Introduction
Handmade craft businesses can be surprisingly rewarding when the business has been planned and executed properly. Selling handmade items is an art form and the market has grown at an incredible rate in recent years. According to Statista, the industry has grown to more than billion in 2020 and it shows no signs of stopping. The influx of new opportunities means businesses need to find creative and effective ways to reach their audience and increase sales.
If you’re one of the many entrepreneurs trying to build and grow a successful handmade craft business, this article is the perfect place to start. Read ahead to find many practical strategies to increase sales and profitability.
Create an omnichannel sales approach offering handmade, commercially crafted products in-store online and through partners
An omnichannel approach to selling handmade artisan commercial products is a smart way to increase sales and profitability. With this approach, you can reach customers both in your physical stores and online. And, you can also leverage partners, like Amazon, to extend your reach even further. Here are some tips and tricks to increase your sales and profits with an omnichannel approach.
Take advantage of online advertising
When creating an omnichannel approach, you want to make sure you’re investing in the right online channels to reach your target customers. Whether it’s Google search ads, social media ads, or retargeting, effective online marketing will help you reach customers who are looking for your handmade crafts.
Optimize your website for shopping
Once you’ve brought potential customers to your website, you want to make sure they have the best shopping experience possible. Make sure your website is optimized with clean navigation, relevant content, and images and videos displaying your products. This will help engage customers and make the buying process as smooth as possible.
Create strategic partnerships
Partnering with other retailers and e-commerce platforms can be a great way to expand your reach and increase sales. You can work with partners to list your products on their platforms, offer promotions or discounts for customers coming from their site or cross-promote products.
Use in-store experiences
Don’t forget about in-store experiences when building an omnichannel approach. By refreshing your in-store displays and increasing your product assortment, you can create an engaging shopping experience that will attract customers. Additionally, consider adding live events, interactive features, and other customer service experiences that have loyalty.
Analyze your performance
Finally, you need to track the success of your omnichannel strategy to ensure you’re actually increasing sales and profits. Analytics tools can help you measure engagement, conversion rates, and other key metrics for each channel online and offline. This can help you optimize your performance and make better decisions in the future.
Calculation example
Let’s say your annual sales from your online store and physical stores total 0,000 and you decide to launch a new omnichannel strategy and invest 20% or ,000. After a year, you decide to measure the impact of your investments. Your total sales now total 0,000, which means you’ve increased your sales by 40% or another ,000. That’s a profit of ,000, which is the difference between the money you spent launching the omnichannel strategy (,000) and the additional sales and profits you generated (,000). In this example, the omnichannel strategy effectively doubled your profits.
Leverage social media marketing to increase brand awareness
Social media is one of the best and most effective ways to promote your craft craft business. By creating and managing an engaging presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, you can increase brand awareness, drive sales, and develop relationships with your current and potential customers. Leveraging social media provides unparalleled access to a wide and diverse audience, requiring minimal investment of financial and time resources to achieve results.
Social media provides a platform to showcase your handmade crafts to a large and diverse audience, creating exposure and brand recognition. You can create engaging visual content displaying your handmade crafts and a link to your website, or even post in-depth tutorials, inspiring others to make your creations. Additionally, teaming up with influencers and other popular craft businesses can help increase the reach and visibility of your craft, as well as build trust with your customers.
Incorporating incentives such as subscriber giveaways and discounts can also help drive more attention, engagement, and eventually more sales. Using platforms to interact with your customers, such as responding to their comments and messages, can also create strong relationships between your brand and those who follow you, customer loyalty.
The impact of social media marketing on sales and profits can be quickly seen. For example, if you get 50 subscribers in the first month, have a conversion rate of 5%, and have an average order of .00, the math is simple: total sales in the first month would be 500, . With a moderate starting advertising budget of .00 and factoring in the cost of materials for the products, which for this example is 0.00, you could make a profit of 0.00 in the first month .
Social media provides opportunities to gain exposure and increase sales with little to no cost and minimal effort. By leveraging the power of social media, your handmade craft business can reach large audiences, build relationships, and gain potential customers. You can access and measure results to adjust your strategy and improve profitability.
Use Email Marketing Strategies to Build Customer Loyalty
Email marketing is a powerful tool for increasing the sales and profitability of a craft business. If done effectively, it can help nurture customer loyalty and attract more repeat customers. It’s a great way to keep customers engaged, let them know about your new products and events, and turn them into loyal customers.
