Building Up Custom for Your New Business

When you’ve been in the throes of starting up and launching your new business, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that not everyone will be so enthralled and excited as you, that your crafts shop has gone from a great idea to an actual reality. So it’s important to be actively involved in advertising, promoting and building up custom for your business from the beginning.

Building up custom for your business is one of those tasks that is as important in the very early stages as it is when you’ve been running for years. It’s regular customers that help with consistent sales, that are happy to recommend you to other friends and family, and that (hopefully) continue to return to you as a source of handmade crafts, craft materials or to glean a wealth of information from your demonstrations or classes.

When you’re starting a new business from scratch, it can seem like hard work building up custom in the early stages. But as it’s so crucial, it’s important to keep working at it, by trying various ways and means, and developing your own unique ways of advertising and promoting your business.

There are a variety of ways in which you can build up custom and attract customers to your crafts business and it depends in part on the exact nature of your business. What works for some people may not work so well for others, so it’s a good idea to dip in and try a selection of approaches.

Advertising

Carrying out plenty of advertising is one important way of drawing custom to your business. If you’ve set up a shop, then advertising on a local basis in the first instance will probably be your primary aim, but then you can advertise in surrounding areas in the future if you wish. Make use of local newspapers, business directories, business organisations, local shops, posters, craft fairs and events.

For online businesses, advertising on other relevant websites is crucial, as well as getting your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) keywords right, so that your website is picked up in online search engine searches. You could develop banners and logos, which you could use to swap links and banner ads with other craft-related businesses.

Special Offers

Customers always like special offers, so think up some great offers to have on when your new business launches. You can also implement special offers at regular stages too – just don’t forget to advertise them well!

Regular Buyer Schemes and Incentives

For building up long-term custom and to get people to keep coming back to you, you could consider setting up some form of regular buyer scheme. For example, if people sign up to your scheme they could become eligible for extra special discounts. Or you could have a card which is stamped every time they come into the shop and spent £5 or more. The incentive could be that when they reach a certain amount of spends, they then receive £5 or a certain percentage off their next purchase.

Developing Mailing Lists

As much as you may think you have regular customers, it’s always easy for them to forget to visit from time to time when their lives are busy. By developing a mailing list, you can send out regular reminders about your business, detailing any special offers you’ve got, new products or special events. Ideally, if you can get people to provide you with an email address, this process is a lot more cost-effective, as you can simply and easily send out email reminders.