Skip to main content

Focusing Your Marketing on Your Right Person

Lesson 9 from: Marketing for Crafters: Talk About Your Work

Tara Swiger

Focusing Your Marketing on Your Right Person

Lesson 9 from: Marketing for Crafters: Talk About Your Work

Tara Swiger

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

9. Focusing Your Marketing on Your Right Person

Lesson Info

Focusing Your Marketing on Your Right Person

So there is good news through all of this. This is little like hard thinking, tio, but the good news is that you're right person is going to change now, that might seem frustrating because you really want to just know and be done with it, but as you evolve in your products evolve and you learn more and more about your right person, you were going to get a clearer vision of her, and she might also shift like the person who asked earlier about what if I identify all this and then I change it that's going to happen, you might be now selling t shirts for cat lovers on lady later move onto selling t shirts for preteen boys. That's ok, it's going to shift your business is going to shift because you're going to grow and you're going to change doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. Also everyone has right people, whatever yourself, no matter how weird it was heart is and I have seen some weird and bizarre products, there is a person who really wants that in their life, so that's why we've ta...

lked about needs is to point out the fact that it's filling some need and there's a person who really has that. And as you can see when you look at everybody else's products you think of course there's a person who wants that the same is true for you so if you have questions about finding that you can ask in the chat it sounds like they're also for helpful are you can ask out loud if you have the question and the last thing is that you're right people are right if they love what you do and the reason why I say this is because a lot of people get struggling with the I don't know is this my right person? Is this my right person? I thought this was my right person but then they said something really negative about blah, blah blah so that's not the right person people who think you should change fundamentally what you make or your style or your vision or the way you deliver it they're not right for you they if you try to please them you'll just be chasing your tail you'll be miserable and you will get further and further away from your own style your own north stars your own business that she want to make you start making a business for somebody else so if you're wondering if they're your right person or not if they are loving what you're doing really loving it then yes, if they are critical of or keep insisting that you change something about it like if you do a custom order and they're like no I don't want like this no I don't want to like this they might not be right for you if they if what you make it's too advanced for them so they're beginner knitter and you do advanced knitting designs they might not be a right person so don't get so hung up on wanting to serve everybody that you just except all those people changing your business because that's how you get in the situation where you have a business you don't really like it all so then I would love to know who is your right person who have you identified with all of these questions on page seventeen and eighteen and nineteen what is what have you learned about her question please um say like I made a recent selling etc for one of the persons that I made and her review was a five star and said that she absolutely loved my product and wish that she could create something so intricate but when you you try to reach out to that person in an email and say like thank you what was it that you liked? How do you get that person to how do you find people that actually want to tell you why they love your product or look for you on instagram because they loved what you did and stuff like that? How do you go more in depth, they say they love your product, but well, I think by asking your question that's a great start, some percentage of people are not going to want to reply either. I mean, a lot of people don't check their betsy messages. I've been surprised by how many people have contacted me that way and it's like I don't know as a buyer like I don't ever go in and check my messages and I might miss the email or get marked a spam so it could be that she's not hearing from you, it could be that she's just not interested in giving more feedback because for her she bought it she's moved on you of course love and care about it forever, so I would keep asking, don't let yourself gets discouraged and that is a great follow up question something like I'm so glad you love it. I'd love to hear more either about what she loved about it or how you're using it in your life because either one of those stories you can use on your site and you're marketing to tell other people so they don't know so they really have to say I love the scarf because it was so intricate, but they could say like, I love the scarf and I wear it to my kids basketball game each week and that story then you can share with future and potential customers tio get them to picture it in their own life ok, that makes sense but I think what she told you that she loves how intricate it is like I think that that's a big key word there you should focus in on but it's also hard to like think of that person and what they like to do when they're etc profiles like a picture their name dead by this and they favored anything they don't follow you on instagram right look or anything and you're just like will you buy my stuff? You went so what else do I need to know about you sorry more people like you well and that's what I said in the beginning you're just going to be making stuff up you're going to guess based on what you know about going to guess based on the fact that she bought it and she loves how intricate it is you're going to make a full story just to keep you focused and then you'll shift that as you learn more facts because after you have more customers will be able to start seeing the connections and like is it with working in the urn store totally surprised me like that's not even a person I was thinking I was being my customer so it's okay if you if you make it up and you keep fixing it because this is not math like that person is maybe not who you imagine your customer to be because like I just buy stuff I want it or I don't and I don't give feedback you know, I figured nobody knows me what do they care what I think and I know that but I know it's importantly to you but it's not important into me yeah, and so particularly at my age like I'm not going to waste my time doing that because I got my own business I don't have time to build your business and that's what you're asking people to dio so I'm not your right person, but I might buy your stuff yeah and that's the thing is you have a range of people by your things both for gifts and for so for someone else in their life they might buy it so that's not necessarily right person and also they might not be the most you know and that's like the person asked about having different right people, they're gonna have different kinds of people who buy it. We're just focusing on really focusing your energy so that when you make decisions you can make get based on something because as long as this is vague you're going toe talk vaguely you're not going to talk about the specifics of what it will do for a person you're going to say it's great you know and what we want to get to is saying it's great because it's going to do this in your life but you have to have somebody in mind to know what it's going to do in her life you know, do we have anybody who want to show the right person in the chat room? We have a comment here and a question first this comes from anita age and this is regarding we were just talking a little bit about husband and trying to get them