[TheForge] Advertising your craft

Wed Mar 5 10:43:00 2003

I do NO advertising, not even the yellow pages. I keep a solid backlog, as a part timer, by having a group of interior design firms that know what I can do for them, and periodically I show my face to remind them, OH, yea we have something we need for you to do.

I have also passed on the Home and Garden shows, unless I want to be in the $20 a pop garden stake business, I have done work for builders and interior designers for the homebuilders association home show for the past several years and that has generated a ton of work year after year, but only railings, for the most part. And as I work mostly alone, and mostly "part - time" I had a 6 month backlog and way more stress than there should be in a "hobby". 

I have no plans to participate in future shows. I believe my time and money would be better spent cultivating good relationships with more interior designers and starting to work with more architects. (I have a couple of them that always specify me for railings whenever their designs call for iron).

Ray Miller
Cincinnati

> 
> From: "R.C.Mundt" <[email protected]>
> Date: 2003/03/05 Wed AM 08:10:06 EST
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Advertising your craft
> 
> My whole deal started w/ an ad in a local advertising paper, I ran an ad
> pretty much continually for 3-4 years.  It's pretty hard to keep paying for
> an ad when you only get a ocasional call and only a small percent of them
> actually buy any thing. I read somewhere that the average person will read
> an ad 7 times before responding to it. I rented a booth at our local hom and
> garden show 2 years in a row , first was good , second  year was a waste of
> time.   The local newspaper did a story on me  about 3 years ago, got a few
> calls no work, atleast not imediatly.  I ran an ad in a paper in a
> neighboring city for several wks. w/ no response so stopped the ad. a yr.
> latter I got a job from that ad. Right now I'm in the yellow pages and thats
> all  its an easy way for people to find me.  People  who want iron seem to
> know I'm around now just wish more people wanted iron.  I dont have a web
> page, the business's I know w/ web pages don't seem to think they get any
> business from them.  I think it would be a good plkace to send customers to
> view your wares once they found you some place else.
> What do you guys w/ web pages think , do they bring in any work?
> Randy Mundt
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shannell Sugrue" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 1:05 AM
> Subject: [TheForge] Advertising your craft
> 
> 
> > Just wondering how most of the professional smiths here advertise their
> > wares and abilities? Im in the yellow pages of course with a link to my
> > website but am now looking at promoting a showroom Ive just completed via
> > local media. My goal is to get people to visit my real world "gallery" and
> > see the sort of stuff I can do. Ive got a quarter page coming up in a
> > national "lifestyle" magazine, that cost a heap, but am interested in how
> > anyone else does it.
> >
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