What is the middle market?

Markets are typically divided into low, middle and high-end segments. These segments are tailored to the price, quality and availability expectations of their target consumers. As its name suggests, the middle market sits between the spectrum of mass-produced, low-priced and cheap quality goods, and limited or bespoke, high-quality, expensive goods, by offering products that are good quality yet affordable. Middle-market goods and services typically range from high-volume to limited-edition entry-level premium offerings.

The middle market is popular for brand positioning because it attracts a large, broad consumer base with moderate to high levels of disposable income. This, however, makes the mid-market, as previously mentioned, very competitive. It is here that profit margins get squeezed in a bid to attract customers and be profitable. Sellers in this mid-marketplace segment range from independent small businesses to multi-chain department store retailers that can afford to mass-produce at above-average quality, while keeping prices affordable enough to make a profit.

Why positioning your artisan brand in the middle market isn’t always the best option

1. You will always be competing on price

By positioning your artisan brand in the middle market, you will be competing on price while trying to maintain the quality of your craftwork. Bigger retailers can afford to buy materials in bulk, reducing the overall cost per item they produce. Trying to keep up with this market positioning strategy has a detrimental effect on your business and profitability. This is because at this level, being forced to lower your prices can push your craftwork into the low market. And, the lower you price your craftwork, the more product you have to make and sell to meet your financial targets. On the other hand, charging higher-than-average prices can make your work too expensive for the market, leaving you with little to no sales.

2. You’ll get lost in a sea of average quality brands

In the middle market, your artisan business belongs to neither the high nor the low end. This is because it is perceived as too cheap to be premium and too expensive to be low-cost, so you lose out either way. It is more difficult to make a profit. If positioning your artisan business as high-end makes you uncomfortable, you can create spectacular high-priced bespoke or limited-edition pieces or collections and balance them out with a collection of pieces at more affordable price points. For more on getting comfortable with charging high prices for your craft work, read: What to do if Selling your Statement handmade crafts to Rich People Makes you Feel Uncomfortable.

Positioning your artisan business in the premium sector

The premium sector is not about competing on cost. It is about letting your skills, creativity, and story take centre stage.

The higher you position your work in the market, the less it becomes about how much something costs and more about how it makes a customer feel. Positioning your artisan goods at the higher end of the middle market, or the premium and high-end market, can make financial sense. This is because the higher you go, the less you make, and the less you sell, but the more you can charge, which even things out and can save you time.

Note: If you are positioning your craftwork as premium or high-end, you better make sure your work and how you present it reflect the level of quality that is expected by the market.

That said, whichever market you choose to position your artisan business in, you still have to put in the work it takes to stand out. And, savvy artisan business owners know that offering premium-priced creations alongside their more affordable high-volume collections can be a winning option.

If you’re looking for clarity to help you position and elevate your craftwork in the premium artisan goods sector, my carefully curated services can help. Discover what’s on offer here.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credit: The image shown belongs to Enikő Tóth from Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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Artisanal luxury honours the handmaking process by emphasising the unique quality of handcrafted products that bear the individual imprint of the maker. In highlighting the skill of the artisan, the focus shifts from the expensiveness or exclusivity that tends to define luxury. Instead, the artisanal input becomes a medium for bringing sincerity and soul, and meaning into the heart of the product or experience.

Artisanal luxury chooses to place the focus on:

• People and community by respecting cultural bonds, inherited knowledge, and ancestral skills and techniques

• Celebrating heritage by upholding the value of craft traditions.And, seeking to preserve the skills and precious know-how, while enabling them to evolve

• Collaboration
 through skill and knowledge sharing for mutual benefit

Spotlighting craftsmanship within luxury production, therefore, reveals the essential role of highly skilled artisans in creating high-quality, well-made objects. Connecting with and getting to know those behind the products helps to humanise what is often perceived to be an entitled sector. For more on the role of craftsmanship in luxury, read: Craftsmanship artisans and their central role in the rise of true luxury

That said, not everything made by hand automatically qualifies as ‘artisanal luxury’. Alongside the mastery of skills, there is a need for creativity and imagination to transform artisan know-how into exceptional, relevant objects and services. And this is where the designer or retailer adds value, and collaboration becomes a necessity.

