It’s time to start tackling your marketing plans for the year!

We’re going to start big and work our way down.

So, today the focus is on finding or creating major promo opportunities for the year, and scheduling them in.

What these activities are will vary depending on your Ideal Customer and what you make.

Want to do a certain market or Trade Show?

Schedule it in – even if you’re not sure if you’ve got a spot yet.

If you haven’t found any yet – sit down and do your research.

You’ll probably find for the major shows you need to apply months in advance!

Got a certain holiday (Mother’s or Father’s Day, for example) that you want to target for a sales promo?

Make sure you know not only when it is – but how long before the event you need to do your marketing.

Is a month long enough before the event to get people buying, get their items made, and get them shipped out before the holiday? Work out the timelines.

Do you want to create a few of your own launches this year, for new lines or new designs?

Look at your calendar and work out when would be the best time! Then lock it in.

The reason I suggest you do this all in one go is that you can then ensure you’re spreading out your major promo events throughout the year, rather than jamming too many in a short span of time.

Or, missing out because a date/event crept up on you before you were ready!

By looking at it from a year-level view, you can make sure you’re doing regular events to boost your sales, and that events are far enough apart that the work to market them doesn’t burn you out.

Action Steps

1. Determine your major promo events for the year, and schedule them into your calendar (especially a whole-year wall calendar if you have one, so you can see the year at a glance!)

Now you’re clear on who your Ideal Customer is, and the venue/s you’re going to focus on for this year, it’s time to narrow down your chosen marketing tools.

Just because others are using Instagram, doesn’t mean you have to. Ditto for any other marketing tool.

It’s up to you to work out what marketing tools and avenues suit you, your lifestyle, your Ideal Customer, and your chosen sales venues.

Here is a list of some of the possibilities:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Tiktok
• Twitter
• SEO
• Email Marketing
• PR (blogs, magazines, TV)
• Guest posting on blogs
• Flyer Drops
• Newspaper ads
• Magazine ads
• Retail Sales
• Celebrity Features/Influencers
• Trade Shows
• Pinterest
• Markets/shows/expos
• The side of your car
• Online directories
• Postcard mailouts
• Sponsoring events

… and the list goes on. 

My recommendation is that you choose 2-3 to focus on for the year.

Yes, you can of course experiement with others, but chose to commit to those 2-3 marketing tools and really throw yourself into learning everything you can about them, and how to make them work for you.

Remember – if you’re focusing on online sales – then market online.

Email newsletters, Instagram, and SEO might make the most sense. Or maybe Tiktok, especially if your Ideal Customer is younger!

If your focus is on getting your work into shops or galleries, then you need to focus on marketing to THEM, not just the end customer.

You might want to focus on trade shows, postcard mailouts, and an exclusive email newsletter for your stockists.

Action Steps

1. Choose 2-3 marketing tools/strategies to focus on in 2023.

2. Share what you’re going to use – and why – in the FB group!

Now you’re clear on your Ideal Customer – you need to decide what sales venue you’re going to focus on in 2023.

This might be a super-easy day for you – you may already be very clear on the sales venues you want to focus on this year.

However, if you’re not… now’s the time to think about where your Ideal Customer is likely to go to find what you make – and try to make sure that your work is there.

I’ll give you an example. My friend Megan Auman – who is a metalsmith – focuses a big chunk of her business on gaining wholesale sales to gallery shops around America.

Why? Because she knows who her ideal customer is, and where they are likely to shell out hundreds of dollars on one of her designs.

She can only do this because she knows her Ideal Customer.

If she was trying to sell her jewellery to boho boutiques, it just wouldn’t work – because that’s not the style of her (very modern) work, or the style of her Ideal Customer.

My Ideal Customer for Epheriell jewellery isn’t the same as hers.

Mine shops online. They don’t necessarily enjoy ‘browsing’ shops (at least half are men) – they have a goal (a wedding ring), an idea of what they want (not traditional) and they value handmade.

So – they go somewhere like Etsy or just Google what they’re after.

When it comes to deciding where you’re going to sell your work, you need to make sure the venue you choose makes sense.

Don’t try to sell somewhere just because ‘that’s what other people are doing’.

Think about your brand, your style, and the lifestyle of your Ideal Customer, and let that guide you.

Why is this important? Because where you choose to sell will effect your marketing efforts – the topic for the rest of this week.

Action Steps

1. Work out your ideal venue/s – whether online, markets, or a segment of retail.

2. Share your thought processes and questions in the FB group if you’re struggling to narrow this down!

You know the drill!

Congrats on completing another week of the Boot camp!

Next week we’re on the home straight – and we’re going to be working on your Promotion for the year.

We’ll be talking Ideal Customers, sales venues, marketing tools, and putting marketing systems in place.

Until tomorrow – relax.

Action Steps

1. Take the day off to rest and restore.

2. Bonus option – come over into the FB group tell us the top 3 things you like to do to relax!

It’s been a big week of planning.

If you’ve managed to do it all – to stick with it – congratulations! You should now have a solid plan for how 2023 is going to pan out for your biz.

There are two things you need to remember, in order to make all this planning worth the work you’ve put in.

1. This is not set in stone.

As the year progresses, things will come up – there will be unexpected life events, unanticipated opportunities.

These things may mean that your plans go out the window for a while – that you fall behind – and if so, that’s okay.

Don’t throw it all away if this happens – adapt.

Move priorities around – if something time sensitive comes up that you want to do – push something else toward 2024.

And don’t feel guilty about it! 

If you’re strong and clear on your why and your core values, making the decision to alter your plans will be easy and comfortable.

Alternatively, you may find you underestimated what you could do, and you may achieve your goals sooner than you expected. If so – awesome! Congratulate yourself for a job well done and plan something new!

This system is a guide. It’s not the ‘only right way’. Take the parts that work for you, and leave those that don’t. Integrate it with other planning systems that you enjoy.

Make it yours.

2. It only works if you do.

All this planning will be for naught if you put it aside… and promptly forget about it.

You need to turn your plans into a system – a system whereby you constantly check in with your plans, and achieve your tasks, steps, and priorities.

• I recommend that you schedule in planning and review time.
• Schedule a time to do your weekly planning.
• Schedule a day and time to do your planning for the next month.
• Schedule a day and time to do your Q2 planning.
• Put these in some sort of calendar that you WON’T miss or forget.

Only by implementing this system will you make it work for you!

Action Steps

1. Put your March planning day/time into your calendar.

2. Put your Q2 planning into your calendar – sometime in the last 2 weeks of March!