The 80/20 Secret

 

A  while back I talked about the 80/20 rule but it’s not really a rule or a law it is how things mag­i­cally work in business.

Reminder:
Briefly the 80/20 rule says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts, trans­lated into busi­ness terms it means that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your buy­ers. Using the 80/20 rule in your mar­ket­ing efforts can help to focus your efforts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note:

Three key stages to always, always keep you focused about your mar­ket­ing efforts
You want to:

Help total strangers become inter­ested in you
Help them move from inter­ested to buyer
Help them move from buyer to evangalist

OK… So  pop those three points into your mar­ket­ing machine and turn that focus knob to 20%. You are now set to save your­self time and energy.

1. Turn­ing a stranger’s head

This is all about get­ting attention…no not in the ADD way or the “look at me I’m great” way either. Instead use the easy peasy way…make your value vis­i­ble show them folks what find you are, how can make their lives an upper. Put your­self where your peeps are most likely to bump into you and use the tools that those peeps are most­likly to use… It’s a lot bet­ter than wav­ing flags and jump­ing up and down on the street cor­ner in a funny costume!

Catch­ing their eye by putting your stuff out there
Show them the meat by let­ting them see what you do and how you do it…you’ll need to get over that need to hide your super secret for­mula thing…nobody cares about that. They do care about you and how you make that cool stuff…so show’em!

Use video
Ear­lier I sug­gested the Flip video cam­era, it’s cheap easy to use and even eas­ier to put on your blog (you do have a blog don’t you?). So plunk down the cou­ple hun­dred bucks and get on with it. Oh…you don’t have to get all Spiel­burg either because that’s just so not you.

So.…what to do with it. Try these and go from there:

Remem­ber: Mak­ing art is roman­tic to just about every­body who doesn’t make art. Peo­ple dream and fan­ta­size about doing it so give them their fan­tasy, make them drool by show­ing just how super cool you and your stuff are. You may think it’s bor­ing or maybe you’re self conscious…well get over it and get on with it your peeps are wait­ing.

Pot­ter- set that lit­tle Flip guy up by your wheel and make a pot, then up load that lit­tle gem to your blog and call it some­thing dif­fer­ent than “me mak­ing a pot” OK? Make it a series and do sep­a­rate vids of trim­ming, glaz­ing, and firing.

Glass guy/gal- Glass blow­ing is uber roman­tic pretty much on the same level as mak­ing pots, because they both seem mag­i­cal. Empha­size the magic, the fire, the dan­ger and the skill…show them your glass doesn’t just come from China.

Painters- Set that easel up at your favorite spot, put the Flip on a tri­pod or what­ever, and turn that blank can­vas into a non-blank one. Show them how you mix col­ors, how you stretch the can­vas (if you use can­vas). If you work in a stu­dio give a stu­dio tour. Check out how Robin Maria Pedrero uses video on her blog’s side bar.

You prob­a­bly get the idea now…the thing is, make some­thing like this a reg­u­lar thing on your blog, doesn’t have to be every week, can be twice a month but make it reg­u­lar and inter­est­ing. Remem­ber it is like flirting…your try­ing to catch someone’s eye.

Another thing you can do is share a video story, take that flip with you when you are out and about and share what inter­ests you.

Turn your buy­ers into celebs

One of the best ways to use this tool to turn a head is at a show, inter­view some of your buy­ers let them tell about why they like your stuff and what it does for them. Put the vid up on a spe­cial sec­tion of your site or in your side bar so peo­ple can see how pop­u­lar you are and most impor­tantly… What they are miss­ing out on!

Pho­tos
Don’t want to, or are afraid of video? just use pho­tos in reg­u­lar posts about how you do what you do, you’ll have to write more, but that’s OK. Show your process that’s what they want to see…that you are a real artist. Show some shots from that trip to mine some spe­cial clay, or the trip to that most recent place you painted. Talk about them, why you dug that clay or chose that par­tic­u­lar location.