involved says that years ago a local scrap book store let the women write down their wish lists and leave them with the store than family and friends including husbands could go in and buy one item or the whole list depending on their budget so they recommend adding a wish list to your website if you don't already have one to create a list of all the products that husbands may be able to go purchase so that's a great tip and then we had a question come in from carla kano and they're curious to know about if you have different product lines so you have completely different lines is at a situation where you should be going through in answering all these questions for each of your product lines that you offer well without knowing more about different product lines so they are very different okay, so super different like say you're selling something tio new moms and you're selling something, teo, you know, forty five year old, hardly lovers, then yeah, definitely answer it for each person and think about what we were talking before about your particular sparkle is going to be cohesive it's going to tell your things together if you let it if you make work that's very true to you and your vision, there will be some part of it that's cohesive across it, so there will be some part something that's cohesive across your people is what I've seen happen again and again, you know charlie and I love it, so maybe it's that, you know, you have both won z's and leather jackets that are like have a certain sense of humor, so the people who buy it might be a very different life places, but they're going to have the same sense of humor or they have the same they love the cartoons you make, even though they're totally different so often there's something the through line that you use in your big marketing. But then when you do specific specifically speak to just one person so you can absolutely do these work sheets for every again and again for each kind of product and and go back and do the your product in your sparkle for each different kind of product as well. To get very specific so that when you talk about this thing you know when and where to talk about it and who to talk to and the I think it's good news that you're right person can transform your business I told you a little bit about how when I was selling urine it changed who I thought I was talking to and that really changed what I did but you could take it one step further and let knowing you're right person change what you offer so when I first heard about right people and I started thinking ok, everybody has right people and I have people who love what I dio what would change if I acted like that like if I really approached the world like there are some people who are going to be passionately excited about what I d'oh what would I do differently? And one of the things that kept coming back tio is that I would make more things for those people, so that really changed the kind of products I offered instead of doing things just that I thought were cool. I started giving more and more to the people who already loved my work who were already obsessed with my work and just giving them more options so if they like bulky yarn and bright colors are for different kinds of bulky aren't wool versus banana versus hemp in bright colors I kept doing more for those people and so that's what I mean by it can transform your businesses. We've been talking about two, people are going to change your business is going to change, going to keep in mind what she want, you also want to stay open toe. Listen, you know, if you're helping knitters become better knitters, you might find that they really need something from you, and then you can create it. And we've been talking about marketing as a relationship that deepens our relationship so much because you just gave me this thing I really needed and that's really now how I do product development is what is it that people most need? What is it that they're asking for? That I can give them that is within my realm of, you know, abilities that I could provide for them, and a lot of artists move into a bunch of different kinds of things because people who then have the artwork want something else with your same vision as you want to think about how what you can do for your person, I think that's a question that I ask on the pages well, but you guys need to go and fill out all the way through a page nineteen, and I'd love to hear more from the er. The chat room about what questions they have about this since this is kind of you guys have questions about finding your right people where things you've discovered well, you know, following up on we were just mentioning carla cano's question she says, look, I totally thought I knew what I was doing, but now I'm not so sure the more I delve into this, the more I think I'm not being true to myself and these air kind of good questions to ask yourself while we're in this environment while you have this workbook and the support of the chat room, now is the time to reassess where you're at if you thought maybe you had all these questions answered now's a good time to revisit them, so we love to get that feedback and you keep the questions coming in. We love the support in the chat room people are here to support you if you do have questions and help you get through it with your business. Absolutely. And, you know, that's, such a big scary question is like maybe I haven't been true to myself, which is why I wanted to start out the day talking about north stars and what's guiding you because marketing seems like it's just a business see thing you kind of should dio, but in fact it's really personal, intense, really challenging because it ask you what you're doing first of all, which might have just been doing it without knowing who you're talking to and ask you to get really clear and be really honest and authentic with with your people about who you are and what you're doing and you got to be true to yourself and be making products that you want to market I think quite a few people have a hard time with marketing because they don't actually stand behind what they're doing they they like it, they're proud of it but they don't want to talk about it and so if you really feel like I don't want anybody to know I do this, then you want to ask like why that is either you're not okay with yourself or you're not okay with what you're making and one of those things needs to shift its like uh self help work and a lot of way is getting comfortable talking about your stuff easier even for me to, like hide behind the computer and like the photos and the descriptions on the words than it is to like talk in person about it when I like an in person I'm just then I'm a little more like ah right, so I mean and this is like really helping me like get it out and be more confident in person to talk about it I don't no, I'll be like going to craft shows but well and we're going to talk about this more in session three about how she was a tool that best suits you because that's part of building a business that you were going to really love is choosing maybe a craft shows is not the selling venue because it's just not in your personality to do it and that's totally cool so when I talk about talking about it in person, you don't necessarily have teo and one of the things that right people tells us is that so the person at the coffee shop who says what do you d'oh they might not be your right person so you don't necessarily have to go into a lot of details the great thing about being really clear about who you're talking to is that you want to be open and and talked anybody who's curious but you don't have to give as many details people talk about having an elevator pitch which is like you can describe what you do and twenty seconds while you're on an elevator but not everybody is going to get the same pitch like an interested person who comes up to it a craft show or when you're wearing your scarf says I love that scarf where can I get one she's going