Sunday 29 December 2013

Promoting your Online Stores - 6 Tips





Those of us who sell our artwork through online stores know all too well that the secret of success is to make sure our work gets seen by the buying public. 

And, given the sheer vastness of the internet and all that it contains, that can seem like an impossible task. I’m no marketing expert but I have picked up a few tips from people who are and, by trial and error, I’ve worked out a few guidelines that I hope will be helpful –

1. Identify your potential customer. This is probably the most important tip of all – and possibly also the most difficult. If you aren't in a position to be in contact with your customers, look at what you are offering and decide what kind of person it would appeal to and find out as much as you can about them. Apart from their age, gender and income bracket, think about what design style they would probably prefer (this will hopefully be YOUR style!). Once you’ve identified your typical customer, use the information you’ve noted down to search the internet for articles and blog posts that will tell you where such people hang out online, which social media they use and when etc.

2. Get organised – write a marketing plan. Once you’ve gathered that information, write yourself a ‘starter’ marketing plan. It may be a good idea to begin with using all the main social media to some extent – facebook, G+, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Squidoo and of course, a blog - even if you have discovered a clear link between your potential customers and where they are most likely to find you. However, this should only a temporary phase in your marketing plan as so much social networking could start to get overwhelming and seriously crowd out the time you spend on actually creating designs and products!

3. Stay organised. It’s important to update regularly. So set out your plan in writing so that you can keep tabs on what you’ve done and what you still need to do. And set aside specific times of day/week to dedicate to your marketing endeavours.

4. Monitor your progress using stats. Wherever possible make good use of any statistics you can access, such as facebook’s ‘Insights’ and blogger’s ‘Stats’, to monitor the times of day and types of updates that are most successful in terms of ‘engagement’. You may not be able to see a direct link between your updates and your sales - it’s very satisfying when you do! - so use Google Analytics, or a similar service, to gather information about which of the social media are bring more customers to your door – and revise your marketing plan accordingly! 

5. Make use of scheduling services. If this all seems like an awful lot of work, don’t worry, promoting won’t necessarily continue to take up so much of your time and effort forever. For one thing, there are free sites, such as Hootsuite and Buffer, that you can use to schedule some of your updates. While my experience has been that scheduled updates don’t get as much of that magic ‘engagement’ as ‘live’ ones, I’ve found that a good balance is to post ‘live’ once a day and schedule another one or two updates in advance. 

6. Grow your following organically. Finally, another tip that should save you from feeling as if you’re drowning in social media! Whichever marketing channel you decide to invest most of your time and effort in, don’t be tempted to spend so much time increasing your following that you don’t have time or energy left to actually engage with your ‘fans’ or ‘followers’! There are plenty of opportunities to grow your following rapidly through ‘like-ladders’ and so on but my experience has been that it’s far more effective to grow one’s following ‘organically’. For instance, you might like to check whether any of your new twitter followers has a facebook page. If so, visit it and see if you think they are likely to be someone you can happily interact with before deciding whether to ‘like’ their page and leave a message in the hope that they will return the favour.

Of course, no amount of savvy promoting will translate into sales if your products are totally lacking in appeal! But one encouraging thing that I’ve learned since I started selling online is that you never know what someone is going to find so attractive that they 'put their money where their mouth is'!


Please feel free to download and print this high resolution image.
If you pin it to Pinterest, I'd appreciate it if you could add a link to my blog.

So, I hope I’ve helped you in some small way on your journey towards a successful online business – and if you have any tips of your own that you’d like to pass on, please brave the captcha (sorry!) and leave them in the comments.





Thursday 19 December 2013

2014 - the Year of the Creative Comment?




When I was at school, back in the Dark Ages, nobody talked about ‘creative writing’; back then it was called ‘composition’. And there two words that we were taught to avoid using in our compositions – ‘got’ and ‘nice’. 

Nowadays there are two different words that I think are over-used to such an extent that they've become virtually meaningless. Those words are ‘quirky’ and ‘awesome’ – and I might even add a third - ‘amazing’.

In themselves, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with those words but I think they are suffering from over-use and crowding out other words that would perhaps make our writing more interesting and sometimes more specific in meaning. 

We are lucky that our English language is one of the richest in the world.  So often we have the choice of several words of similar but ever-so-slightly different meaning, probably because we have adopted and adapted so many words from the languages of the various invaders who have occupied our islands throughout our history. 

