Writing About your Business

Staying in touch with potential and existing customers is important to getting more sales.  This is especially true for websites.  You need to build an online relationship which is similar, but has a different expression, to in-person relationships.  You need develop your online business profile.  Whether you concentrate on craft fairs or wholesale and online sales, you need to communicate about what you do.  Whether you have a website with a shop or just a Facebook page, you need to tell people what you do to build support.

It may seem difficult at first to know what to write about your business that will be interesting to your customers and support sales and be worth the effort.  There are a lot of things you can say about your business.  When you begin to think of the elements for communication with your potential customers there are lots of things you can say that will interest them and give your business a personality and an interesting profile.

But I don’t have a web site.  I sell at craft fairs and to galleries.

This still applies to you.  You need to tell all sorts of people and organisations about your business.  You need to have something for galleries to look at.  You need copy for newspapers and other media.  You need a  statement about you and your business at craft fairs.  You need to use social media to get people to the physical sales points.  You need to think about how these elements can help provide interesting posts.  Of course, not all that is given here is directly applicable to personal interactions, but it will give you the direction you need to present yourself and your business in the best light.

There are lots of ideas to get you to thinking about what you can do to communicate.  What follows are indicators of what you can do. You don’t need to use them all, but employing a range of these elements will give variety and interest to your communications.  It may also, along the line, provide you with a much higher profile and incidentally, sales.  You do need to communicate regularly and consistently with the audience.  An irregular post every month or so, is not enough.  You may have to set a schedule for publishing communications to your followers.

Write -

- About your business

·        What started you in business? what was the inspiration? Talk about any greater purpose than simply making your items. What are your motivations to continue working? What gives you joy?

·        How, and why did you choose the business name? Who did you involve? How does the name continue to be appropriate?

·        Tell people what it is about you and your work that is special or unique.  Indicate what your niche is, make it explicit for your potential customers.

·        How do you do business? Do you take commissions?

·        Share the stories and case studies of your experiences.  For example, take people through the stages of a commission.  Telling about the changes, developments, challenges shows how you work.  Show the results and tell what the client liked most about it. This provides the opportunity to include testimonials.  Include lots of sketches, photos. Importantly, get the commissioner’s permission to share details.  

An example of a site which provides a number of testimonials: http://www.gilroystainedglass.com/gilroy/testimonials/

Another example is this blog which does everything – the way she works, her stories, information, inspirations and there is no obvert selling at all. https://morganica.com/about-me/

- About your Location

·        Tell people where you are located. This helps to increase trust.  Talk about why you chose the area. How does the place affect your work? Provide pictures of your specific location, the area, and elements of landscape or cityscape that interest you.

The Northlands Creative site gives you a sense of place. 

·        Essentially, offer a behind the scenes view of how your location interacts with your creativity.  An inner-city industrial area can be as interesting as the countryside.

An insight to working practice is given in the Bob Letherbarrow website. 

- About your inspirations

·        Talk about people that have inspired you, role models, influencers. What have you learned from them?

·        What events – personal and world-wide – affect your work? Write and illustrate them.

An artist statement example from Bob Leatherbarrow 

·        Write about the kinds of environment that influence elements of your work.

- About things that interest you

·        Reviews of exhibitions, events, books.

·        Share your passions, reveal your personality, what excites intrigues you about your craft.  Why your glass expression than others? Does your work tell stories? Do you have a bigger purpose in making your craft?

·        Write about what is important to you.  This shares your values, and by writing from different angles will bring more visitors to the site.  Recommending other small businesses with similar values not only creates a business community, but a customer community too.

- About the process

·        Share the creative process involved in your body of work.  It can  be in words or images, short videos. 

·        Show the design process – inspiration, sketches, prototypes, final items and then the results at shows.  Use lots of pictures.

- About useful information

·        Share information and guidance about looking after your products.

·        Give information about related businesses.  These will be services or products that you do not supply but are relevant and are provided by other local businesses.