Here are some tips to help increase sales and profitability through email marketing:
- Create opt-in forms: Use opt-in forms on your website, blog, and social media accounts to get subscribers. Make sure they aren’t too long or complicated and explain the benefits of signing up.
- Segment your customers: Categorize customers based on factors like age, gender, and location. Use this data to send more personalized emails.
- Offer special offers: Offer special discounts, coupons, and other incentives to entice customers into making a purchase.
- Include calls to action: Include calls to action in every email to encourage customers to take a desired action, like a purchase or a response.
- Analyze your results: Use analytics to track the success of your campaigns. Analyze open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to see how you can improve your campaigns.
By implementing the right email marketing strategies, you can increase your sales and profitability. For example, if your average order size is and you have 100 customers, a 10% increase in sales through email marketing would cost 0 in additional revenue.
It’s important to focus on customer loyalty and invest time in cultivating relationships with existing customers. Email marketing is a great way to do this and should be an integral part of your customers’ buying journey.
Invest in customer service initiatives to maximize customer satisfaction
Investing in customer service initiatives is a great way to increase sales and profitability for your handmade craft business. It helps you build strong relationships with customers, build trust and loyalty, and establish yourself as a quality supplier.
The key to ensuring customer satisfaction is providing an exceptional customer service experience that meets and exceeds customer expectations. This can include responding quickly to customer inquiries, having knowledgeable sales representatives, and delivering exceptional product returns and refunds.
By investing in customer service initiatives, you can increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases. Customers are more likely to recommend your business and return for their next purchase if their experience with your business was positive.
Investing in customer service initiatives can help grow and streamline your business operations. This can include automating customer responses, providing creative and engaging customer service options, and training sales staff to handle customer inquiries and requests in a professional manner.
Investing in customer service initiatives will also lead to increased customer loyalty and brand loyalty. When customers feel appreciated and respected, they’ll be more likely to recommend your business and return for purchases.
Additionally, investing in customer service initiatives can help you increase sales and profitability by creating a positive customer experience. This can be done by offering discounts and loyalty programs, responding quickly to customer requests, and offering personalized product orders. An example of this type of initiative is a customer loyalty program that rewards returning customers with discounts, freebies, and special offers.
When it comes to calculating how much your customer service initiatives will increase profits, it’s important to look at both short-term and long-term results. In the short term, customer service initiatives can lead to increased sales and profitability, for example through increased customer retention and increased revenue from special offers. In the long run, customer service initiatives can help build lasting relationships with customers, which can lead to customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
Finally, customer service initiatives make it easier for your business to maintain a competitive advantage. Investing in customer service initiatives can make it easier to find answers to their questions and complete purchases, leading to better customer experiences and higher sales.
Develop strategic partnerships with influencers and affiliates to help promote products
Developing strategic partnerships with influencers and affiliates to help promote handmade artisan commercial products can be a powerful way to increase sales and profitability. Influencers and affiliates can help expand the reach of your business by bringing in new brand awareness, customers, and sales.
Tips and tricks
- Potential search influencers and affiliate partners who have organic reach in your chosen market.
- Make sure the influencers and affiliates you select align with your company’s values and goals.
- Create an affiliate program that incentivizes influencers and affiliates.
- Collaborate with influencers and affiliates to produce unique and shareable content about your products.
- Measure, track and optimize the performance of all partnerships.
Impact on profitability
Building strategic partnerships with influencers and affiliates can help your handmade craft business generate more sales, which leads to increased profits. For example, if you have an influencer, promote your product and they are able to generate 100 sales as a result, and the average product cost is and the average profit per sale is , then the influencer generated ,000 in additional profit for your business. This is an example of the potential positive impact partnerships can have on the profitability of your handmade craft business.
Conclusion
Handmade craft businesses have immense potential for growth, but the journey to success takes hard work, planning and dedication. But, if you have a goal and a plan in place, nothing is impossible. Success using the strategies mentioned in this article will take time, dedication, and commitment, but it will be worth it to achieve your vision and goals. Take the time to analyze your strategies, modify them if necessary, and you will be sure to see the desired results.
By leveraging omnichannel selling approaches, engaging with customers through social media and email campaigns, investing in customer service initiatives, and developing strategic partnerships with influencers and affiliates, you will be sure to increase your handmade craft business sales and profitability.