If you want to know more about creating an artisanal luxury goods brand, have a look at my services here.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to Mathilde Langevin via Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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What is PR?

PR, or Public Relations to give it its full title, is the act of sharing positive information about a business with the public to create a favourable impression. PR helps build a reputation by shaping how your audience views your business. PR also involves how you manage your information by controlling the messages you put out and where and how you do this.

Doing your own PR comes with several benefits:

1. It’s cost-effective

PR agencies can be expensive. If you are a small craft business with a modest promotional budget, hiring a PR agency can wipe out your funds before any meaningful return has been realised. As you begin to promote your craftwork by doing your own PR, you get to understand the nature of building media relationships. You also get valuable insights and advice on your messages, helping you to fine-tune them across all your marketing activities.

It makes sense to work with an agency when you are ready to take your business to the next level and have the funds to do so. This is something to consider when you want to focus on other areas of growing your craft business. At this stage, having navigated PR for yourself, you can confidently hand off the task while keeping an eye on things.

2. It’s easier to find contacts yourself

PR is all about connections and contacts with the people who can give you the right PR opportunities. When working with a PR agency, yes, you are paying for their expertise, but you are also paying for indirect access to their contact database. You don’t get direct access to the agency’s media contacts, which means you have no way of building a relationship with that specific contact who likes your work, unless they contact you themselves, which could put you in violation of your agency agreement. And, if you find yourself unable to continue with the agency, you lose access to their contacts.

The major advantage of doing your PR is that you get to build your own database and foster direct relationships with your PR contacts. Online access- digital and social platforms have made it easier than ever for you to find journalists and publication details. This works both ways, because sharing your work also helps journalists find and reach out to you. Offline has its advantages too, as networking brings people together, and printed publications often share journalists’ social handles.

Acknowledging that some media contacts can be elusive, again, when you are ready and can afford to do so, you can work with an agency with a much better understanding of what you need from their services.

3. You’re not restricted to a PR agency’s hierarchy

As a small business, you can get lost in a PR agency that has clients more established than you. This means they may not always give you their full attention. And, if the agency has similar businesses to yours on their books, you could be competing alongside them for a PR opportunity when your account manager selects who to put forward. An agency also gets to decide if it’s worth putting your product forward based on their opinions.

When you manage your PR, you get to control the products you want to promote and who to send the press releases and pitches about them to.

4. You know your business

If anything, one of the key benefits of doing your own PR is that no one knows your business better than you. You create the products or work closely with the people who do. You know the materials, processes, skills, heritage, history and stories that shape your artisan business. This makes you best placed to communicate all this with passion and purpose so that the media contact can truly understand the significance of the products you want them to feature.

Doing your own PR requires a plan. As with anything unfamiliar to you, you will need to learn the process. If PR is something you want to do yourself, take a look at my masterclass: Pitch to Press. It takes you through the exact step-by-step process on how to get media coverage for your artisan business if you want to do it yourself.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to alleksana, via Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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One of the advantages of craft is the stories centred around it. Stories of the techniques, the process, the materials, the heritage, the inspiration, and the maker, the essence of which becomes embedded into the objects created. This makes storytelling a must-use, visibility-increasing component of your marketing strategy to help your craft business stand out. Brand storytelling does this in the following ways:

1. Establishing a USP

In marketing, there is what is known as a Unique Selling Point (USP). In other words, what makes your business, product or service different from similar offerings in the marketplace? Your USP is the thing that sets your craftwork apart. And the stories you have to tell about your craft contribute to shaping your USP. Your USP will help you develop a strong brand identity that encompasses your mission, purpose, values, messaging, graphics, craftwork characteristics, and so much more.

2. Becoming memorable

A distinctive USP, in turn, makes your craftwork memorable. People remember stories over facts, and when the story of your work resonates with them, they will find it easier to recall what you do. By sharing the stories centred around your USP, you strengthen the customer connection to your work. This is important because connections will help you engage with your customers, building relationships that lead to trust and loyalty.

3. Generating awareness

Being memorable generates brand awareness. When your audience becomes more familiar with your work and story, they start to recognise what makes your craft unique, your signature style. As a result, your craftwork immediately stands out to those who are drawn to what you do and why you do it.