2. OK! I’m inter­ested now what?

This is THE point, THE place, that is THE  most impor­tant, and is the biggest part of the 20% focus thing,  because what you do here deter­mines whether the inter­est turns into buy­ing and that is called the oppor­tu­nity cost.
So you have got­ten their inter­est so now you need to do every­thing in your power to

1. Give them the chance to buy if they want and
2. If they don’t… give them a way to be reminded of you and your stuff.

Because, and this is a very impor­tant “because”, even though they might not buy right on the spot they may later so give’m  a way to come back, have a place or way for them to sign up to stay reminded of you. The other impor­tant “because” is you never know who they are con­nected to, they know Michael Kors, or Heidi Klum or just some­body who really, really likes the kind of stuff you make. That per­son could be some­one linked a bazil­lion other folks…you get the idea…you just never know so don’t shoot your­self in the foot give that cur­rent non-buyer the chance to stay with you and in turn tell their peeps how won­der­ful you and your stuff are.

The other thing is…by just show­ing up, being there, you build trust and cred­i­bil­ity which is the pri­mary rea­son they want to buy YOUR stuff. They know you so they’d rather buy from you than the next schmuck because they don’t know the next schmuck. They like being in your loop so do every­thing pos­si­ble to keep them there.

Tell me a story
If video, pics or any com­bi­na­tion aren’t your thing, or even if they are, spend­ing time devel­op­ing sto­ries around your work will go a loooong way and in turn make that stuff on the walls, tables or closet hang­ers come to life. The thing is we like to give stuff human qual­i­ties, we name our cars, we name our bikes, we develop a story around our favorite coat or sweater. Brenna Busse a mixed media artist who makes mag­nif­i­cent “dolls” tells the story of each on a hang tag, Erika Mock one of the most cre­ative fiber artists I know cre­ates cloth­ing from old sweaters, and con­sid­ers those who buy them as stew­ards or adap­tive “par­ents” of each work.

The moral here is we all love sto­ries, we con­nect to sto­ries because sto­ries fit into our lives. So…name your pieces and not some intel­lec­tu­al­ized non­sense like “tree in field cast­ing shadow”  or “woman in woods” or what­ever. Give it name that gives it per­son­al­ity, that tells the poten­tial buyer what you were think­ing when you cre­ated it and make that the story. Encour­age buy­ers to add their own story to yours by con­sid­er­ing them not as buy­ers but as stew­ards of a story, so that gen­er­a­tions down the road that paint­ing or pot or sweater has a his­tory and hence an iden­tity all its own. Yoiur Great-great-great grand chil­dren will know the value of that work, and their part in grow­ing the work’s meaning…and so it becomes more than a paint­ing that you inher­ited. It becomes the paint­ing that had a name and story of it’s own that great-great-great granny loved and every­body from then on always placed it in an hon­ored place instead of the garage wall!

3. Bring­ing it all back home

Here’s the thing, the point of all of  this… you want as many of those buy­ers to come back to get more and more of your stuff…because they love it so much! But wait…sooner or later they are going to reach a point where they have enough of your stuff, what hap­pens then? That’s why you want them to love you and your stuff so much that they are telling every­one they know or run into, they turn into broad­cast machines telling your story and bring­ing along their peeps to get your stuff. But, don’t leave it at that…make them feel impor­tant, because they are impor­tant, they are your foun­da­tion, because they already know your, they already trust, and they obvi­ously like you and your stuff. Not keep­ing them pumped will mean you have to go out and get some­body else and bring them through the whole thing…why would you want to do that?

Take a look at the way Robin keeps her­self and her stuff in her buy­ers mind and she has used tools that could be very tacky and turned them into some­thing ele­gant and desir­able just by adding her art. She is doing what Nike, or anyother brand is doing only in a much more classy way. Another thing this does for her, is give her peeps many options to enjoy her work and keep remind­ing them of who she is and how won­der­ful her work is.

So.….

Your 20% mar­ket­ing effort should be focused on help­ing peo­ple get inter­ested in you, giv­ing them the oppor­tu­nity to buy from you or stay reminded of you and finally lett­ting them be your cheer leader. There are many other lev­els I didn’t cover here but if you just focus on these along with the on-line tools I’ve talked about you’ll have a bet­ter chance to let the 20% give you 80% of your sales.