June 17, 2009

Marketing Thoughts

business card by oh young designer

I've been trying harder to promote Freshie & Zero these days after a slew of unsuccessful shows. I've recently updated my Trunkt portfolio, as you can see in that groovy widget above. It's a pretty cool site but if it had a better search engine and a more user-friendly uploading style it would be perfect. I paid for it and have never directly gotten any sales from it, but maybe someday...

I've also delegated the maintaining of my facebook page to Greg. I added a group a while back, but then decided a page would be better, but for some reason it's hard for me to figure out how to run it well. Greg (my awesome husband)
is a facebook/internet master and he will be so perfect at helping me make the most out of it! We may eventually do some facebook ads and see how that goes... In the meantime, become a fan (pretty please!)!

I was also talked into joining this website called FGMarket - only because the salesperson on the phone was so good, I literally could not say no. So far, it's been a big waste o' money and I should have known better - look at this listing, for goodness sake - tons of distracting text ads on the side, and I've singled out my listing but it really gets lost in the searches. I tried to search for "handmade jewelry" and not one thing came up. Their website is really disorganized - there's no jewelry subheading under "Artisan" - HELLO!

Anyway, all to say I've spent all this money on shows, marketing, and other pursuits that I should have known better were not going to pan out. That's becoming the phrase for this year - "I knew better than that!" Sometimes you forget to listen to your gut, and I've learned the hard way the past few months. It's made me a little more careful in how I spend my cash on the biz. I've been looking at some things I'm paying for that may not be necessary or ways to save on them - not really something I do by nature. My philosophy has always been the more I put out, the more I get back but that may not be so true any more...

3 comments:

Shona~ LALA dex press said...

Ug, it's so hard to do this as you full time job. I have so many friends who do, but have to ultimately rely on teaching/ workshop gigs at crafts schools. I totally feel for you, but definitely...listen to your gut, no matter how nice a person is. Remember: that's her job.

sarah said...

thanks so much for this open + honest post. so sorry for the marketing headache. i heard something that isn't totally related but helped me last week in terms of business advice. "stay humble, stay nervous, stay strong."

Jk said...

Great info. I had a call from FG Market but didn't pick up. They left a great VM with call back request. I search and found your comments. Thanks.