How effective is your communication style with potential buyers?

Artists & Makers, but open to all

This online research questionnaire  will take only a couple of minutes to complete and you get an instant result for yourself. What is your preferred communication style? How do you communicate?  This questionnaire is design to help people identify how they communicate. It categories people into 4 board types.

Working with artists & designer-makers I am have become fascinated how each person’s style of communicating impacts on their customer relationships, and online conversations and consequently business success.

I was then introduced to the iMA profile questionnaire.

This short questionnaire. You will be given valuable insight about yourself and introduced to an exciting new universal language called iMA that is a fast, simple and easy way you communicate and create chemistry with everyone you meet.

Once completed can you email me julia@juliapitkin.co.uk  or leave a comment on the blog and tell me...

1. Your  iMA communication style
2. The type of art work you do.
3. Did you find this interesting?
4. Would you like to know how to use it in your business?

I will post the results to see if Artists & Makers as a group have a common style.
Many thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing from you. Click here for the questionaire and follow James Knight's instructions.

Kind regards,
http://www.juliapitkin.co.uk/
Performance & Social Media Coach for Creative PeopleJulia

A Step by Step Guide to Help Establish Your Online Personal Brand.

If you want to develop your personal brand and therefore grow a brand equity or social capital you must associated a name with a personality and expertise.  My brand Julia Pitkin helps me to build awareness, be visible and contactable, share experiences and knowledge. Remember we do business with people they like. A brand of you is portable, which you can build without it being about ego and cannot be copied by anyone. 

The Ground Work.

1. Develop a personal brand with a sound message. This is how people get to know you, like you, follow you, and want to work with you.
2. Develop your business website - this is the place you will create the desire to buy.
3. Register yourname.com (future success)
4. Identify 5 key areas in which you are an expert and your skills are special.
5. Create a ‘Personal Learning Network’ and follow people who feed your expertise in these areas.
6. Identity 5 social media platforms that you reach and support the people you want to respond.  Perhaps start with Twitter and every two weeks add another platform.
7. Find an online community and group(s) where your target clients hangout, listen and blog within the community answering their needs.
8. Find an area in your strategy that is weak and strengthen it each week.
9. Know how to use the social media tools and streamline the incoming information to save time.

Once all of the above is in place, do the following routinely:

1. Write 1 x blog per month on your website sharing rich content therefore developing your personal brand and business.
2. Write 1 x blog per month on a piece of work, service or product with its benefits to others.
3. Follow up comments on your blogs every day and follow those people.
4. Follow up conversations with followers who use your name as a @mention and Re-tweet (RT) and Direct Messages (DM).
5. Write a comment on someone’s blog at least once a week and follow up the response.
6. Share some part of you expertise once a day on one of your social media platforms and follow up the response.
7. Contribute to conversation on twitter a minimum of 5 each day.

Once you have mastered the above routine watch your Klout and PeerIndex scores start to climb, and your telephone will start to ring more often.

I know you are saying, "I just haven’t got the time."  Just compare the time you spend and what this is worth to the cost of one static advert in one publication for one month.

Tell me what works for you?

Julia Pitkin,

Social Media Coach for Artists, Designers and Makers

Promoting and supporting the creative enterprise

julia@artisansinthehills..co.uk

http://www.artistansinthehills.co.uk/ online gallery space for the UK Crafter

http://www.juliapitkin.co.uk/  online gallery space for British Contemporary Art and Craft

7 Top Tips for Getting your Art and Craft Work Noticed Online

7 top tips for getting your work noticed online

Artisans in the Hills' top tips on using the internet to promote your art work

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the big buzz word and key to getting your website noticed by Google and other similar companies. Below are our 7 tips for getting you noticed and hopefully on page one in the search engine results.

1.       Keywords: These are the search words used by your potential customers to find you. Once you have identified these, make sure you include them in your website content and coded area. Type Keyword Tool Google AdWords into Google and search for your words and phrases.

2.     Content: Create pages focused on specific, relevant, niche topics so that search engines have an even greater chance of finding you and your type of work.