4. Creating emotional connections

Brand awareness leads to emotional connections as the people who come to know and connect with the story behind your craftwork become more invested in what you do. When people buy into your story, emotional connections form. They start to appreciate your work as being more than just another product, viewing it as something meaningful to their lives. This is the reason why storytelling is a powerful brand asset. Stories can fire up the imagination, touching people on a deeper level in ways other marketing strategies cannot.

5. Building Trust

Emotional connections build trust. Trust turns audiences into customers. The people who buy your products and then tell others about you. Trust occurs when people believe in what you say and do. Building trust requires consistency in the messages you share and how you show up and present your work. Gaining trust is a gradual process as people come to know more about you. Building trust requires exceptional customer service skills because the way you treat your customers can make or break their trust in your craft business.

6. Gathering a community

Trust gathers a community of loyal followers who willingly support and believe in what you do. Having a community puts you in a position of influence to inspire and motivate others for the better. Influence comes with responsibility, and when used to good effect, it can lead to acts of positive impact that extend beyond your business, community and industry, leading to even more stories to tell.

If you are fed up with your handcrafted products being invisible and want to learn how to use storytelling to help your business stand out from the crowd, read Harnessing the power of storytelling in your craft business to help you create better customer connections.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to rovenimages.com sourced via Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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There are several different channels I always use to help me find and select makers and artisan businesses for profile-raising opportunities. In this post, I am sharing some insights into how I find designers, makers and artisan product businesses so that you can use the information to inform your marketing, PR and brand positioning strategies.

Finding a maker or artisan brand

My personal, curated directory

I’ve been working in the contemporary craft and design industry for over 15 years and have built up a database of contacts that includes craft business owners. I often start my search for makers and artisan-led brands with those I already know, going through my directory and then seeing what those names are up to.

Takeway: Reach out, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself.

Online search

The ability to search for information online kickstarted my blogging, then writing career. I would run and still run endless keyword search engines searches, making a note of who I found. Google is my go to, but social sites such as Pinterest and Instagram are at the top of my search list too. I use variations of keywords and phrases related to who and what I am looking for for the project I would be working on, i.e. pottery studios in Bath.

Takeaway: SEO and keywords are an important part of your marketing strategy.

Events

Craft fairs, tradeshows and exhibitions are great places to learn about emerging and established makers. They are opportunities to see craftwork in-person. If the maker is in attendance I can introduce myself and reconnect with those I already know.

Takeaway: Even if you are not showcasing make the effort to visit events that are relevant to your craft. Talk to people, because seemingly random conversations can reveal you’re talking to a curator, decision-maker etc.

Recommnedations

One of the best ways to find and select makers and artisan businesses is through recommendations from my network. I could be having a conversation with a designer and they mention someone whose work I ‘absolutely have to‘ check out. Or a ‘do you know…‘ conversation starter can lead to ‘…tell me more‘. When events I listen out for names people are talking about and afterwards I go and look them up. The point is when your work makes an impression please take note.

Takeway: Network and maintain contact with your customers and connections.

Publications

As I mentioned, I never know where I’ll come across craftwork that catches my eye. Magazines and newspapers both print and digital can offer up gems. Print may be traditional media, but it is still one of those mediums that draws you in. I’ll be reading something like a gift list round-up, spot an object, make a note of who its by then google their details.

Takeaway: PR still pays.

Stockists

Although I help stockists find craftwork or artisans to collaborate with I also find names while browsing physical and online shops, i.e. a gallery shop, interiors store, lifestyle boutique or department store. This could be in a local highstreet, shopping centre or even on holiday.

Takeaway: Stockists can help raise your visibility.

Website

This may be my personal preference, but once I have a name I always refer to the maker or craft business’s website. I may follow this up with a look at their social media pages- Instagram or Facebook, but I still prefer to see and explore a website first. With a website I can cut through the distractions of digital content. A website gives me more of an insight into how professional the maker or brand really is away from the gloss of social posts. Understanding that websites can disappear, having a website makes me feel like the owner is invested in their craftwork, by putting down more stable online roots.

Takeaway: Having a well maintained website is still a necessity.