Of course the ubiquitous ‘like’ or ‘favourite’ buttons mean that we don’t need to think about what we write and sometimes we’re in such a rush that these twenty-first century innovations are invaluable. 




But I would hate to see our language descend into a kind of ‘tick-the-box’ form of communication; it would be such a waste of all those lovely words we have at our disposal!

Take, for instance, ‘galumptious’. I discovered that Roald Dahl uses it - as well as the electrician who was working on my house and used the word to describe one of my friends! 




Although the Merriam Webster dictionary doesn’t list it, I found a definition:


galumptious
adj. - tiptop; first-rate; superlatively good

Merriam Webster does, however, have a definition for another of my favourites, splendiferous – 


Definition of SPLENDIFEROUS
:  extraordinarily or showily impressive
— splen·dif·er·ous·ly adverb
— splen·dif·er·ous·ness noun

But we don’t need to use an esoteric dictionary like this one to make our comments more meaningful. Here are some alternatives from an online thesaurus that could be useful, most of them fairly common words:



And here's an interesting one that I came across on twitter - 'bodacious'!
A blend of 'bold' and 'audacious', here's a definition.

So next year I’m going to resolve to restore some of the colour to my comments by broadening my vocabulary - even if it occasionally means resurrecting some of our wonderfully expressive words that have fallen into neglect. It’s all part of being creative!


Who's going to join me?






Thursday 12 December 2013

Who has time to read these days?



Teaching reading to those who struggle with it is one of my passions. I cannot imagine a life in which I was unable to read and I firmly believe that no child should be denied either the pleasure or the practical uses of reading because of inadequate teaching.


But I’m beginning to wonder whether, at some point, the ability to read will cease to play such an important part of our lives. Will future generations look back at our times and wonder why we made such a big deal of it?

Experts on using the social media for business suggest that we monitor the response to our social media updates to see which kind of posts are most ‘engaging’. Facebook provides us with ‘Insights’ to measure just that and, as predicted, it’s updates with images, the bigger the better, that get the most response.

Great! As an artist/designer, I’m happy to provide images for my updates, accompanied by just a few lines of text, a link and maybe a hashtag or two. Excellent! Easy! 

But wait – is anyone actually reading the text? Some of the hilariously inappropriate comments I’ve had suggest that the answer is 'no'! And is anyone clicking on the link? Analytics suggest that clicks on the links are few and far between.

Which all leads me to ask the questions, how often are we bothering to read? 
Have Infographics made it too easy for us to get by without reading whole sentences, never mind paragraphs? 

I say ‘we’ because I know I am as guilty as anyone of absorbing the immediate impact of an image and clicking on the ‘like’ button, maybe adding a brief comment and even on some occasions, hitting the ‘share’ button; though when it comes to facebook’s exhortation to ‘write something about this’, I usually pass.


I think it’s all about time and its habit of disappearing so fast,  especially when we’re on the internet! 

The problem is that there’s a finite amount of time
 available to us to glance at, mentally classify, discard or actually absorb
an infinite amount of ‘content’. 

No wonder we are picky about what we actually spend our precious time reading!


Advice on writing for blogs invariable points out that most people ‘skim’ rather than read carefully and thoughtfully, word for word. I know it's true; I do it myself! So we must use bullet points, ‘headlines’ and the blogging equivalent of ‘sound-bites’ in our writing to make skimming easier.

I wonder whether the days of the blog are numbered. Not that I think they are going to disappear tomorrow; but the way things are moving, with almost purely visual sites like Pinterest growing like the proverbial mushrooms, who will bother to actually read a 500-word dissertation – unless it’s either so rich in meaning or uproariously amusing that it draws us in.

Is this a bad thing? 

Not necessarily. I’m all in favour of Infographics – I think they’re a brilliant way of communicating and, by the way, teachers have used them for years. They just called them Wall Charts or possibly Visual Aids.

But I do think it would be regrettable if the ability to read became devalued over time. There are so many books that I love to read over and over and I doubt whether a film or a video clip could ever replace them! 


What do you think?


Thursday 5 December 2013

Looking Forward to Retirement?

Just over three years ago, I wrote this blog post on the subject of retirement. 



