I've been reinventing myself this week, which is why I haven't written.
Bear with me. It's about understanding WHO you want to market to. I thought I already knew. But I found out I was totally wrong. Here's the story of me finally realizing I'd outgrown my mailing list, and what I did about it.
I've been buried the last week, trying to get my web pages on www.wholesalecrafts.com ready for viewing. Wholesalecrafts.com is the outfit putting on the new ACRE wholesale craft show in Las Vegas I've been talking about. They also have an on-line "catalog", for viewing only by bona fide retail store owners, and I've been in a rush getting that squared away before the show.
I struggled, I panicked, I cried, I raged. But I got it done. Almost 85% of my jewelry and sculpture items are now on-line, and dang! They look good.
WSC.com also has incredible co-op advertising opportunities for their participating artists, and at the last minute, there was one I had to jump on. They offered us the ability to upload our OWN product images to their postcard, so each artist can mail a personalized postcard to their buyers. AND we could upload our mailing list, and they would label, stamp and mail the cards for us, at an extremely reasonable price.
I decided to go through my wholesale mailing list--almost 800 names--and just pick out the stores that I hoped to attract from more western states. I figured it would take a few hours and I would be good to go.
Of course, it was a lot harder than that. I had problems uploading my old list, and had to redo it entirely. A few hours stretched into almost five straight days of recreating that list. I worked all weekend, with the WSC staff helping me every step of the way.
Finally, I put the last images together and the last addresses, and the postcard is finished!
It was a horrendous process. But in the end, the best thing I could have done for my marketing.
While I was going through the list and reentering the data, I decided to look up these "western" and "southwestern" galleries, to see if my work really was a good fit.
It's so much quicker now to check out a gallery on the internet. A few Googles, a few clicks, even checking out their artist list to see if the work is compatible--it's amazing how much you can learn about your potential customer.
What I learned is, almost all of the galleries on my list were not a good fit with my work.
A few years ago at the Buyers Market show, a friend from Dallas looked at all the name badges at the show. She commented that she saw none of the stores and states that she thought would really go for my work. "Oh, there are plenty of people here from the west!" I said. No, not really, she said. There were a few, and they were "rare" enough to stand out, so I was remembering them. But more importantly, she said, if they were here at this east coast, contemporary craft show, chances were pretty good their store had the same aesthetic. And that was not the store that would do well, in the long run, with my work.
I thought about that for three years.
I tried another east coast show, the high-end ACC-Baltimore show, last year. Used the same mailing list. Got even fewer buyers, and few new orders.
I kept thinking of something else Nicci used to say: Do the same thing, get the same results.
I've been using the same mailing list, and not getting the results I wanted.
It was time to do something different.
Where did I get this list? Some of them were the Rosen Group's Top 100 Retailers winners, several years' worth. Others came from a purchased list from another craftsperson--it was about 300 or so names of "almost as good as" the Top 100. Many were "hot prospects" from the shows I'd done--buyers who were attracted to the work but not ready to buy. All my customers were on it, of course, even people who hadn't ordered in awhile. And many came from gallery reviews in various magazines and from on-line surfing. If the gallery looked like it might be a good fit with my work, I'd put them on the list. There were also some "dream galleries" on there, places that might never come to that show--but at least they'd have an idea who I was over the years, if I ever got to the point where I was ready to approach them.
Unfortunately, as I went over my list this weekend, I realized I'd changed. Some of those "great galleries" I knew were not really the right place for my work. Some had changed hands and focus. Many of the "cool galleries" had a clean, contemporary feel--and my work is not clean and contemporary. I might like their gallery, but my work would not fit in.
In the end, I kept a handful of names--customers who still liked to order, a few who may be ready to order in the next year or so, and others that I needed to be more proactive with. Those galleries who represent hundreds and hundreds of artists, I really DO need to call back more and ask if they need more stock.
But for the most part, I surfed all weekend, searching out areas of the country where, as Nicci said, "Southwestern isn't just a decorating style, it's a lifestyle." And places where my sea birds, bear and fish would be compatible with collections Inuit art and African tribal art. I found some promising museum stores and trading posts, and sent off a few e-mail inquiries to the places that looked promising, but needed a little more info before I bombard them with postcards.
I also looked for places with high "turnover" in customers--upscale tourist spots, museums, historical centers. One of my best accounts is the Cambridge Artists Coop near Harvard University in Massachusetts. They say it's because there's a constant influx of new people in their store--visiting professors, parents, conference attendees, etc. That means that, even though one in a thousand people will love my big necklaces enough to drop $900, there will be a new group of a thousand lookers in every month. That's an interesting thing to think about....
So I did the work.
It took a lot of time, not a little crying and some late nights. I'm stiff as a board today, and I'm determined not to miss another lap swim. My husband is crabby with all the uploading and downloading emergencies I've put him through the last few days.
But it's worth it.
I think my new mailing list is one I can wear for at least a few more years.
I share this long saga with you to get you thinking.
Sometimes it takes time, and a lot of postcards, before a store will finally take that first step and visit your booth, or place an order.
But if you're sending those cards to the wrong place to begin with, you're only postponing your success another mailing, another show, another year.
Take a good hard look at your target audience. Have you checked out those "sure bets" that someone else swore was a perfect place for your work? Are the new owners of that loyal gallery taking the store in a new direction? Are you focusing on the prestige of being in "that great gallery" instead of focusing on finding "that great gallery for YOU?"
It was scary to drop almost 500 names from my list. But it also feels like I dropped 500 pounds.
