In The Online Handmade Industry:

Brand Does Matter

By Dennis Speer

Copyright © 2011 All Rights Reserved

The Online Handmade Industry is boundless. Created by entrepreneurial artists and artisans to sell their works online, it has spawned many venues. Handmade marketplaces of all shapes and sizes litter the internet, all trying to present the best sales platform for those who create the art products that appear on them. With over 100 billion live sites out there and literally trillions of products displayed for sale on them, actually being seen by the buying public can be a tall order.

How do buyers find the products they are looking for? Hits become misses and many of these trillions of products go unnoticed. A website can be like a billboard on a dark desert highway…no one seems to see them or the shops and wares they contain.

So, what might an aspiring artist or artisan do to be noticed in such a vast environment, you ask? The key to success is to create a Brand and promote the Brand recognition that it develops. Branding is an often overlooked or even omitted component of a marketing plan for some shop

owners.

When developing a Brand look at some existing artisan shops. Many are very well done and are visually elaborate while some appear to be MIA. And Missing In Action is not where artists would want their shop to reside. By examining existing shops you will begin to develop a sense for what is attractive and what is lackluster. A shop created with Brand in mind will have an appearance and feeling of reliability and character while those who don’t attempt it simply won’t. The point is to create your Brand so it will attract a buyer’s curiosity and reinforce return frequency. And for those who don’t…well, you get the picture.

If you are planning to open a shop in the Online Handmade Industry or want to redesign an existing one, here are some things to think about:

The shop name is the first important consideration. The name of a shop should reflect what’s inside. The products or works displayed in a shop are the source of revenue for its owner and should be positioned as such. We’ve seen some pretty creative and descriptive shop names over the years, but some get a little too far out there to be relevant. Another consideration in naming a shop are the key words or phrases that may be associated with the name. Word competition is fierce and can mean being seen or not. The priority here is to get the buyer into your shop.

Product categorization and niching is important for a shop owner within their handmade marketplace venues. Traditional category titles are bland by nature and difficult to jazz up so try to make common seem uncommon. The Brand you create should reflect creativity and originality of the products and works the Brand represents. Determine the visual impact of the Brand and its logo/banner and display them wherever possible.

Promoting your Brand is as crucial as creating it in the first place. As stated before, a billboard on a dark desert highway won’t be viewed by the masses.

Promote your Brand first and individual products second. Emphasis on Brand identity will help create customer loyalty and their return frequency, plus internet inertia will tend to spread the word about your shop and products you sell.

Getting buyers to your shop is a mission of first priority and the competition is brutal. As long as the search engines focus on titles and description you will need to focus on the content in those areas and use all the gadgets and gizmos you can. Understanding SERPs is a lesson worth taking as space in those fields is limited.

Branding solidifies the identity of the shop and reflects the image you created with the Brand. Buyers will identify with the Brand and seek it out directly.

In the Online Handmade Industry…Brand does matter!