At the time, I vaguely thought that by the time I reached seventy I might feel differently about it and at least decide to cut down my working hours.

But here I am, past my three score years and ten -  and still being told that I work too hard!

While there are aspects of my work that I’m less than enthusiastic about and would happily delegate to someone else if I could afford to, that would have been the case whatever my age. 




And I really see no good reason to retire! My eye-sight is fine, I think that my artistic abilities are, if anything, improving with practice; and while I’ve noticed that I’m not quite as good at multi-tasking as I used to be, that certainly isn’t enough of an issue to make me give up, or even slow down.

If for some reason, I was forced to retire, I wonder what I would do with myself. 


Oh yes, there would be more time for visiting friends or chatting with them on the phone. I could spend more time on things I enjoy like cooking, gardening, reading novels, quilting, dressmaking, exploring the countryside, taking photos. . .




But I’m pretty sure that at least once a day, I would pick up a pencil and doodle something. And then the doodle would become a drawing. That in turn would become a greeting card design or a repeating pattern. And the photos would become the basis of pastel paintings - and then I’d end up wondering what to do with them!




It’s my view that art and design are not primarily for one’s own amusement. For me at least they are forms of communication. In which case, there needs to be someone to communicate with . . . and before long, I’d end up posting my art or design work online and hoping that someone would like what they see, enough to make them want to buy it!

Yes, I still get the puzzled looks and meaningful hints from friends who retired years ago. But as far as I’m concerned, Henry Moore was spot on!

"There’s no retirement for an artist. It’s your way of living so there’s no end to it." – Henry Moore





How about you?

(I've made all of these images A4-size at 300 dpi - so please feel free to download and print them if they would help you stay motivated - and of course you're welcome to 'pin' them!)




Thursday 28 November 2013

Christmas Market #2 - Galumptious Goodies from all over the World!



Today more artists and designers from all over the world present samples of their exclusive 'Galumptious Goodies'  to make your Christmas shopping more enjoyable!

Beginning with:


Countrymouse Studio from British Columbia, Canada

I create watercolor paintings of birds or animals. Love of nature drives me to create and humor makes the journey worthwhile so if you love nature and have a sense of humor you should enjoy your shopping experience. 


My store has unique, customizable giftware: T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, travel mugs, stickers, tote bags, shoes, ornaments etc.


  

Diana Ting Delosh from New York


Diana is an illustrator living in the suburbs near NYC. She loves animals and nature which is why they are the subject of many of her whimsical ink and watercolor illustrations.





.......


Mi Jung Lee from Seattle, Washington


I am a surface pattern designer living in Seattle, Washington.  I love to create designs with a unique feel for beautiful living.  Antonio Gaudi, Parisian iron work and Spanish tiles have propelled inspiration for much of my work.




'Swish' Coffee Mug


.......



Carol Allen Anfinsen from Florida, US

I have had a lifelong career as a freelance writer and a second career as an artist. I sell prints, giclees, greeting cards and originals online.   I have also been an avid Popeye collector and adore the charming characters and toys created by King Features Syndicate, Inc. If you’re looking for something fun and unusual for holiday gifts, try an Olive Oyl Puppet, or an original inlaid Popeye Puzzle or a bendable Popeye doll. Christmas and Valentine cards are also available in my Etsy shop.








.......



Boriana Giormova from Sofia, Bulgaria


CUTE and STRANGE CREATURES

I draw funny creatures and design stuff. 
I have two wonderful kids which inspire me and I love to read books and to play video games.













.......



Andrea Rincón, from Mexico, living in Spain

Hello!! My name is Andrea Rincón, my friends call me Anchobee. I’m a Mexican designer living in Spain. I’m passionate about surface pattern design and illustration. I would describe my work as hand drawn, contemporary and bold, organic patterns. I hope you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy doing it!






.......


FLORALS by FRED from Southern California

I’m a 50 something retired municipal worker who decided to do something with a lifelong passion, photography. I enjoy many different styles of photography, florals and landscapes are a specialty. Choose from a large variety of floral and landscape posters, wall art and canvas photo art, T shirts, greeting cards and many other products to enjoy and treasure for years to come. I also take requests.



Merry Christmas Snowmen Card
Merry Christmas Snowmen Card by FloralbyFred


.......