Selecting a maker or artisan brand

Once I have found a maker or artisan brand, the next step I take is to get to know a bit more about them to gauge their suitability for the project I am working on. This could be a magazine article, an exhibition or a recommendation request. My get-to-know criteria include:

Reputation

Reputation is how others view your work, i.e. customers, critics, curators, collectors your peers. Regardless if you are established or up-and-coming this would be in the context of your craftwork. You don’t have to be a well known maker or artisan-led brand but I do need to feel confident that you can deliver the goods.

Takeaway:

Product Quality

Quality is one of the factors that impacts reputation. The contemporary craft market is demanding and expects a certain standard. Though its not always possible, I try to see a maker’s work in person. Alternatively, I’ll look for reviews- customer and publication – that speak to the quality of the craftwork. Events that the maker has taken part in also provide uselful clues, especially if the event is one known to have a rigourous selection process.

Takeaway: Investing in improving and mastering craft-making skills is an on-going process.

Presentation

How you present your craftwork in-person and online is another thing I look out for. Presentation can affect the way an audience views your hand crafted objects. Things like packaging, display props and social posts and website images are all part of the business interaction experience. They can show how much care you have towards your craft.

Takeaway: Polish your presentation by investing in the areas that help you present your work at its best, i.e. good photography, an engaging, informative website.

Look for the ‘why’

The ‘why‘ is the story and purpose behind a craft business. I am fascinated in the reasons a maker took up their craft, by the skills, techniques and process. This is what I enjoy writing and sharing about so that others can appreciate what goes into creating exceptional crafts.

Takeaway: Make use of storytelling in your marketing activities.

suitability For The Project

Some opportunities will be suitable and other will not. Any maker or craftwork that I select has to be relevant for my client or project requirements. Your skills, could be exceptional and your work beautiful, but if its unsuitable I cannot include or put it forward. That is not a reflection on your work, but a fact of business. In the case where I can’t feature or recommend maker or brand I add them to my directory, ready for when the a more fitting opportunity arises.

Takeaway: If things don’t work out don’t take a no personally. On the other hand don’t be afraid to say no if you feel a request is unsuitable for your work.

Professionalism

If I contact a maker or artisan brand with an opportunity I do expect a level of professionalism in the communication process. Making your products, managing a business or preparing for a market or event can keep you busy. I get it, I sometimes drop the ball too. But, the reality is, for the recipient having to chase for information and answers doesn’t instil much confidence in the maker or brand fulfilling the requirements of the opportunity.

Takeaway: Be professional and organised. And keep in mind, responsiveness and timeliness pave the way for a smooth working relationship.

Responsiveness

This is a big one for me. My work is often deadline driven, so when I contact a maker or brand with an opportunity receiving a response is appreciated. Even if you not are interested, receiving a simple message saying ‘this is not for me’ makes such a difference. This is because I know to move on and to not keep chasing you.

Takeaway: Courtesy impacts your reputation and the likelihood of future opportunities being offered to you.

As you seek to raise awareness about your craftwork and business, I hope you find the insights and tips helpful as you plan and carry out your marketing strategies. And, for more pointers on how I find and select makers and artisan businesses for opportunities, read How to catch the curator’s eye, proven tips for designers & makers who want to stand out.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The images shown are belongs to Pixabay, sourced from Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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As someone who has built a career around blogging, I may be biased when I say blogging is not dead, it’s just changed. And, that’s to be expected as technology and how we engage with it evolve. For example, the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram ushered in an era of micro-blogging. This shift initially saw people abandoning their website blogs before figuring out that they could run the two side by side. By using their social platforms, not only connect to their audiences but also promote and drive traffic to their website, people can better connect their audiences to the products and services they sell.

Today, AI is disrupting how we generate and search for content, impacting blogging. So, despite the plethora of online promotional channels, leveraging a blog to promote your craft business remains a worthwhile part of a marketing strategy.

If you’re curious to find out how a blog can help you market your craftwork and boost your visibility, get answers to your questions in this article. First, we need to look at what a blog is.

What is a blog?

To appreciate why you should have a blog to promote your craft business, here is a definition from the Oxford Dictionary, and a brief introduction to what a blog and blogging are.

‘A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style‘. A blog comprises individual diary-like entries called Blog Posts. Blogging is the activity of writing and creating content for a blog post.