3.       Tag images: Google not only looks at the text on your blog in order to measure its worth but that Google also take a look at the code and tags in your image files, do some research and choose them carefully.

4.       Updates: Search Engines like websites whose content is constantly updated and refreshed, this can mean on a weekly basis.

5.       Links: Increase the number of links to your websites, the more links to your website, the more important and interesting the Search Engines think you are. Links into a website from .ac, .gov and .org websites are especially liked by search engines.

6.       Blog: A website with an active blog drives 55% more traffic than those without.

7.       Social Media: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are great tools for raising awareness of your website and driving traffic to it.

At Artisans in the Hills, we constantly work to develop our website to rank highly among the top Search Engines. Our aim is to give artists like you the ideal tool to promote your work to the online market. Why should you spend your precious time trying to increase traffic to your website and worrying about how people are going to find you, when we can do it for you?  Giving you time to do what you do best, creating beautiful things!

·         We have on average 60,000 hits per month to the Artisans in the Hills website who will potentially view your work.

·         A collective website like www.artisans-in-the-hills.co.uk will gain a better ranking over smaller individual websites.

·        www.artisans-in-the-hills.co.uk now has around 50  galleries full of images and text which get regularly updated by all the web gallery members. 

·         We include links out to all our designer-makers’ individual websites, also boosting the SEO of theses websites. 

·         All our UK designer-makers’ individual web galleries on Artisans in the Hills are equipped with social media widgets so they can keep their network of  friends, followers and potential buyers up to date with their latest work and news by the press of a button .

·         We spend time each day developing relationships through the social media networks so more potential buyers have the chance to find your work.

·         We spend the income from web gallery subscriptions on regional PR and traditional offline marketing, something many small creative businesses just can’t afford. Last month our PR generated an increase of 33% in new visitors to the website, which means these visitors then see your work.

Let me know whether this was helpful?

Artisans In The Hills: The on-line gallery for buying, commissioning and selling original art, crafts, designs, handmade work and restored items for people looking for something different and imaginative for home, office and garden.

·         For more information on Artisans In The Hills, please call Julia on 01584 818074 or email julia@artisansinthehills.co.uk

5 tips in how to change your mindset from ‘selling’ to ‘publicising’ your Art and Craft work

 A summary of your comments to our blog “I want to know what stops designer-maker following up leads?” http://artisansinthehills.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html

Most creative business people start out as technicians who strive to maintain a creative well-being but necessity means they also need to learn the art of creating financial wealth. They are Artisans first and business people second and very few have been professionally trained in how to run a business. Erika Price, jewellery maker, commented on the blog that “5% of her time is creativity and 95% marketing” and many crafts people find this daunting. As a result the artisan focuses back on the one thing they feel certain they know how to do well which is their creative work, the comfort zone and building a business gets over-looked.

To be a creative entrepreneur, you must move beyond your comfort zone and learn how to think strategically about your business. It is sometimes hard to recognise genuine interest from a visitor. There are always those people who will leave you feeling bewildered and de-motivated with their rudeness and lack of understanding of your talents, but please don’t let these people put you off producing your unique hand-crafted items for other people to enjoy.

Artisans are able to run great businesses and here are a few tips to help you start that journey out of your “comfort zone”

1. Imagine that you are publicising rather than selling; you are simply offering a choice to people. Concentrate on getting people to know you, like you and follow you. Remember it is a two way relationship, so get to know them, like them and follow them. You will soon have loads of friends you are sharing your work with –all potential customers.

2. Always take contact details from people who visit your studio, website, exhibition or fair and follow-up. Statistics suggest:

2% of sales are made from the first contact, 3% from the second, 5% from the third , 10% from the fourth,  and 80% of sales between the fifth and twelfth contact*.  The contact being a website, email, fair, brochure, open studio etc. You may need to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince; its a numbers game.

3.Perhaps we need to educate customers that Artisans are not a production line, but a bespoke service offering them something unique and stylish. You need to build this message into your brand and reputation.

4.  Focus your time and energy to learn about the visitors who are positive about your work, not the ones who let you down.  Did you know, it costs your business five times more to find a new customer than looking after existing customers?

