Advertising

[J&S]

The onlt advertising I have ever done is word of mouth but I ready to get more exposure. What do you do to advertise?

[jmsrbrt]

Web site, business cards, flyers.

[GoingCustom]

I have had my website http://www.goingcustom.com for several years, but just recently had a professional makeover, word of mouth (most of my business), business cards, and I am getting ready to run my first ad that will come out in a county fair magazine. It'll be in grey scale (news paper style), so some of the detail will be lost, but here's a pic of it in color:

[J&S]

That add looks very nice, that might be the way to go. Did you build your own website or have it done?

[GoingCustom]

That add looks very nice, that might be the way to go. Did you build your own website or have it done?

I built my own site originally about 10 years ago now. It had a makeover a few times as my business evolved, but the way it looks now was done by a friend of mine. He's not a website designer by trade, but he likes programming and offered to make it for me His wife is the one putting out the fair magazine that my first ad is going in.

[dark_horse]

I made some business card holders and took them around town and asked businesses if they would let me set one by the entrance or front desk, places like the hardware store, auto parts store, anywhere that sells home decor or gifts.

[Metal Arcs]

Seems like we've all gone the same route, can't really re-invent the wheel except for adapting to changing times and evolving, in example, getting the facebook and other social networking pages going. Free!

Home made website: http://www.metalarcs.com $150/yr
Home made business cards: http://www.metalarcs.com/images/metalarcscard.jpg $25
Craft Fairs: $300/yr

95% of my business: Word of mouth,$0.00/yr....

Weird how most of the money I've spent hasn't returned much in sales, but I know it is a necessity! It will eventually start to return, but it will take time for my stuff to saturate locally, and then hopefully I will get involved with bigger projects. I heard several people at the last fair I did say "I've seen some of your work" after looking through some of my printed materials of pieces out and about in my local area, so I hope it's just a matter of time before they see it again and say "I would like something like that".

[bhamer62]

Just started out also. Wife made business cards, website and facebook add. Did a tiny craft show at a church. I am making some items and donating pieces to a few local churches and businesses. I simply request that they display a card with the item saying: compliments of Hamer Metal Art and my website listed on it. Three local shops now carry some of my art work, on a small scale, but gotta find a way to start and I appreciate their input and customer feedback. I will keep playing show n tell to local vendors and try to do more shows. Don't know if it will fly but you don't catch anything unless ya go fishin!!

[jonn3y]

Spend a crazy # of hours on 1 idea, then develop it, you need to separate your self from everyone else and hold the one neish market. Let your work sell its self,

[abmetal]

Our only advertising is business cards and labels on our products. And in the past year we've gotten more business from those little labels than we have from the business cards.

Allen