·        General tips related to your area of business shows you are knowledgeable, helpful and trustworthy.

·        General tips on how to display, use or wear your work grab attention.  Pictures are especially important here. 

·        Write useful communications.  Think about what your ideal clients would find useful to know.  Is there any maintenance needed for your glass? How to clean the glass. Give practical advice and suggestions. 

·        Promote other resources or books you like. Avoid a sales post, just include a link to the relevant page of your site as a sign off.

·        Think about having guest writers.  Getting others to write occasionally for you saves you work.  Interviews are another way to vary the voice of your communications.  It is essential to be clear about what these guests are to focus on, and give them the opportunity to promote their own site.

- About your customers

·        Ask your followers specific questions, get them involved in new developments at an early, planning stage, rather than at the end.  This gets people committed early to your work and without any explicit sales pitch. 

·        You can ask about the barriers people have to buying from you or others.  You can get information about what publications, sources they use, by asking.  This can be done on social media, or via direct emails.

·        Answer clients’ questions quoting their words.  This can increase the visibility of your site by using others’ searches, so leading them and others to your site. 

·        Helpful responses create a trusted business source.

- About developments and news

·        Write about the events you are planning to attend. There needs to be a group of communications leading up to the event.  Lots of advance notice is needed for people to plan a visit.  To give this notice, you can produce a number of  notices: Lead them through your preparations, the development of your collections, background to the work you will be taking, show the packed van and the final show setup.  These six notices will involve potential customers and build their interest in coming to the event.

·        Tell the stories of the event. What happened, your best sellers, star purchasers, meetings with fellow exhibitors all provide interest to your customers. You can include links to your price list or catalogue in these communications.  This is much better than sending a bare list or catalogue.

·        Talk about your product of the week or month - why the design, what inspired it, how did you name it, what’s special about it.   Start with a good photo of the work.  Possibly add something special – free p&p, special price in combination with another item, etc., to attract a purchase.

- About outlets

·        Blog about your retailers and wholesalers.  It cements your relationships with them, by showing your commitment to supporting their business too.   It  provides publicity for your work. Photos of your work in the locations is good customer-assuring publicity.

·        Let other businesses know that you have sent out information about them.  It may get you reciprocal mentions.

·        Working with wholesalers has better results when directed to individuals or single companies.  Preparing introductory material that is relevant to the client and adding the relevant images, lists, catalogue, gets better results than generic approaches.

An example of telling people where your work is available in Steve Immerman's website. 

Of course you do not need to write about all of these elements all the time. But they form the background to what you write about your business, craft, current work, and to some extent your life.

Writing specific, focused, timely communications

·        Timely communications are important.  When are customers likely to buy? – send out things prior to that time.  Think about the reasons they might buy and include them.  Gift giving times (such as back to school, springtime, valentines, awareness days) are times for focused communications indicating what you have that is relevant to the event or occasion.

·        Send out notices of an upcoming event through all your communications sources in a kind of countdown to the event giving your activities toward the opening of the event or show.

·        Be consistent in the style of the communications.  Short, direct, and focused posts with lots of pictures are most likely to be read.  Handmade Lives says immediately what it is about (unfortunately now ceased). 

News vs. Newsletters

These communications are not newsletters. Who reads newsletters anyway?

• Stay updated https://www.thecoolhunter.co.uk/
• Use lots of photos.  Make the communications visual. E.g. https://www.designspiration.com/
• This site has busy visuals, but leads by images rather than words https://www.craftscotland.org/

All your posts and communications should be simple and direct.  They should be fairly short (unlike this post!) to be sure they are read.

In Summary

How do you put all this together?  This is an example of a blog which does everything – the way she works, her stories, information, inspirations and there is no obvert selling at all. https://morganica.com/about-me/

Writing about your business is more than just the business.  You are the business.  So, it is writing about you and what you do, not just a dry business description.  You have an advantage over big business. You have a personal story to tell.