So, now that you know what a blog is, here are the reasons why you should use it as part of your marketing strategy to promote your craft business

1. You have greater control over how you create and share your content –

With a blog, you have greater control over how you create and share your content. You also have more options to customise your blog design to suit your brand, in areas such as layout, typefaces, backgrounds and button colours. A blog offers you the ability to use different media types in one post: written words, images, video, or audio clips. And, with a blog post, you can link to other posts on your blog or to external content, enabling you to direct your audience to where you want them to go next once they’ve seen and read your post.

And, unlike most social media platforms, a blog on your website has no restrictions on content length. You can say as much or as little as you want in your posts; just make sure your content is relevant, helpful, informative, educational or entertaining. Blog posts can also be edited to correct mistakes after publishing and, if required, updated to keep the content fresh.

2. You own your user data –

User data refers to the information you keep about visitors to your blog. This information is in the form of names, email addresses, age, location, interests and so forth. As explained in the definition, a blog is a type of website, typically set up on a hosting platform* i.e. GoDaddy, Doteasy, Bluehost. You can connect visitor data collecting tools to your blog, such as Google Analytics and mail subscriber providers such as Mailchimp, Flodesk, and Kit.

With these tools and, in addition to those that come with your hosting provider, you can keep track of and connect with visitors to your blog in many different ways, as they go through the journey from finding and reading your posts to making a purchase.

Customer management and mail subscriber tools enable you to save your user a data in the form of downloading a spreadsheet with the information. This means if something were to happen to your website and blog, you would still have your user data. The same cannot be said for social media platforms such as Instagram, which owns all the user data from traffic coming into their platform, in this case, your followers. Unless you persuade all your followers to visit your blog, website or sign up for your newsletter, you cannot engage with them outside of the social platform. And, if you were to lose your social media page or leave the platform, you would have no access to the community of followers you’ve spent precious time growing and nurturing.

3. You’re not tied to algorithms

Websites, social media and search engines run on algorithms. Algorithms help to enhance the user experience through functionality, performance, content delivery, searches and recommendations based on user interests and demographics. Algorithms, while useful, can hurt your digital marketing efforts by preventing your audience from seeing your content unless you play by the platform’s rules, i.e. paying to boost posts in your audience’s feeds.

Algorithms are constantly updated, and when a platform does so without warning, it can also impact your content’s visibility by restricting who sees it and when. In contrast, when someone visits your blog, they can see and browse all your posts. You can also react quicker to search engine algorithm changes by editing and updating your blog posts, as highlighted in Point 1.

4. You have the freedom to access, move and download the content you create

Some social platforms limit the access you have to download, edit or move around the content you share on your dedicated page. A blog gives you the freedom to move your content around to suit your needs. More importantly, you can save your blog content by creating backups of your posts, images, videos and so forth, to your preferred storage location, i.e. downloading to your computer.

By having a backup of your blog posts, should the worst happen, you can always upload them again- just remember to actually backup up your files! You can do this through the control panel on your web host.

5. It’s a traffic driver

People conduct millions of content searches daily on search engines and increasingly on AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. When you create blog posts that provide information and answers to what your audience is looking for, you help to drive traffic to your website. The marketing strategy for doing this is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which refers to the words and phrases you use throughout a particular blog post to target a specific topic.

You can also use a blog to build your authority. If you create content that offers information centred around your industry, it can raise your profile. This helps attract the attention of journalists, curators, stockists, customers or fellow makers and students if you offer coaching, courses and workshops.

6. You can monetise your blog

You can turn your blog into an additional income stream by hosting ads, preferably from vetted suppliers and complementary sector-related businesses, rather than the random ones from Ad provider networks. The type of ads to consider could be: the shop where you get your materials from, an upcoming craft market, or a maker’s conference you enjoy attending.

Showing ads on your blog works best if you have steady traffic coming to your website, which is what blog posts do. If considering this monetising option, I would caution you to take a less-is-more approach to minimise interruptions to the reading experience, the sidebar tends to be the best place to place ads. And, be selective about who you partner with. What you choose to promote reflects on you, impacting the trust relationship you are building with your audience.

If you choose to manage the ads yourself, you will have to create a price list outlining how long the ad will be on your blog, in addition to having a set of guidelines regarding the ad size, design, and so forth. There are software platforms and plug-ins that can help you do this.