Jessica Lewis from Swansea, South Wales

I am a Graphic and Surface Pattern Designer who loves traditional crafts like knitting and crochet. I particularly like creating items for little people and each item is made to order with love and care. I like tea and Ballroom dancing when I'm not curled up with a crochet hook.

   Jess's Etsy Shop



.......


Sherry Harris from the High Desert of Los Angeles County, California


I'm a stay at home grandmother, awaiting the arrival of my first great-grandson any day. I've been married for 41 1/2 years to the same man. I have two children and six grandchidren...five on earth and one in Heaven. I sell Digital Collage Sheets for Busy Crafters. I find images so they don't have to. I've been selling digital collage sheets on Etsy, Artfire and the Website for over five years as well as greeting cards, as below. I've been a crafter since childhood and love helping others find what they need.


Fliss Braham from the UK

I am a digital designer; my work is on many products, phone cases, fashion bags, wedding and party invitations, art posters prints, personalized gifts and more. I have designs in many styles but tend to go for quirky, cute and whimsy; think it must be because I am still a kid at heart.







Judy Adamson from Abergavenny, Wales, UK


I am an English grandmother, living in beautiful Wales and enjoying working as a self-employed painter, illustrator, surface pattern designer and blogger. 

Even after nearly four years of selling online, I still find it ridiculously exciting to see my patterns on products in stores such as Zazzle! My newest store, 'Posh & Painterly' focuses on shopping by 'collection'. If you see a pattern you like but it's not on the product you want, just contact me through the store and I'll create what you need in double quick time and at no extra cost!









I hope this selection of Galumptious Goodies, brought to you by artists and designers from all over the world, has given you some ideas for your Christmas shopping!

Thursday 21 November 2013

Autumn Trends in Abergavenny -


Time for an update on Abergavenny and how this small town in Monmouthshire is keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

Fortunately, in our modern culture, owls are not the symbol of doom that they were in the past and still are elsewhere. If they were, a shopping trip in Abergavenny would be very depressing indeed - owls seem to be taking up residence everywhere!

But the owls that are filling the shelves of our local stores and our window displays are decidedly friendly-looking, cute creatures - most of them not even looking particularly 'wise'!



And owls are also not the only woodland creatures to be popular this autumn - it wasn't always possible to photograph some of the lovely little animals - including squirrels and hedgehogs - that I spotted. But here are a few that were accessible to my camera -




My personal favourites are the Toadstools and I love them so much that I'm working on a new toadstool pattern when I get time.

I suppose it's a natural progression from the forests of the Northern climes to the unmistakable Scandinavian style of Christmas. 

And there's plenty of that in evidence in the Abergavenny shops, as well as the year-long trends, Black and White, Emerald Green and Chevrons, sometimes all three combined!



Strangely, though, I didn't notice these colours carried over to the High Street dress shops, though the styles were in evidence in Fair Isle jumpers, Chevron pattern knitteds and the ever-popular black and white

But the overriding colours are vibrant pinks and magentas continuing along the purple spectrum, right down to a really deep, dark aubergine:



This beautifully nostalgic lavender lace particularly caught my eye!



What will 2015 bring to tempt us to throw out the old and rush out to buy the new?

That remains to be seen. But this year's look at the way Abergavenny shopkeepers have responded to global fashion trends encourages me to believe that, small though the town may be, 'out in the sticks' doesn't mean we have to be 'out of fashion'!


Thursday 14 November 2013

International Christmas Market - Christmas Gifts and Cards



This week I'm proud to present the work of a 'Baker's Dozen' of artists, photographers and designers from all over the world in a little virtual 'market' of products that I hope will give you some ideas for 
Christmas Gifts -


First, from Southern California:

FLORALS by FRED


I’m a 50 something retired municipal worker who decided to do something with a lifelong passion, photography. I enjoy many different styles of photography, florals and landscapes are a specialty. Choose from a large variety of floral and landscape posters, wall art and canvas photo art, T shirts, greeting cards and many other products to enjoy and treasure for years to come. I also take requests.







.......




Nicola Jones from North Wales, UK

I'm Nicola Jones, owner and designer behind gooseberrymoon. I'm a self taught designer who lovingly combines hand-drawn and digital illustrations into motifs and patterns. With a less is more approach to design I create simple, elegant and timeless pieces of stationery and art prints.

Nicola's website




Monogram Nursery Art Print from notonthehighstreet.com



.......


