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Archive: Craft Business

March 28, 2012

Etsy's Success Symposium: Helping You Get Found

This Friday, March 30, our friends at Etsy are hosting the popular Etsy Success Symposium, a day-long series of workshops aimed at helping crafters bolster their business. Although the in-person event is already sold out, you can follow along with all the workshops free of charge as they stream live on Etsy's web site.

This year's Etsy Success Symposium will focus exclusively on teaching creative small business owners the skills to get their products out there and get found. This full day of workshops will help attendees create impactful stories for their products, master web and Etsy searches, romance bloggers, turn browsers into lifelong fans at craft and wholesale shows, and get their work found through new social shopping tools like Pinterest. We've asked our favorite experts and successful Etsy sellers to guide online and in-person attendees to the next level of Etsy success. Anyone, anywhere can tune in online for a full day of focused workshops all dedicated to teaching you how to get found.
Details and Schedule

What: Etsy Success Symposium: Getting Found
When: Friday, March 30, 2012, from 10 a.m. EST to 6:30 p.m. EST
Where: Etsy's Online Labs
Cost: The event will stream for free!

10:20a.m. ET - Get Featured: Learn How to Grab the Eye of a Curator with Emily Bidwell and Alison Feldmann

11:20a.m. ET - Get Noticed: How to Romance Blog and Magazine Editors Panel

1:45p.m. ET - Get Storied: Behind Every Product is a Story with Michael Margolis

3:00p.m. ET - Get Pinned: Build your Community and Brand with Pinterest with Jasmine Trabelsi

4:00p.m. ET - Get Out There: Using Craft and Wholesale Shows to Support Your Small Business Panel

5:15p.m. ET - Get Found: Conquering Searches on Etsy and the Web with Danielle Maveal and Michelle Spaulding

You can RSVP for the online workshops over on Etsy Labs. Etsy has also provided CRAFT readers with this gorgeously illustrated worksheet, "How to Reflect Your Personality in Your Booth Display" designed by Virginia Kraljevic, available for download here. Virginia will be sharing her tips as an experienced craft and trade show vendor on the panel, Get Out There: Using Craft and Wholesale Shows to Support Your Small Business.

Giveaway Time! One lucky CRAFT reader will receive this Etsy Success Symposium Kit, packed in a beautiful handmade laptop/document case. The fabric was designed by Etsy's Nicole Licht and printed by Spoonflower. Inside the winner will find the 40 page Get Found workbook, deals from sponsors and a slew of Etsy goodies. Just leave a comment below, letting us know which of the workshops on Friday you are most excited about watching online. Be sure to leave your email address so we can get in touch with you if you win. Comments close Sunday, April 1 at 4PM PST. Good Luck!

August 12, 2011

Review: Weave App for Craft Businesses

Whether you have a full-time craft business or some part-time projects you run alongside your day job, you might want to check out Weave, Intuit's new app for iPhone and iPod. It's designed to track your projects, tasks, income, and expenses.

The app centers around the Projects you set up. These might be individual freelance projects, or an upcoming craft show, or you could create a project for your entire Etsy shop for this month, quarter or year. There's a lot of flexibility so you can set the app up for your business.

Within each Project, you can create "Todos" and schedule them for any future date and time. If you're consistent about this, then Weave can generate a nice daily list of the tasks you need to complete. (It'll even send you friendly reminder messages.)

As you complete each task, you can mark it as done, and that will generate a display showing you what percentage of your overall project you've completed.

Where I think Weave really excels, though, is in income and expense tracking. With this mobile app, you can easily make an entry each time you spend money on a project, no matter where you are. Again, with consistency, you can then keep a running total of how much each project has cost you. When you get paid, you can enter this information as well and see at a glance how profitable each project is.

Weave is in its early stages and is actively looking for input from small craft business owners. How can this kind of tool help you better? You can download Weave for free from the iTunes App Store, and then join in the conversation on the Weave Facebook page.

August 2, 2011

How-To: Price Your Handcrafted Goods

Image by sylvar, via Flickr

By Lauren Venell

Pricing is one of the most difficult parts of setting up any business. It requires you to put a concrete monetary value on very subjective qualities like style, experience, and care. When writing up a business plan, many people think that pricing is part of sales or operations, but if there's anything I want to you to get out of this post it's this:

Pricing is marketing.

(Editor's Note: Lauren is the Co-chair/Programming Director for the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs, which is happening this weekend in San Francisco. If you're local, you can still register for three days of crafty business education like Lauren presents in this article.)

Read full story »

March 31, 2011

Crafting Your Online Presence: How Do You Get More Readers?

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Image by Ben Stanfield, via Flickr)

By Diane Gilleland

It's the number one question people ask me about blogging, Twitter, and Facebook: "How do I get more readers?" It's a fair question, but I think it's also a fuzzy one. So I want to spend this month's column examining it (and yes, answering it).