5.  Keep the passion for your work, take the emotion out of the business element and develop a step by step process, but always love your customers, and value your talents.

Artisans-In-The-Hills are dedicated to supporting and promoting Artisans from around the UK. If you need any further help or advice to help your business, please call Julia on 01584 818074 or visit our website www.artisansinthehills.co.uk

Have an inspiring and creative New Year everyone!

* Based on figures from Chris Cardell a leading expert on the UK entrepreneur and businesses success.

Find original and imaginative ceramics, fine art, sculpture, glass, metalwork, textiles and jewellery from the comfort of your own home

02 December an on-line arts and crafts gallery has been launched showcasing imaginative and original artwork, and crafted work.

Based South Shropshire, Artisans in the Hills, http://www.artisans-in-the-hills.co.uk/, is a collection of artisans’ online web galleries where you can find, contact and buy direct from a range of UK designer-makers. Whilst many of the artisans are Shropshire and Herefordshire based the collection is country-wide, selling original art in ceramics, fine art, photography, sculpture, glass, metalwork, textiles, jewellery and more.

Julia Pitkin, founder, said: “We want to celebrate and encourage the wonderful talents and skills of the artisan and maker. Many people are searching for outstanding artwork, hand crafted, made or restored items but cannot always find the artisans easily. Our website is offering inspiration for every home, garden and office; it’s a place to buy a special gift. We are committed to original and ethical UK designer-makers.”

The new website brings widespread artisans to customers in the comfort of their own home or office. Whether looking for a personal or business gift, or a unique installation for the garden, there is plenty to suit all budgets from as little as £10 to £5,000 and more.

Sarah Roberts, Growth Business Development Advisor, for Woman in Rural Enterprise (WiRE) added:  “We believe that Artisans in the Hills is going to be a real success and bring prosperity to the small and often remote rural UK businesses, and the creative entrepreneurs who by their talents and diversity provide us with choice and unique products and services.”

For people who prefer to touch and feel the artwork, Artisans in the Hills will also act as a tourism guide, helping visitors create their own regional art trails, view open studios, forthcoming fairs, exhibitions and enjoy creative workshops.

I want to know what stops the designer-maker in business following up leads.

I did a little test last week whilst visiting the Country Living Fair at Islington London. I was a serious buyer with Christmas looming, two children’s birthday at the end of the month and a bedroom to decorate. I left contact details for orders and not one designer-maker has followed up. I am disappointed and amazed that these business people rely on me, the customer to make the effort to find their card and re-establish a connection.

My businesses is marketing a collection of designer-makers’ web-galleries promoting and connecting them and their work to people who love beautiful things. Wonderful talented people – but poor, no wonder!
I would like to know what stops you, the creative person collecting business cards and emails of people who actively show an interest in your product, and then following them up?

Is it time, embarrassment, shyness, laziness, fear of success, just not needing the businesses badly enough, its beaneath them, or lacking knowledge on marketing?

Please tell me I would like to know?                                        author Julia Pitkin

Tales from a Photographer's Eye

If you visit TnT Photoart today, you will be in for a big surprise!

Tracey Swain - creator of TnT Photoart – does not only display her superb skill in photography, graphic design and printing but her great imagination and talent for story telling! When Tracey takes a picture, she seems to see beyond a simple image of a woodland or an old building, (although often beautiful images in their own right), and takes them on to another level.

Take a look at Tracey’s photographic art works entitled ‘Clunton Coppice’ and 'Fairytale Steps' - they are more than images captured in a moment of time – they are a glimpse into another world; sometimes romantic and sometimes verging on the macabre. They appeal to the childhood senses of the magic and surrealism of fairytales – there could be a ‘fairy glen’ beyond the stumps and foliage of the wood – or maybe there is a troll standing in the shadows of the stairway of the old house.

Tracey’s professional abilities in Apple Mac artwork have extended to the accomplished productions of charity posters, brochures, book covers, business cards and corporate branding and advertising.

TnT Photoart has a featured gallery now on http://www.artisansinthehills.co.uk/ 

Or visit http://www.tnt-photoart.co.uk/                                      author Beverley Robinson

http://www.artisansinthehills.co.uk