to get a different version of what you d'oh then you know the old man at the coffee shop he you don't need to tell him, you know, oh, I hand so late, it's going to occur shaky ground, you say I made it, I make scarves, you know, this workshop hopes with getting that magical unicorn out of your head, because so often you think about martine, you're like there's, this magical person that will one day by it, but actually writing it down and finding your right person and knowing it, it's, forcing you and your brain to work harder to find that person. Yes, I'm so glad to hear you say that, I would say, is that, like, I've been saying, and I won't name any names, but there are some places online that I don't know why I have to be there, right? And really now I know that I don't have to be there, right? There are other places that online that I'd like to be, that I don't have time, because everybody told me I had to be in this other place, I don't want to be, you're right on that, and that goes back to, like, building the kind of business you wantto bill was talking to the people in the places where you there actually are, and when you're like, overwhelmed with, I should be here, and I should be there you you don't have time for the places where people actually are you're just where you think that you should be and you're just hoping like you said, the magical unicorn just like rides up on his harley is I can't and you know, it's him because he's got a unicorn, right? So I'm so glad that you have that experience and I just probably hear it I think I realized as I was saying that it's hard for me too talk about in person, I think I realized why? Like, I feel like I want people to take me a serious like it really is a business rather than I'm just crafting and craft room and it's a hobby because honestly, when people say that like how's your hobby going, what like like e o right trying to like, come off, um, so that they take me serious e I think that that's, why it's hard for me to talk about it? That makes sense and that I mean, there are two aspects of that one of it is you want tio kind of accept that you can't shape how other people are going to think about you and that's the worst thing? Because obviously you want everyone to like you take you seriously think it's serious, so you can't really have any effect about what they think, but you can um come up with a description and a way of talking about it makes you feel awesome and makes you feel like on the serious business lady because I mean that's what that's what I try to do because it's very hard to be teo be making something by hand because people just assume it's crafty so one way of answering that is like, well, my business is going really well until increased x percent, so I like I like to bring out the math I think makes you seem more like a business entity they bring out the math or the travel or the you know, the thing that symbolizes to the outside world that you're doing well so in a lot of instances that's press like I don't care personally about getting press because it hasn't increased sales in any measurable way, but when you tell your in laws I'm in this magazine in barnes and noble here it is then suddenly it's not a craft or it's, not just a hobby yeah, they can see it even when someone says like crafting or she's just crafting are getting going and even that I'm like no yeah, well and that's why I refer to all of us is makers because that were just slightly less loaded, I think because crafting cannot just be like you're just alone a question it was oh yeah like e u I wish you were tio limb when you all you do is lay around and eat bonbons sold on paper, people think it's true and like I said, part of that is just accepting you're not going to be able to change people's what they think they're just going to think what they think, but you can come up with your own ways of saying it that make you feel as good as possible, you know? So pull out numbers, pull out things that other people would think we're cool or just say, yeah, it's going well, because not everybody deserves a response like not every situation deserves you to defend yourself, like we talked about with saying no, like sometimes they just don't even an explanation is going to do anything but get you worked up because I always wanted you, you don't even understand that just totally changes, you know? And now I'm working and getting them to understand me, it's not a good place to be, so just, um, are there any more questions about right people in the chat room or here live? Yeah, I've got a s o I haven't sold I mean, I'll have much up for sale, really, but I have one commission, so then I think I need to start listening. It's kind of kind of tour because it seems like ultimately will be doing is what people want, which is would be commissioned work, and that has to do with memories and all sorts of things, but I guess I don't have to have that answer and just keep going one way and then just with creating the works of art, people like them or not, and then people by contact me to do more commissions, yeah, that's what my question is it's just like I like, I can't know what you're talking about, it sounds like is the balance between making art the art you want to make and balancing that with, uh, economic reality of what people want to buy you and that's a balance for everybody, and so you need to find a balance based on what it is you want out of your business, like if it's really important that it be financially viable, then you might want to pursue custom work while still painting yourself on the side and shift more, whereas if it doesn't, you don't need it to make money this second, you could go more the way you want to go and just let people contact you, but if, um, if it's important to be financially viable but you hate custom work, you should not ever do that ma'am because it will take your work away from the things you like and you make class inequality when it's when you hate it you hate it no okay well so if you enjoy it and that's what people are asking for I would make it all you have to do is make it more obvious on your site business cards when you talk to people that that's what you d'oh you just have to make that more obviously doesn't mean you really have to change a lot other than just letting people know because I often find that custom work is really hard to find on people cite those say I'll make anything custom for you but I need you to spell it out to me what I need to do in order to get it so maybe you could do like a blood post or a page all about your custom artwork could look like this and it would say this and your your word you learned in therapy you know like being really be really specific to reach those people yeah I just have safe thank you for the questions because that's what helps us get that magical unicorn out of her head more specific you are in each question like I'm like oh I just answered it I've got all these down and then you have another one that's even more in debt words like ok, I really need tio pities person down, yeah, to huai, marking in that what makes it so much easier for us? Because when people talk about marketing it's just so broad, the rice, you're really, you know, stepping it down for us. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. And I think that that is the key to all of this is that marketing isn't hard, it's, just really vague and fuzzy, so the more specific you can get just for you. You don't need to know all the marketing theory. You just need to know how this applies to you, and so that's. Why I preach, you have to do the work, but you have to fill it out, or else you don't have any epiphanies. You don't even know what you think. Yeah, I know this, but writing it down really makes it it's, you know, you know it.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Resource Guide for Marketing for Crafters
Marketing for Crafters Bibliography
Marketing for Crafters Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