I hope you found the reasoning for having a blog useful, and if you are interested in using a blog to market your artisan hand-crafted items, find out how to get started in my post How to successfully start a blog and use it to promote your craft business.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

* Note: I run my website on DotEasy shared hosting and use Mailchimp; other than that, I am not affiliated with the hosting and email platforms mentioned, and by mentioning them, I am not offering advice to use them. If looking for a web host, I strongly recommend you do your research to identify the ones suitable for your needs.

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to Arina Krasnikova, sourced via Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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What is integrity?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines integrity as: the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.

Why does brand integrity matter?

When applied to a business (or individual), brand integrity relates to how well the business lives up to its values and upholds the promise it has made in serving its customers and other stakeholders. In other words, do your actions, words, products, and services always match what you say you are about?

The marks of brand integrity include: honesty, accountability, transparency and consistency. Together, these four marks add up to the level of trustworthiness a brand, or an individual, is seen to have. And, trust as we all know, is integral to the quality and strength of our relationships.

Brands (and individuals) that lack integrity shake their audience’s confidence in them. These brands and individuals are seen as:

• Untrustworthy
• Dishonest
• Unreliable
• Misleading

Brand integrity, therefore, is of supreme importance for any business in any sector.

When it comes to your craft business, the four marks of brand integrity will relate to:

Authenticity (Honesty)

Authenticity means being true to your values, mission and purpose by showing who you truly are in your behaviour, messaging and relationships. Authenticity calls for acting the same in public and in private. It can be tempting to want to embellish or put on a persona that we think will make us more interesting to our audiences, but at some point, the veneer will slip, revealing the real you. So, keep things simple by always being genuine.

Service (Accountability)

Service is how you treat those you connect and work with. This includes customers, collaborators, employees, suppliers, stockists, and the artisan communities you may work with. You may view these groups as being separate, but in this day and age, people talk and share in ways that bring members within these groups into contact, enabling them to compare notes about their experiences with your business and representatives.

Being of service also means admitting when you get something wrong, and taking the steps to sort it out immediately, and not later when the damage sets in and becomes irreparable.

Principles (Transparency)

Principles are your morals, the values that matter to you and are adamant you won’t compromise even when under pressure to conform. Principles require you to keep your word by doing the right thing and what you’ll say you’ll do. When you stick to your values by not going with the flow, you earn the respect and loyalty of your audience and stakeholders. Having principles also calls for transparency in how you manage your craft business in areas such as your costs, production and supply chains.

Quality (Consistency)

Inferior quality products, mixed messaging, fluctuating prices, indiscriminate sales techniques and data leaks are some of the reasons that harm a brand’s integrity. Maintaining the expected level of quality throughout your craft business requires consistency. Consistency is doing the same thing in the same way or at the same level every time you do it. Audiences notice when something is not consistent, and this leads them to question and eventually distrust the business or individual.

Brand integrity is not an option. It is the very essence of your craft business and is what will keep you consistent, accountable, honest, and transparent. If you’re interested in finding out more, brand integrity is something I cover in my Masterclass: Refine & Elevate Your Craft Business.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to Feyza Tuğba sourced via Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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Some of the key challenges that prevent artisan communities from reaching their full potential include:

Access to market

Without customers, artisans can’t make sales, and market access, be it local or international, is one of the main challenges craft communities face. Navigating the commercial side of the craft business can be tricky. It is not always as simple as turning up at a shop and asking them to sell your products. Contacts with buyers and the ability to negotiate contracts are often out of reach for artisans, especially those in remote, rural areas.

While digital technology has brought the world in closer contact, despite the reach and perceived widespread availability and use of internet-enabled devices, 2.6 billion people worldwide still do not have internet access (World Economic Forum). This equates to roughly one-third of the global population. And, while we may debate the pros and cons of digital technology, we can’t deny the opportunities and freedoms it unlocks for online business, awareness, and market access. Support and guidance are much needed to help artisan communities identify the markets that are suitable for their crafts.

