Craft Marketing! Use the Power of the Demonstration to Increase Your Sales

Do you market your crafts at craft shows? If so, you may have considered doing a demonstration of your craft technique to market your crafts. What are some of the advantages to using craft demonstrations as a craft marketing technique?

Some of the advantages include:

You attract attention and traffic to your craft booth which can result in increased sales.

You give credibility to your craft line by showing that it is, indeed, handmade.3. You may receive positive publicity or even a full fledged story about your craft if the right person happens to be in the audience.

You educate the public about how your craft and make them feel more comfortable buying from you.

You establish a personal connection with your potential customer. People would rather purchase from an individual they've established a relationship with as opposed to a faceless company or importer.

You can have a helper in the audience take photos of your demonstrations to add to your craft portfolio. Before you decide that demonstrating your jewelry making to the public is the greatest thing since sliced bread, be aware that there are several disadvantages to using this as a craft promotional technique:

It may require you to bring additional equipment with you to shows as if you don't have enough to carry already!

It requires you to tie up some of your booth space for the demonstration which means less space for exdhibiting your crafts.

You may need to hire an assistant to sell your crafts while you demonstrate. This increases your overhead.

Most importantly of all, it keeps you from actively marketing and selling your crafts as you're tied up with the demonstration.I've had crafters tell me that they've tested the market by demonstrating their handmade crafts at some shows, while spending the time at other shows actively selling and marketing their crafts Guess which one resulted in more sales! The shows where the jewelry designer actively interacted with customers as a salesperson won out by a significant margin.