I recently read, one of the best ways to build your brand and get people to buy your product is to do a ‘market’, however in the same paragraph it also said, it will be one of the hardest days work you’ve ever done. That is no word of a lie.
My first market was a children’s market, I thought that this was a good target audience as I initially intend for my business to have a baby feel to it. First mistake. Children don’t get the beauty of paper cuts, and if we are lucky and their parents do, they don’t want to waste it by putting it in the kids room. Second mistake, unless you are selling cheap, mass produced baby stuff, a baby market is most definitely not the place to test out your first market. The fee for my first market cost me over ten times what I sold that day. Ten times. No exaggeration.
But sometimes the day pays off. I’ve done one market recently where I walked in the door and thought ‘oh, no this is going to be a really long day’. It was an amazing day, I walked out that afternoon with only two pieces left and a book of orders to cut up that week. It was wonderful, inspiring and so encouraging I can’t tell you. Which is good, because the market I did last weekend, was a flop. Not as bad as the first one I ever did mind you. I did make a profit, sort of, well only really if you don’t take into account the time I spent creating all the beautiful artwork. I say beautiful, because I actually truly believe it is. But you don’t have to like it, that is the beauty of it. It’s personal.
On the upside, a couple of boutique little shops think my work is as beautiful as I do and now have a couple of little pieces in their stores. The Friendship Tree is even doing a window with my work. I can’t wait to see it. I’ll pop it up on my facebook page when I’ve taken my hundred’s of photo’s and my family are sick of being sent all the pictures.
I worked in advertising for years, in theory I know how to build a brand and get it noticed. If you are prepared to spend the money. But for now, I am enjoying doing it from scratch the old fashioned way, it is hard work. But hopefully one day it will pay itself off. But more importantly, more people will enjoy my paper cuts, maybe one day even as much as I do. One can hope.
Paper Chap 