Competitive pricing

Pricing is another challenge that prevents craft communities from reaching their full potential. Many artisans in developing nations rely on local customers and tourists for sales. Locally produced crafts have a reputation for being cheap and readily available, and when crafts are seen as lowly, humble products, customers bargain, driving down prices. This affects the artisan’s profit margin’s leaving them very little to live on and invest back into improving the marketability of their crafts.

Selling wholesale to retailers can help boost a craft community’s income, but without the knowledge or confidence to navigate the process and ensure they get a fair deal, the artisans then face being taken advantage of. If artisans want to widen their reach by selling their creations to international audiences, their pricing needs to match the expectations of a global market.

Product development and innovation

Pricing crafts for retail and international markets requires that the products the artisans produce meet the high-quality standards expected by the contemporary crafts market. While the artisans may have exceptional craft skills, the creations still have to fit in with the modern life of the end consumer, and design development skills may be lacking.

Craft communities don’t always have access to trends and the ever-changing tastes of consumers that dictate what gets bought and what doesn’t at any given period. Products get tailored to suit the tastes of different customers, and taking artisan crafts to wider, diverse audiences requires adaptability. Artisans don’t typically have access to these insights, and their creations, while beautifully made, then become stuck in an aesthetic time-warp, making them unsuitable for markets beyond their immediate communities.

Collaborative design interventions are one way of introducing new ideas into a craft community, but this must be done sensitively and with the creative and technical input of the artisans rather than forced upon them.

Getting product to market

Once crafts have been made, they need to get to market. Depending on the destination, this is by air, sea, or land. Shipping goods can be costly, and also time-consuming if the artisans have to deliver them themselves. If sending crafts internationally, the need for export licences and insurance are all factors that may be out of the reach of artisans, barriers that stand in the way of them reaching their full potential.

Funding

Investing in the development and sustainable success of a craft community requires some form of funding. This could be from the artisans’ own funds or, in the case of communities, more likely to come from external sources such as retailers, donors, grants and micro-loans. This can put pressure on the artisans to deliver, and in the case of loans, at the mercy of unscrupulous lenders. On the other hand, loans and grants from reputable sources may be denied where there is no credit history.

In times of economic uncertainty, funding becomes scarce, and for an artisan community that has relied on funding to achieve its potential, the sudden unavailability can jeopardise its growth. This calls for training to help craft communities learn the necessary skills to manage and invest their income wisely to free them from a reliance on long-term funding support.

Training

Craft skills development and business skills are essential to help artisan communities reach their full potential. Selling, marketing and communicating the purpose and stories behind their crafts are much-needed skills for connecting with customers and buyers. Having access to training is to improve on existing knowledge and to empower those who get held back due to things like illiteracy, which causes others to look down on or take advantage of them. Even for those who are literate, areas such as financial education, bookkeeping, product pricing, packaging and promotion go a long way towards enhancing their prospects and well-being and that of their community.

When artisan craft communities flourish, they not only contribute to the wider craft industry, they also empower those within the community, who in turn contribute to the prosperity of their nations. And, the right support ensures this can happen. If you are interested in collaborating with artisan communities to create products for your artisan retail business and want to know more about the challenges, have a look at my consultancy services.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown is sourced from Los Muertos Crew from Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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The 5 story types are:

1. The Emotional Connection Story

This is the story that builds an emotional connection between you and audience. Emotional connections create a bond of trust and loyalty. A 2015 survey by content marketing agency, Headstream revealed that if people really love a brand story 15% will buy the product immediately, 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future, while 44% will share the story. Emotional stories can also tug at the heartstrings. When using this story type, be authentic and don’t over do it by becoming too sentimental as that can have the opposite effect of making your audience feel uncomfortable.

2. The Entertaining Story

People love to be entertained and injecting a bit of humour into your brand stories is one of the best ways to do this. Humour brings joy and makes people feel good. This story type can offer a form of momentary escapism when times are tough. Using humour in your brand stories helps to make them memorable, relatable and shareable. When using humour in your stories ensure your message doesn’t get lost in the laughs, as too much humour can lead to not being taken seriously.

3. The Inspirational Story

The inspirational story motivates audiences to do and be better. This story aligns with their values and helps build community. Inspirational stories can inspire your audience to aspire to improving their lives, the lives of others or the world around them. This could be improving their well-being, learning something new, or becoming part of something bigger than themselves. Inspirational stories foster brand loyalty even creating life-changing movements.