user-034736
 

I enjoyed this course and Tara made it easy to figure out our target market without stressing. For the first time I feel like I got it down. I couldn't quite figure out how to describe my buyers, but Tara helps you narrow it down with her word lists and questions. I also feel good knowing it can change as my business does. There is another similar course by Lisa Jacobs and it was frustrating and I just couldn't get it- she wouldn't even be helpful off line- But Tara sends out loads of inspirational ideas and tips. Plus she tries to help you personally with kindness and patience- unlike Lisa! To some this course may seem slow moving- but if you need step by step confirmation of how to get there- this is your course. I don't get some things easily- and expressing what I make and why was my biggest hurdle so I needed details on how to get there. Tara is easy to listen to, and understand and so is the workbook- you don't need to print a million pages either! She's confident but not cocky. Like I said- this is the first of a dozen courses I have followed trying to pin down my target audience and expressing to others- what is so special about what I make, and she made it effortless to get there. I enjoy Tara's emails, blogs and course- I don't feel like I have more questions to ask when she communicates- for me, she makes things pretty clear.

Amy Lamp
 

This course really helped me clarify the thoughts swirling around in my head about what I make, the language I use to describe it, and how different scenarios call for different language. Now that I know about focusing on my Right People, I don't have to worry about trying to make my work or marketing for everyone. Tara did such a great job of creating a workbook that walks through the thought process step by step -- it was enlightening to see that the "spotting my sparkle" words are the same qualities that describe my work! That made me feel like I'm headed in a direction that's a good fit for me and how to stay true to my vision rather than jumping all over the place. Tara is smart, thoughtful, focused, and calming. Learning from her makes the daunting task of marketing a small business doable, and even something to look forward to.

Nessa Jay
 

This is hands down the best marketing course aimed at crafters and creatives I have ever taken. Tara is knowledgeable, passionate and gets down into the nitty-gritty details so many other courses gloss over. Seriously: no ridiculous promises and absolutely NO 'one-size-fits-all' teachings. Tara breaks the subject down into SPECIFIC and thought provoking steps/questions that will make you take a good look at what you do, why you do it and who it's for. The workbook and videos are easy to follow and very insightful. Come prepared to dig deep! I'm in the middle of a transition period in my business and before taking this course I felt confused on how exactly to verbalize my new take on my work. I walked away from the course with a clear understanding of my Right People, what I do to fulfill their needs and what language I should be using to speak to them. I highly recommend this course.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES