Handmade Marketing: Listen to your Heart but USE YOUR HEAD

OK. Time for anther long, detailed Etsy analysis. Those of you who prefer short and zippy, move on now because there's nothing short about this.

This one is in answer to the question I was mulling over recently: "Why do so many people seem surprised when then things they love don't sell?" (If this is the kind of geekulous thing you think about too, welcome to my world!)

There are three ways to successfully create for a market.

1) Make your stuff however you like it, ignoring trends and current aesthetics, and put it out there. You create a market for it after you create the item.

2) Make your stuff with an eye to trends and public appeal, including things you like but also thinking about and exploring what other people like as well. You create some of the market when you create the item.

3) Make stuff that is already selling very well and capitalize heavily on trends, being agile and switching to something else as soon as the trend is over. The market already exists before you create the item.

There are positives and negatives to each approach, and failing to understand that causes the woes played out daily on the Etsy forums. There are some people I just want to bonk the head because they can't seem to come outside their box o' tired trends (#3), and others who just want to do their own thing (#1) but don't get that their stuff has to be very special to succeed.

So let's look at some facts about these ways of marketing.

1. Make your stuff however you like it, ignoring trends and current aesthetics, and put it out there and create a market for it.

Question: Which is harder, the first part of the sentance or the second part?
Answer: Clearly, the first part is easy peasy. Who doesn't like making what they love? Who doesn't enjoy doing their hobby? The second part is where most people fail. Hint: Sometimes it's impossible to create a market for something you love.

OK, get ready for some tough talk here.

There are a lot of Etsy artists (and I use the word art to mean all the handmade things) who seem to use the "meaningful to me" yardstick as the absolute only one they use. By gum, it's *their work* and that's what they're going to sell, because they love doing it and it expresses them somehow. The problem comes in when it reflects a style that's way out of date, or too basic/beginner level to generate interest. Unless you're going to spend the time, and the money to try to create a revival in the trend, there may be no market on Etsy for the things you love. And if it's too "beginner level" it may not matter how much you market or promote.

For example, I see visual artists trying to sell on Etsy who are painting or photographing in particular styles that rarely sell here. You can Pounce and Pounce all day long and you won't see those types of paintings or photographs being purchased. But people will still come to the forums with that type of work and express sadness that they aren't selling. They are stuck in "make it and they will come mode". They believe that quality will triumph over all. I hate to say it because it goes against what I WISH were true, but quality and good intent is only one small part of success.

You can also see a lot of "I gotta be me" sellers in jewelry. They are selling beaded necklaces and earrings that are nice, and pretty, and well made, but which everyone has seen before at the Christmas craft fair at church or in the class their daughter took at the bead shop. It worries me when I see sellers who have sunk a fortune into the highest quality beads, silver wire, imported findings etc. to use on this stuff and are still not selling because (and this gets its own paragraph):

***A well made but out of style pair of earrings is no more desirable than a poorly made but out of style pair.***

Have these sellers never looked at what is currently selling in jewelry? Are they Pouncing to see what's sold? No, because they don't really care---"I gotta be me."

The sellers I've seen be successful with the "Gotta be me" method have goods that at the time they were created were unique. They also created a demand, either through their own nonstop marketing or by being taken up and promoted by Etsy (or a combo of both). Either way they undertook a LOT of work with no guarantees. IF you're ready and willing to create a market for the things you make that nobody likes yet, AND your product is unique and memorable, it can work. Some people do this with ease----they're called innovators. They make up new things and get other people to like them. Unfortunately many of the people on Etsy are creating things that there is no demand for and just hoping something will change (unlikely.)

So: Pros: Very lucrative and very emotionally rewarding when you have the right item and the right market. Cons: Very depressing (and very expensive) when your item fails to connect with others and you're unable to create a market for them on your own.

2) Make your stuff with an eye to trends and public appeal, including things you like but also thinking about and exploring what other people like as well.

If you want to sell, you have to either find a market or make a market. Approach #2 blends both. You have the things you love, and you're clear-eyed enough to see that some of it is NOT going to sell on Etsy. Your handmade plastic canvas toilet paper covers really express "you" but you realize that they're too blah and grandma-style for the average Etsy buyer. So you tweak it a little, making plastic canvas Ipod covers instead. Ok, now we're cooking. Or you start with the detailed pencil drawing of little Tommy that everyone said was so good, and instead of trying sell prints of a little kid who no one knows you use it as an example to offer up custom pencil drawings from the customer's own photograph. Or you take those cell phone charms you've been making which are big in Japan but hardly used here in the U.S., and turn them into something people actually use, like zipper pulls, keychains, etc. #2 is ALL about adaptation. Pros: Requires more thinking, evaluating and planning but less from the ground up marketing than #1. Cons: People in the "Gotta be me" mindset tend to think of it as selling out.

3) Make stuff that is already selling very well and capitalize heavily on trends, being agile and switching to something else as soon as the trend is over.

This method is not one you see people bragging about on the forums, but don't fool yourself---it's very successful both on and off Etsy. Clothing manufacturers have been doing it for years. They wait until the top names have brought out their fashions for the season, design similar styles, get them to market, and piggyback on all the marketing the bigger designers do. (I'm NOT taking about fakes here--those are illegal--I'm talking about copying styles.) Look at all the indie clothing designers copying the Ed Hardy "tattoo" style artwork. Or all the shops that have sprung up piggybacking on the "knitted baby cocoon" concept. Or the gazillion people who started selling Scrabble tile necklaces after the first innovators made that style hot. The KEY to success using this method is "Early in, early out". As soon as you see the trend gathering steam, you jump on it, make money from it, and *get out of it* before it peters out. Don't spend thousands stocking up on trendy items because they have a limited shelf life. And don't jump on a trend at its peak---that's way too late. A trend at its peak is about to end. You'll be left holding thousands of near-worthless Scrabble tiles or octopus charms.

Pros: Lucrative if you pick the right trend and watch your inventory and trends carefully. Cons: Not very emotionally fulfilling, being accused of being a copycat or feeling like a copycat; VITALLY important not to sit on a trend too long or invest too much in it.

These are my thoughts, you don't have to agree. I have no marketing degrees---these are my impressions based on being a seller for 10+ years on the net and off. I see the same essential problems at craft fairs as on Etsy, BTW.....lots of enthusiasm and love (heart) but light on the follow-through (head.) What do you think?