4. The User-Generated Story

Some of the best brand stories are those told by your customers, and the user generated story focuses on sharing them (with your customers permissions off course). User-generated stories provide social proof, which can increase your business’ credibiblity and trustworthiness. Types of user-generated stories include testimonials, case studies, and social comments and captions that you can use in your digital channels and printed marketing materials.

5. The Problem and Solution Story

The problem and solution story is one of the most common story types. As the name suggests you highlight a problem in your audiences lives and position your product or service within your story to provide a solution to overcoming it. To create emotional connections and build trust use personal or real-life user-generated examples in your problem and solution story to illustrate what you are saying.

These are just 5 proven types of brand stories that you can use to increase your sale conversions. Your brand stories can focus on one of these story types or be a combination of a few or all. And, regardless of the type of story you use remember to keep your stories authentic, because ‘66% of people believe the best stories are those about regular people.’ [source. Headstream, 2015]

Which of these brand story types would work for your artisan business? I’d love to know, do share in the comments.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown belongs to PNW Production sourced from Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere, please credit accordingly.]

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Storytelling is a powerful way to attract and help your right audiences emotionally connect with what you do. Why? because audiences are more likely to remember a story than facts, as underscored by the popular saying ‘Facts tell, stories sell‘ (attributed to Bryan Eisenberg, an online marketing expert).

With so many businesses offering similar things, telling the stories behind your craft offerings cuts through the noise by acting as a beacon that draws customers towards you. Thoughtful and targeted brand storytelling takes your customers on a journey of discovery, helping them decide whether to invest in your objects or that of your peers. Consumers are craving deeper connections especially given what the world has been through with Covid. They want to be inspired, and knowing that real people are behind the objects that have caught their interest helps them find meaning in their purchases. Storytelling helps them achieve that.

As a maker business or artisan retailer the crafts you make or sell are rich with stories waiting to be told. As a writer telling the stories of artisans from around the world, I know the life-changing impact storytelling has on raising the visibility of a maker and their craftwork. I also know, however, that it is not always easy to turn the stories of your craftwork into relatable, shareable, attention-attracting content. Here are 4 straightforward and easy-to-implement tips to help you get started with harnessing the power of storytelling to help you create better customer connections:

1. Create a signature story

Harnessing the power of storytelling starts with creating the one story that is relevant to your business. Create a signature story that shares the why behind your craft and business- the reason you set it up and create and sell the objects you do. Create a story centred around your passion, purpose, inspirations, where you are based, the materials you use and what your workshop or retail store is like. Include information about you as the maker, or the artisans you work with. You can do this as an interview or a video that you can transcribe into text. Include your customers in your brand story by sharing their testimonials and experiences, this helps make your stories relatable, building trust with potential customers.

2. Keep your story authentic

Tell the story of your business in your own words and voice. Your style of speaking is what makes you you. In copywriting and marketing, this is called tone-of-voice. To capture your tone-of-voice you can record yourself speaking and listen to how you speak, and sound, taking note of the words you use. If you’re hesitant to do this because you are not a ‘writer’ know that people are more likely to connect with what sounds and feels authentic over perfectly polished text with no personality. Pro tip: run the text through a grammar and spelling editor or get a trusted person to review it to help you polish it up.

3. Repurpose your story

Your signature story is just the start. Give your story wings by repurposing it. To repurpose is to adapt something for a different application. When you have created your signature story, break it up, for example: into quotes, single sentences or short paragraphs, or record them as sound bites for video and audio. Doing this gives your one story mileage.

4. Share your story on the relevant channels

For your brand story to be effective and reach your desired audience you have to put it out there. Share your signature story across your various marketing channels. To maximise your reach and impact do your research to ensure you are using the relevant channels your target audiences are on.

Those are some tips that I hope you will find useful. If you are a maker or artisan retailer who wants to harness the power of storytelling to help you raise your business profile to create better customer connections and get more consistent sales it’s time to start putting the stories of your purpose and creations to work. Head this way to discover how I can help.

– Tapiwa Matsinde

[Image credits: The image shown is by Sarah Dorweiler on Pexels. If downloaded and used elsewhere please credit accordingly.]

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