Considerations - The Art in Marketing
From The Start - Follow our Journeys
We are changing
this morning it was 44 degrees outside, lots of blue sky, and very beautiful sunshine today. It should be a wonderful springtime day.
Inspiration
Todays inspiration comes from Ida of artsfarm. Ida is actively bloging here. Ida has a wonderful Etsy shop full of all sorts of vintage items and Ida's personal artistic efforts. Ida recently started creating ACEO and they are very neat. It should be fun to see how she progresses in this new area.
Ida has been promoted to moderator status of Ning, so if there is something that needs to be done and I am not around please feel free to contact her. More importantly, Ida is in charge of the welcoming comity, make sure we are giving a warm welcome to our new members and that they are informed about what information, services, and tools are available to members. Finlay, Ida is in charge of the considerations - Etsy street team that we are putting together as we speak.
Things are going to change here at considerations, and that is what this post is all about.
Team Work
I did not sleep much last night, I was pretty excited about planing and had a zillion ideas on what considerations - the art in marketing could become. I now have a vision for a possible direction that I think considerations should head into. And it is all about team work.
I have been thinking about the internet extremely seriously for a very long time, more recently I have been concentrating on trying to figure out how marketing is done via the internet. Because of the three impression rule, logic dictates that we as individuals want to be in every single possible place with branding about our work that we can possibly manage. But, it is impossible to get in front of folks everywhere, at the major social sites, like myspace, facebook, flickr, deviantarts. and sales sites that are two many to keep track of. If you are like me and are full time at this you might be able to get in front of one or two gallery types of sites, one social network, one blog, and maybe have time to clean up your website (if you have one) take new photos of your recent work., mail orders to customers, and still have time to create the new works you need to keep up with your catalog offers, oh and write steller add copy also.
We are so overwhelmed keeping up.
In other words single folks are just simply over whelmed trying to keep up with even the basics of what you need as a presence on internet marketing.
I am pretty convinced that team marketing on the internet is by far the best way to tackle this 7000 arm octupus.
Since we all can not be in every place all the time, and we need to be on the internet, perhaps, via a team effort we can be in lots more places and make our efforts extend a lot further by participating in team events. We can form into a team, and do team cooperative efforts. A team effort if organized, can mean the difference of running off and getting exposure for ourself individually, and not having enough time to even do that right, or getting exposure from the group efforts, and being able to concentrate on the part you wish to play in the team to help promote. In other words we all can get the benefits and synergy of coordinated group marketing efforts.
Joining the team effort is totally optional. However the more participation from the group and from individuals, the greater the team effort can become. The more participation from individuals the more team recognition the individual will get when it comes to things like promotional efforts and placement on any of our marketing efforts.
I look around considerations at the types of experiences this group has and the incredible caliber of art and just think that we have to be more efficient working as a group towards a common goal. I really think that as each individual succeeds here, it will benefit every individual here.
The first part of the team efforts is that we are setting up a Etsy street team for members of considerations. Ida is in charge of maintaining this team effort, and will coordinate with the members on events. Yes there will be events. Probably just weekly promotional thread to start. Thank you Ida for managing this part of the effort. There will be requirements to be part of the team, but the requirements will be of the minimal, but professional presentation, types of issues. We will expect regular participation in the weekly events. Probably 30 minutues to 60 minutes once a week to start. But we are going to be very flexible, especially to start. Also, key items in your Etsy shops will be able to have the team tag.
The articles from Etsy, on what teams can do, makes my mouth water every time I read all the wonderful suggestions and ideas that teams are trying, exploring and promoting. I think a coordinated effort can greatly improve members ship item and shop views substantially if coordinated well.
The team effort is not a new idea, its just its time has come for us.
We cant keep up as individuals but we might be able to keep up as a group. If anyone has any suggestions or wishes to contribute to this cause let us know. I think everyone can have a place that they can best help the team, and will be looking to fill team positions as they arise.
Much more to follow on this effort. I do not expect this to be a go out like a lion effort. Teams participation and growth will have to be organic in nature to start, but I do have some extremely interesting ideas on what we can do as a team, everything from group advertising in key targeting magazines (later stage), group sales sites, to a paper catalog, to organized brick and mortar gallery crawls. To consideration social groups on all the major platforms, to group PR efforts, to group web like rings, and group internal promotions, and the list goes on.
There are a lot of marketers in this group, if we can not figure out how to do it as a team, then no one can. What can you do to help this effort out?
Participation will be key, the more active participation, the faster we can grow this effort. We will grow this effort slowly or quickly, It depends on the folks here. The effort will work, would you like to participate?
Thinking about it
The first thing that came to mind for me when I was thinking about what new thing could I do the help further along the considerations team was to put a slide show viewer on my sites that shows the range of work at considerations in addition to my own personal slide show.
