illustration by Alicia Traveria
Crafting a Business with Jenny Hart
The many arms of promotion
By Jenny Hart
Published: February 5th, 2008 | 1:00am
Dear Jenny,
When you started your business, how did you promote your company? Advertising is so expensive, so I’m wondering if there are other things I can do that are just as effective.
— Lori Clifton of Minneapolis
Ulgh. Marketing. Or rather, yay! Marketing! That’s the spirit. This can either be a fun, enthusiastic aspect of your business or something you are possibly ineffective at, and therefore, don’t enjoy doing. You may scratch your head and wonder endlessly how on earth to make a noise and earn interest in and customers for what you do when so many others are vying for the same attention you are. And short of wearing a sandwich board, you also want to maintain your dignity while shamelessly promoting yourself. And I do mean that — there’s no shame in promoting yourself granted that it’s done right and you have something valuable to offer.
Effective promotion and advertising of your business is crucial. It takes a knack for creating a buzz, being visually arresting or attention-getting, and, oh yeah, having goods that back up all your blah blah blah. The good news is, there are countless ways you can promote your biz for free or on the super cheap. Advertising doesn’t always have to mean spending thousands on a glossy magazine ad or renting out a billboard.
I have an awful, terrible secret: I love doing marketing. I know, I know. I curse endless TV commercials and invasive bathroom visits from ye-old-flier-on-the-back-of-the-door moments. But I’ve always viewed marketing at its best as an art form and means of entertainment that slyly sells at the same time. Is that evil of me? I’m very interested in how it works and love playing with it in a way that is simple and effective. Which isn’t really that much of a choice: There are untold approaches to marketing and theory, and I’m not going to pretend to delve into those here. And there is no one-size-fits-all method to advertising that best represents all products and services. But I absolutely have my own theories about what works and why.
Ever had someone try to sell you something you didn’t want? Sure, we all have, and it ain’t fun. Ever had the sense that the person selling it didn’t really believe in the product themselves? That’s the worst and lends a bad sheen to the product they’re hawking. The best foundation for your promotion will be a genuine enthusiasm and sincere belief in what you have to offer. If you have that, then promotion will be much, much easier. If you are trying to find ways to convince people to buy something they don’t really need, your work will be far more difficult.
When I started promoting Sublime Stitching, I did it the best way I knew how: the same way I’d been promoting our band for the last six years. Fliers, handbills, stickers, one-inch buttons — anything I could photocopy and distribute on the cheap. With the proliferation of scanners, printers, and Photoshop, the graphics I so loved creating for useless fun could now be published from my desktop with a purpose. I traded links with other Web sites and took out countless zine ads (who can beat $25 for a full page?) and made sure my Web site was linked in my e-mail signature and on any chat forum where I was active. And, OK, I’ll admit it: I’ve set more than one public computer’s homepage to my Web site. I’ve never left the house without a stack of promo cards in my purse for tacking up on public announcement boards. I’ve got business cards at the ready for anyone I might meet who wants to get in touch after learning about what I do. Don’t leave home without them.
Yeah, yeah. You already know that stuff. Those are the obvious tried-and-true renegade, DIY methods for promotion everyone uses. Get on with the more mysterious stuff, right? Let’s talk about something more specific, like print advertising.
Print advertising is an expensive way to go, so think about it carefully. What magazines are read by those who will respond best to your product? And how can you tell if the ads are working? Contact the advertising department of your desired magazine, and ask them for a media kit. Such a kit will outline demographics for their readership, their upcoming print schedule (like, “March Issue: Pink Cupcakes!” and if you make pink cupcake pins, that could be a great issue for your ad), and a rate card. Depending on the size of magazine you approach, print advertising can easily reach into the multiple thousands of dollars, so you’ll want to do your homework. Or get creative by splitting space with another business.
Many smaller publications offer rates that a savvy business person can budget for. A general rule of thumb is to run at least three ads in a row. You’ll often get a discount by signing a contract with the publication for multiple ads anyway and have a better chance at staying in the mind of the reader who flips past the first time, then the second, then the third. You won’t be able to gauge the effect of a single ad. And finding out which ads work best will take some creative analysis on your end. If you have a Web site, you might ask customers to tell you how they learned about you or offer an incentive like a promotional discount if customers mention the ad. I used to be able to tell when certain print ads were reaching a magazine’s subscribers, because I would feel the bump in sales. This is what you want to have happen with an effective ad.
One little kink: Who’s gonna design all this stuff? Much of advertising is about the artwork. Can you do that part? Many of you creative readers can, I know, but let’s do a little test:
Publication says: “I need that non-bleed artwork at 300 dpi in CMYK (no RGB) as a stuffed TIF or JPG uploaded to our FTP by 4:30 today. Please provide any font files in a separate folder. Thanks!”
Did those two sentences make sense to you, or did they just make your palms sweat? You’ll need to know the technical stuff if you begin doing magazine print ads. You’re on your own with the artwork, your logo, color choices, and font selections. Chances are you can pull an ad together yourself or have a creative, designer-ly friend who would enjoy helping you out.
And let’s not forget our dear friend, the zine. Zines offer extremely affordable ad space and are a great way to start getting your business advertised in print. But again, consider the scope of the advertising and the scope of your business. Will you be able to supply your product from Florida to the readers of the zine in Vancouver? If yes, zines are a great, affordable way to learn the drill for placing a print ad.
Apart from print advertising, you can place Web banners, do cross-promotion with other businesses that complement your goods in any number of ways, send out a newsletter via e-mail … oh, right, newsletters.
I have thing or two to say about newsletters. The difference between spam and newsletters is a very fine line. You can make it perfectly clear what the difference is simply by always having an opt-in/opt-out newsletter. This means that you don’t send your newsletter out to anyone who doesn’t sign up for it, and they can unsubscribe any time.
I send out a newsletter at least once a month (sometimes more) to subscribers. Notice I said subscribers. Not every person who e-mails me. Yeah, I know you’ve added an address list or two that someone forgot to hit the BCC option on (so have I, once upon a time), and now George in Los Angeles knows that you’re having an art opening next weekend. George might not be thrilled to have been added to your newsletter list. I’m with George on this one. I get added to about five newsletter lists a week simply by e-mailing with people who should know better. You, dear and considerate reader, will not take this tact when promoting your work or business. Newsletters via e-mail are a powerful and reliable way for getting information out to those who welcome hearing it. So make sure it’s welcome, and you’ll be doing much more effective, targeted promotion anyway rather than just blathering about your latest to anyone out there (and annoying people who view the newsletters as unwanted clutter to their inbox). So what happens when you have a great e-mail connection with someone and you want to keep in touch with her or him? Just politely ask them first. I do! You never know who you might be irritating, which isn’t a very good idea if your primary goal is to get them liking what you do. They’ll enjoy it much more if they come to take an interest in it on their own.
End of the column already? But we didn’t even talk about skywriting, specially made fortune cookies containing your Web site, or hiring the Good Year blimp! This barely scratches the surface of creative ways you can approach promotion and advertising. Which is to say, there are a million and one ways to get your word out there. Have fun doing it, and your customer will have fun discovering you.
Recommended Reading: Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness
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This is the fourth installment of Jenny Hart’s “Crafting a Business” column, which is published on the fifth day of each month. Send your questions to askjenny [at] sublimestitching.com. View other "Crafting a Business" columns here.
Want more tips on how to run a DIY business? The spring 2008 issue of Venus Zine (available in March 2008) features a special section with tricks of the trade. Subscribe to Venus Zine here.
Issue #25
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