Jayne Wilson from Houston, Texas


3D DESIGNS by JAYNE


Originally from England, Jayne Wilson is a self-taught artist who now lives in the Houston area in Texas. When she was introduced to the 3D digital graphics program Bryce in 2004 a whole new world of artistic possibilities opened up to her. Since that introduction, she has branched out and expanded her skills and now uses Vue Esprit and DAZ 3D to create artworks in a variety of styles, including landscapes, equine art, fantasy art and abstracts.

Jayne's Zazzle Store


Boriana Giormova from Sofia, Bulgaria.


CUTE and STRANGE CREATURES

I draw funny creatures and design stuff. 
I have two wonderful kids which inspire me and I love to read books and to play video games.





Boriana's Society6 store








.......



Jennifer Wohlferd-Rowlands, originally from Minnesota 





I'm an American expat living in Wales and I've started a small company based in the heart of South Wales, specialising in making wax candle shells and scented soy candles. A wax candle shell is a hollow wax shell made entirely of wax which is completely re-usable, they do not melt, so when used correctly will last for a very long time.  You place a tealight in the centre and it lights up the wax shell to create an enjoyable glow









.......



Sherry Harris from the High Desert of Los Angeles County, California


I'm a stay at home grandmother, awaiting the arrival of my first great-grandson any day. I've been married for 41 1/2 years to the same man. I have two children and six grandchidren...five on earth and one in Heaven. I sell Digital Collage Sheets for Busy Crafters. I find images so they don't have to. I've been selling digital collage sheets on Etsy, Artfire and the Website for over five years. I've been a crafter since childhood and love helping others find what they need.





.......



Cheryl Hall from New South Wales, Australia




GOLDEN JACKAL GREETING CARDS and PRODUCTS

My artistic passions lay in photography, designing and graphics. I like to share what I create and to try many different and varied things. Everything I have done on a computer is self taught and I've come a long way with that.

I have created my own website, regularly blog and have a networking group on facebook. Visit my website for all the links. http://goldenjackal.weebly.com/

Cheryl's Zazzle Store

Christmas card xmas Christmas animal kitty cat

.....


Cherie Balowski from Michigan

My name is Cherie and I live in south central Michigan, in a lovely rural part of the state. I call myself a 'creative soul' because there truly is never a time in my life that I'm not either creating something or thinking about creating something. I feel Blessed to have an opportunity to sell my arts and crafts online and hope you'll visit my Etsy shop to view some of my work!





.......


Nandita Singh from India



I'm a freelance Surface Pattern designer from India. 



I love to see colour in everything. My style is hand drawn intricate Indian motifs in bright and eye-catching colours. 



My work is inspired by the colourful, geometrical and floral drawings of India, and the detail art works of ancient Mughal Paintings.









.......

Countrymouse Studio, British Columbia, Canada


I create watercolor paintings of birds or animals. Love of nature drives me to create and humor makes the journey worthwhile so if you love nature and have a sense of humor you should enjoy your shopping experience. 


My store has unique, customizable giftware: T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, travel mugs, stickers, tote bags, shoes, ornaments etc.



.......


Wendy Flynn from S.W. London, UK

I am a surface pattern designer and Illustrator from SW London who designs under the name Doris & Fred named after her Grandparents.
I have been creating art for as long as I can remember, doodling, taking photographs and making a mess. I love colour and pattern and gets my inspiration from everything around me, from park trips with my son to digging veg at the allotment, vintage fabrics and trips to the beach.
I love using a mix of hand drawn motifs, photography and digital magic to create fun fresh designs.






.......


Inkflo @ Chez Inflo, living and working in France

I work from France and I love all things quirky! I am a bit of a fidget, so I'm constantly changing my designs, but hopefully that means I can't rest on my laurels, and it keeps my store new and exciting.







Sarah Hudcock from Vermont


Sarah is a self-taught artist, but all that means is that she loves to draw, paint and create pretty much all of the time. She raises a small flock of chickens, sells her unique greeting cards to small shops around Vermont and elsewhere, and is fond of exhibiting yearly at the fair in her tiny town of Newfane.








Missed out this time?

If enough people are interested (at least 10)
 I'll hold another 
International Christmas Market
(in a couple of weeks' time)
 please just follow the instructions below
as soon as possible!