Do you know who your craft business target customer is? By their very nature, craft businesses are simply not in a position to be all things to all people.

New craft business owners (and other business owners, too) often make mistake of trying to sell to everyone. The line of thinking goes like this: they don’t want to eliminate potential customers by focusing on one smaller, targeted group, so they try to be all things to all people in an effort to draw business from a larger market.

The problem with this line of thinking is that by focusing on selling to everyone, you are actually focusing on no one. You are not meeting anyone’s needs in a way that is exceptional.

Independent craft artists don’t have the resources of huge companies (like, dare I say it, WalMart) who sell to everyone, so that strategy just doesn’t work. What’s compelling to customers is the specialness of your work and the way your item speaks to them directly in ways that mass produced goods do not.

Therefore, it’s smart to determine who your customers are, understand their needs and be exceptional by meeting their needs better than anyone else.

Before you develop marketing materials for your craft business, you need to take some time to know yourself, and also to know your customer. Have you ever really thought about the nature of your work and who it appeals to? Professional crafters who have a bit of experience at craft shows may know on an intuitive level who their customers are, but it can be very helpful to describe your work and your customers very concretely.

Take some time to describe your work very precisely. Describe the nature and quality of the materials you work with. What techniques do you use? Is there anything special about the way you apply those techniques to your work? Is your work traditional or modern? Does it have a message? Does it reflect a specific era, culture or genre? The more precise you get with your description, the better understanding you’ll have of the appeal of your work.

Next, describe your typical customer in detail. Who is your customer? Why do they buy your work? What are your customer’s style preferences? Consider your customers’ education, interests, income, gender and age.

All of this insight can then be applied to your marketing materials such as business cards, brochures etc., your website and your craft booth setup. If you design your marketing materials and craft booth with these things in mind, you’ll present a cohesive image that connects with your target customers. Knowing yourself and your customers allows you to focus your efforts and target your customers effectively.

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I recently finished reading Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping by Paco Underhill. His company has studied the behavior of thousands of customers in many different settings, so I was hoping to find some new and interesting tidbits that could be applied to a craft business.

There are some books that are great to own, and there are others that are good to get on loan from the library. While there is interesting and useful information in Why We Buy, I’d say this book is a good book to borrow, and not necessarily a book you must have in your own library.

Here are a few quick tidbits that are described in more detail in the book:

What do shoppers love?
Touch
Mirrors
Discovery
Talking (stores that attract groups do well)
Recognition (being known and remembered by staff)
Bargains

What do shoppers hate?
Too many mirrors
Lines
Having to Ask Dumb Questions
Goods out of Stock
Obscure Price Tags
Poor Service

Among the interesting research findings presented in the book that you might apply to your craft displays are the following:

People slow down when they see a reflective surface.

People naturally reach right, so a good way to introduce a new product is to place it to the right of an established item.

If shoppers perceive an interesting item at the back of your store when they are standing at the front of your store (or booth) they will make their way back to the interesting item. Don’t make the back wall a “dead zone”; getting shoppers off the aisles and into your booth should be a big goal in your craft booth design.

Shoppers want to experience merchandise before they buy. Let them try and touch as much as possible. Money lost to damaged product that has been sampled or handled will be minimal compared with increased sales you’ll make as a result of letting customers experience your products.

It’s easier to sell up when products can be sampled. If a customer can feel the difference between your luxury body lotion and your basic body lotion, they can compare on factors other than price, and you’ll sell more of the luxury lotion.

Are your crafts homemade or handmade? I recently had a discussion about this issue, and while it might sound like nitpicking, it matters because it impacts customers’ perceptions of the quality of your work.

While it’s subtle, the term homemade, for most people, doesn’t carry the same meaning as handmade. Handmade implies to most people that something is made with skills that are not easy to develop and is of high quality. Homemade, on the other hand, implies that the item is something that anyone could make. It doesn’t carry the same weight as handmade.

Years ago, when I stated my jewelry business, my business mentor was reviewing my first business plan. I had quoted a lot of statistics from the craft industry (as opposed to the jewelry industry) in my business plan because I felt that based on the scope of my business and my plans for developing the business, those statistics were the best representation of my own business. He commented that while the statistics made sense, I should refer to myself as a jewelry designer, not a crafter because jewelry designer carries more weight in the minds of the general public.

He was right. The language you use to describe yourself and your business impacts the way you and your business are viewed by potential customers.

I was at a big craft show a couple of weeks ago. When I attend shows as a customer, in addition to seeing the results of everyone’s creative talent and seeking out new treasures, I also like to think about the booths from a business perspective. Why did they set up a booth in a particular way? Is that setup working for them? Why did they choose to make a particular type of item? How are items priced? etc…etc.

One booth that really stood out to me at this show belonged to a jewelry artist. The organizers at this show do a good job of balancing the categories, so there was an unreasonable number of people selling jewelry, but the ones who were, for the most part, all had sterling silver items (it seems a lot of people who make handmade jewelry – myself included – tend to gravitate toward sterling silver). There was one jewelry artist who had a booth of mostly copper jewelry, and although her designs were quite similar to some items made of sterling silver at other booths, the copper really stood out among all of the people selling silver jewelry.

Her booth was packed any time I walked by it; I spent a few days at the show, so I walked by more than a couple of times. A simple choice about materials used was all it took for this person to distinguish herself from her competition and ensure her booth was crowded throughout the show.