This is really easy to do with the widgets provided in the badge area. I have four social sites I can do this on. Currently I have a slide show of just my work on those sites. But it dawns on me that putting the group slide show up can maybe create an even more attractive pages. There has to be something on the group slide show that someone will find attractive and curios about even if it is not my work. We are a very eclectic group of artists.
I would like to ask folks here to go spend sometime in our community photo area. Rate the images if you would, rate them by attractiveness and possible marketability. This effects what images will be presented at random on the group slide show. And ultimately you are voting on our group catalog and what you think you would like presented front and center to our customers. What works here best represent the teams artistic diversity and marketability is how you should rate images. Please take some time in the near future to rate the photos in our group gallery. Look at our front page here if you want to see what shows up in the slide show. It is pretty neat and represents a very nice body of work. And by all means download lots of your own work here.
Thoughts on Etsy for me have changed again of late. I am about to release a rather large body of work, something like 15 more pieces. These pieces are very professional in appearance, workmanship and design. I now can pull 10 works easy from my efforts and feel that the styles are coordinated and will brand well.
These 10 items are targeted for boutique sales, they will be put up on Etsy but at full pricing. I currently have several items on Etsy that I consider to be at wholesale prices. Some I will raise, many I will continue to use as loss leaders and will add to and subtract from the list of what is a loose leader, and will revisit that issue repeatedly over time. I will still offer some of my greater works at a reduce price, but only some. I will continue to try and create works that fit into the findings side of my market model, but mostly that will happen as a side benefit of me defining my own needs for findings or customer requests. I will try and expand my under $25 price tag offers because that is what the demographics of the customer base on Etsy says to do.
Cya
today or tomorrow my car goes into the shop. I am ordering portable jewelry displays so that I can travel around to different boutiques and present my work in a professional manner. I figure that I need about 10 quality boutiques to make a pretty decent living.
The more I do boutiques relative to online efforts, the more time I will have in the shop, and the less likely I would need employees. This works for me. Online is only going to be supportive of my primary efforts which are offline activities, and this fits well within my marketing model and goals of quality of life first. Online efforts gets my professional polish on presentation and will act as an aid to my whole marketing message. I will figure out how to market online successfully, I think I already know how to, but off line has my attention for now. Online gets to also fill my need for social interactions, so online still gets my attention, and probably always will.
Welcome to Our Community,cya
Scott
Inspiration
Todays inspiration comes from Ida of artsfarm. Ida is actively bloging here. Ida has a wonderful Etsy shop full of all sorts of vintage items and Ida's personal artistic efforts. Ida recently started creating ACEO and they are very neat. It should be fun to see how she progresses in this new area.Ida has been promoted to moderator status of Ning, so if there is something that needs to be done and I am not around please feel free to contact her. More importantly, Ida is in charge of the welcoming comity, make sure we are giving a warm welcome to our new members and that they are informed about what information, services, and tools are available to members. Finlay, Ida is in charge of the considerations - Etsy street team that we are putting together as we speak.
Things are going to change here at considerations, and that is what this post is all about.
Team Work
I did not sleep much last night, I was pretty excited about planing and had a zillion ideas on what considerations - the art in marketing could become. I now have a vision for a possible direction that I think considerations should head into. And it is all about team work.
I have been thinking about the internet extremely seriously for a very long time, more recently I have been concentrating on trying to figure out how marketing is done via the internet. Because of the three impression rule, logic dictates that we as individuals want to be in every single possible place with branding about our work that we can possibly manage. But, it is impossible to get in front of folks everywhere, at the major social sites, like myspace, facebook, flickr, deviantarts. and sales sites that are two many to keep track of. If you are like me and are full time at this you might be able to get in front of one or two gallery types of sites, one social network, one blog, and maybe have time to clean up your website (if you have one) take new photos of your recent work., mail orders to customers, and still have time to create the new works you need to keep up with your catalog offers, oh and write steller add copy also.
We are so overwhelmed keeping up.
In other words single folks are just simply over whelmed trying to keep up with even the basics of what you need as a presence on internet marketing.
I am pretty convinced that team marketing on the internet is by far the best way to tackle this 7000 arm octupus.
Since we all can not be in every place all the time, and we need to be on the internet, perhaps, via a team effort we can be in lots more places and make our efforts extend a lot further by participating in team events. We can form into a team, and do team cooperative efforts. A team effort if organized, can mean the difference of running off and getting exposure for ourself individually, and not having enough time to even do that right, or getting exposure from the group efforts, and being able to concentrate on the part you wish to play in the team to help promote. In other words we all can get the benefits and synergy of coordinated group marketing efforts.
