podperson

Craft fairs, maybe car boots etc. Look for schools/nurseries in your area that might be having summer fairs with it coming up the end of term (though this might be a little late now).
Those kind of items can sell quite well on Ebay but need to try and stand out as there is a bit of competition on there.
Try local playgroups, mum and toddler groups etc - maybe offer to make them a few plaques for them to put on the walls with your details underneath.
Facebook is a good way to go but again look for things like local mums groups and things like that and post a link on there to your own site.

floopnoodle

Etsy is a great place to sell up-cycled and handmade stuff

http://uk.etsy.com/

Sugar_Coated_Owl

Thank you both

heart_free

Get yourself a free website. If you go to the GBBO website you can claim a free website and domain name for 2 years. You can set the commerce on it and sell through your own website then. You will need to make sure you optimise the site and write good content to get you up the organic rankings, but you can also do things to help like setting up a google places account and social media pages. You can also sell through Facebook, but I haven't really looked into this. If you register with HMRC as self-employed you can apply to not pay class 2 contributions if your earnings are under a certain amount (I think its about £6000).

Local events and craft fayres are the obvious places but that can be expensive. I agree with approaching groups such as mother and baby. What about offering home-shopping parties? Vistaprint are offering free promotional items and I think there is a brochure - so you could maybe have your own catalogue?

Good luck with everything - sounds great!

Sugar_Coated_Owl

Thanks for the information it's very helpful.

pinetree

Hi you could try having a stall at your local craft fair take your business cards/leaflets to give out as well with your website on etc