Read full story »

March 4, 2011

Apply to Vend at Seattle's UCU Summer Show

Urban Craft Uprising, the Northwest's biggest craft fair (and one of the friendliest in the country, if you ask me), is now accepting vendor applications for their summer show 2011. If you've never thought about vending your wares in person before, UCU is a great first timer's show with a strong force of volunteers helping the (indoor) event run smoothly. They welcome food vendors as well. The deadline for applications is April 12, and the event is July 9th & 10th.

More:

Urban Craft Uprising (holiday 2009) Recap - CRAFT Video

February 28, 2011

Crafting Your Online Presence: Let's Make a Bite-Sized Online Marketing Plan

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Image by NuttyirishmanKnits, via Flickr)

By Diane Gilleland

So you have a small business. You have stuff to market, and you're marketing it on your blog, Twitter, and Facebook (or some combination of those three). How often can you get away with mentioning your products before you start looking too spammy and annoying your readers?

It's easiest to maintain a consistent and interesting marketing message in your online content if you do a little strategic advance planning. And if the idea of a marketing plan feels intimidating, don't worry! This is a very simple way to do it. And this method works interchangeably for planning your blog, Twitter, or Facebook posts.

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February 15, 2011

Nervous System's Tradeshow Booth

Craft-tech superstar Jessica Rosenkrantz at Nervous System writes:

We're back from NYC where we exhibited our products at the New York International Gift Fair for the second time! We wanted to create a booth that would allow us to show all of our products, from flat jewelry to lamps and our new porcelain cups and plates without feeling crowded.
design constraints

inexpensive

only take a few hours to setup (Javits center was open from 8am to 5pm)

only take a few days to fabricate

be completely fabricate-able using tools in our garage workshop

pack flat so it could fit in our car

be flashy and grab the attention of show-goers

be awesome

We fabricated the booth entirely out of hardboard, cable ties, velcro and paint and I think it came out pretty great. Of course some things didn't work out quite right... The booth consisted of three faceted pedestals and a design of flat panels that hung on the wall. We also had a wall mounted LCD screen which played animations of our design processes and a big sign with our logo.

January 28, 2011

Crafting Your Online Presence: A Good New Year's Blog Re-Org

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Image by juhansonin, via Flickr)

By Diane Gilleland

The longer you blog, the more your blog will subtly change. And this is a good thing. After all, you're always evolving as a person, so why wouldn't this be reflected in your blog?

But, as your blog changes and grows, you'll want to make sure your new readers can easily find your older content. And so, while we're early in the new year, let's take a look at how your blog is organized and give it a few tweaks.

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December 22, 2010

Crafting Your Online Presence: Twitter Tools

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Image by clevercupcakes, via Flickr Creative Commons)

By Diane Gilleland

Twitter is such a great tool for meeting people, connecting with them, and promoting stuff. But it can be very time-consuming to use, and it's also pretty easy to misuse.

Luckily, there are so many helpful extras to make your tweeting easier and more effective. Here are some of my favorites.

Diane Twittertools 2

Customize your profile page with Themeleon

If you're using Twitter to promote a crafty business, then it really helps if your Twitter profile page ties in visually with the colors and images of your business brand. Themeleon is a great tool for Twitter-page customization. Once you log into Themeleon through your Twitter account, it lets you upload a new background image, and then helps you choose good background and text colors to go with it. If you don't have a custom background for your Twitter page yet, you can choose from over a thousand beautiful ones in Themeleon.

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November 30, 2010

What Do Your Readers See When They Look at Your Blog?

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Photo by minifig, via Flickr Creative Commons)

By Diane Gilleland

I was excited to see this recent post on Craft Leftovers, in which Kristin examined what kinds of blogs she likes to read best, and then compared their main qualities to her own blog. She learned a lot in the process, and I think this is a great exercise for any blogger. I think we often get so focused on what we want to say, and all the little mechanics of posting, that we forget to consider a very important part of the equation - the people who read our posts!

Here's a nice little analysis you can do on your blog. It will help you see it through that "outside eye."

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October 29, 2010

Crafting Your Online Presence: Social Media Marketing

Banner Dianegilleland Column

(Photo by Amarand Agasi, via Flickr Creative Commons)

Who Has Time for Social Media Marketing during the Holiday Season? You Do!
By Diane Gilleland

Blogging, Facebook, Twitter - they can be fantastic marketing tools, but there's no denying that, to do them right, you have to invest a lot of time and energy.

Well, we're headed into our most time-crunched season of the year. Sure, it's important for your crafty business that you keep up your blog, and it's wise to maintain your conversations on Twitter and Facebook, but let's face it - you're also going to have a whole lot of other stuff to do soon.

So where the heck can you find the time in this crazy season for social media marketing?

Read full story »

October 13, 2010

Etsy's Guide to Custom Work

Wow, fantastic article by Danielle @ Etsy:

Sometimes our buyers need a little push. I've experienced this firsthand, so I wanted to put together a guide to selling custom work. I put a call out in the Etsy Forums to gain wisdom from those who have experience selling custom work and the response was fabulous! Read on for some tips from the best in the biz.

She covers payment, communication, and photography and listing tips with plenty of examples to illustrate her helpful advice for making and selling your custom creations online.