Joining the team effort is totally optional. However the more participation from the group and from individuals, the greater the team effort can become. The more participation from individuals the more team recognition the individual will get when it comes to things like promotional efforts and placement on any of our marketing efforts.
I look around considerations at the types of experiences this group has and the incredible caliber of art and just think that we have to be more efficient working as a group towards a common goal. I really think that as each individual succeeds here, it will benefit every individual here.
The first part of the team efforts is that we are setting up a Etsy street team for members of considerations. Ida is in charge of maintaining this team effort, and will coordinate with the members on events. Yes there will be events. Probably just weekly promotional thread to start. Thank you Ida for managing this part of the effort. There will be requirements to be part of the team, but the requirements will be of the minimal, but professional presentation, types of issues. We will expect regular participation in the weekly events. Probably 30 minutues to 60 minutes once a week to start. But we are going to be very flexible, especially to start. Also, key items in your Etsy shops will be able to have the team tag.
The articles from Etsy, on what teams can do, makes my mouth water every time I read all the wonderful suggestions and ideas that teams are trying, exploring and promoting. I think a coordinated effort can greatly improve members ship item and shop views substantially if coordinated well.
The team effort is not a new idea, its just its time has come for us.
We cant keep up as individuals but we might be able to keep up as a group. If anyone has any suggestions or wishes to contribute to this cause let us know. I think everyone can have a place that they can best help the team, and will be looking to fill team positions as they arise.
Much more to follow on this effort. I do not expect this to be a go out like a lion effort. Teams participation and growth will have to be organic in nature to start, but I do have some extremely interesting ideas on what we can do as a team, everything from group advertising in key targeting magazines (later stage), group sales sites, to a paper catalog, to organized brick and mortar gallery crawls. To consideration social groups on all the major platforms, to group PR efforts, to group web like rings, and group internal promotions, and the list goes on.
There are a lot of marketers in this group, if we can not figure out how to do it as a team, then no one can. What can you do to help this effort out?
Participation will be key, the more active participation, the faster we can grow this effort. We will grow this effort slowly or quickly, It depends on the folks here. The effort will work, would you like to participate?
Thinking about it
The first thing that came to mind for me when I was thinking about what new thing could I do the help further along the considerations team was to put a slide show viewer on my sites that shows the range of work at considerations in addition to my own personal slide show.
This is really easy to do with the widgets provided in the badge area. I have four social sites I can do this on. Currently I have a slide show of just my work on those sites. But it dawns on me that putting the group slide show up can maybe create an even more attractive pages. There has to be something on the group slide show that someone will find attractive and curios about even if it is not my work. We are a very eclectic group of artists.
I would like to ask folks here to go spend sometime in our community photo area. Rate the images if you would, rate them by attractiveness and possible marketability. This effects what images will be presented at random on the group slide show. And ultimately you are voting on our group catalog and what you think you would like presented front and center to our customers. What works here best represent the teams artistic diversity and marketability is how you should rate images. Please take some time in the near future to rate the photos in our group gallery. Look at our front page here if you want to see what shows up in the slide show. It is pretty neat and represents a very nice body of work. And by all means download lots of your own work here.
Thoughts on Etsy for me have changed again of late. I am about to release a rather large body of work, something like 15 more pieces. These pieces are very professional in appearance, workmanship and design. I now can pull 10 works easy from my efforts and feel that the styles are coordinated and will brand well.
These 10 items are targeted for boutique sales, they will be put up on Etsy but at full pricing. I currently have several items on Etsy that I consider to be at wholesale prices. Some I will raise, many I will continue to use as loss leaders and will add to and subtract from the list of what is a loose leader, and will revisit that issue repeatedly over time. I will still offer some of my greater works at a reduce price, but only some. I will continue to try and create works that fit into the findings side of my market model, but mostly that will happen as a side benefit of me defining my own needs for findings or customer requests. I will try and expand my under $25 price tag offers because that is what the demographics of the customer base on Etsy says to do.
Cya
today or tomorrow my car goes into the shop. I am ordering portable jewelry displays so that I can travel around to different boutiques and present my work in a professional manner. I figure that I need about 10 quality boutiques to make a pretty decent living.
The more I do boutiques relative to online efforts, the more time I will have in the shop, and the less likely I would need employees. This works for me. Online is only going to be supportive of my primary efforts which are offline activities, and this fits well within my marketing model and goals of quality of life first. Online efforts gets my professional polish on presentation and will act as an aid to my whole marketing message. I will figure out how to market online successfully, I think I already know how to, but off line has my attention for now. Online gets to also fill my need for social interactions, so online still gets my attention, and probably always will.
Welcome to Our Community,cya
Scott
Comment
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Comment by Spincus on May 12, 2008 at 10:54pm
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Etsy, Is just one of the venue that we are doing. Suppliers are welcome as well. I have a bunch of ideas on cross pollination and marketing each other in this group.
My personal goal is to be able to get the group up into what I think of as fair art prices on line. The price you might see the item selling for at a boutique. Even true suppliers can cross pollinate, and can help.
I to have moved items in the the supply side on Etsy. And it accounts for a nice piece of my pie. I am offering supplies, but at the higher end of supplies, because they are hand made little pieces of art. Which is what you are doing kim, which makes perfect sense.
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Comment by Kimberly Rogers on May 12, 2008 at 9:29pm
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OK count me in . Though sometimes I get bogged down with a very busy summer life. I'm doing the market and a full time job and selling my house and moving 100 miles away.
Maybe this will help me with my focus. I'll let you know if I can't keep up.
Kim
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Comment by artsfarm on May 12, 2008 at 9:25pm -
Kim, I know exactly what you mean. I was just about ready to split into 2 shops-one for vintage and another for the rest of my handmade things, then eventually 3 so I could split the jewelry & accessories from the artwork. But I'm glad I didn't right now because the new search changes are wreaking havoc on vintage/supply sellers' sales.
Matt from Admin is having an open meeting sometime tomorrow to hear out vintage/supply sellers and figure out how they're going to fix the mess, and discuss outside promo for the 2 categories. I'd sit it out until then and see what they come up with, which could be a while, the way they do things lately.
It's better financially to keep your things the way they are for now and use the sections to keep it organized; this way people who see your jewelry will also see the supplies and vice/versa. You can't depend on your shop announcement to get them over to the other shop because hardly anyone reads them past the first few words, if at all.
The team would be doing things within Etsy, and outside. Also in the works is presence on places like MySpace, and I'm looking into free venues where we could do a gallery-type setup. There you could have your more upscale work and whatever you like. There are a ton of places, it's just a matter of finding out the one (s) that are more visible and seeing what to do about getting people over there. A group blog is another thing I'd like to get done, where we can feature us in rotation and promote up as individuals and a group as well.
There's lots more, and I'll get a post up with a list as we get more info.
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I'm interested but my etsy shop took a side trip to supplies and it turns out to be nothing that I had intended. At first I wanted it to be basically a maintained shopping cart for my available high end items. As I got into it I realized that it wasn't exactly on the gallery end of things and pulled most of my higher end items ( also my photos weren't good enough to reflect the work. I resorted to selling my beads , earrings and then went on a de-stash binge and that's where most of my hits came in. I then joined indiepublic and then considerations to be less anonymous, using my real/ jewelry designer name and put up gallery items for people to see ( still not accomplishing the how to buy them aspect) So to be on an etsy team is attractive to me but now that my store is more than half supplies I don't know if I would be representing myself as well as an artist ( more of a cool shopkeeper) I know that some people have two shops but that takes even more time!
Do you have any advice for me as to how I could maximize the higher end stuff? I'm not sure that etsy can do that for me.
Would our teamwork only be through the etsy venue?
Kim
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Comment by earthdeva on May 4, 2008 at 11:17am -
This is a great idea, and I'm interested in joining.
:)
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Sylvie, as far as pricing, I now have some at wholesale,that I use to get folks into the shop, but most new work will be at full retail, so that I do not compete with the boutiques, and craft show efforts that I will participate in. and like I said, I will expand the under $25 category slowly. So I have a pretty strong mix, with most of my work heading up towards fair pricing. It took me a long time to get here and feel comfortable about this.
As i release new works I might consider lowering the prices on previous works, sort of a seasonal pricing model. New works are more expensive than older works, perhaps.
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Comment by artsfarm on May 1, 2008 at 10:15am
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Hi folks, and thanks :-)
I'll be checking into the Street Team process and will let you know what's happening. For a new team, Etsy asks for a pitch about the group being formed which they then reply to, and sometimes they're backed up and it may take a while. So that's the first thing I'll work on.
I'm going to give this a few days to see what other input we get and then work from there. I believe they require a minimum of 6 members to consider a team request, and I think we're ok in that respect once more people respond.
Once it's approved and we get this rolling, I'll have to make up a team profile and will ask for some info from you all (not personal info, business/shop related), and set up the page on the site. Then we'll work on promotions, outside presence, logo, etc.
Further down the line can be an community Etsy Street Team shop, which would be registered as a collective. There are lots of things we can do, and because of this, I'd like to at least see how many people are going to be included initially so that we know the right route to take.
Thanks again!
-Ida (artsfarm)
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Comment by D'arcy on May 1, 2008 at 6:48am -
This is a good idea! I have to think about how involved I could be as a team member. I'm already on two street teams, one of which I have recently become admin. Both are good teams, with great ppl.
I am all for a group effort. I'll think on this over the weekend. We have a booth on Saturday, so that's taken priority until Sunday.
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