Choosing a Target Market for Your Crafts

Choosing a target market is something that every professional crafter should be considering.

A mistake often make by those who are just beginning to sell their crafts is to try and provide something for everyone. While offering your crafts in a variety of price ranges is good business, offering a mixture of crafts that bear no relation to each other and are aimed at very different audiences is not.

There are several reasons why you should be aiming your crafts at a specific target market:

• Selling a hodge podge of different crafts makes you look like a hobbyist, not a professional.
• If you don't specialise, you'll never stand out as an expert in any field. By building on specific techniques and talents you'll be able to create a range of crafts that complement each other and emphasise your skills.
• It's difficult to market to the masses, so narrowing your product range down to a smaller niche is likely to improve your sales.
• If you know who your intended customers are, it's much easier to do useful market research.

So having a target market in mind when you're creating your crafts helps to ensure you don't create products that don't sell. Once you can imagine the type of customer you're aiming your crafts at, it's much easier to determine what will please.

Try to form a picture in your mind of your intended customer. Ask yourself questions such as:

• Is your customer male or female?
• Where does (s)he live?
• How old is (s)he?
• Does (s)he have a partner? Children?
• Does (s)he work? If so, where?
• How and where does (s)he socialise?
• What does (s)he do during leisure time?

Get as specific as possible!

Now that you have some idea of your target market, evaluate how profitable selling to them will be. Choosing the wrong target market can be costly! Here are some criteria to consider when deciding on the type of audience to aim your crafts at:

They should be easy to find and compatible with the outlets you plan to sell at
If you've decided to sell at craft home parties, your target market needs to be the type of person who will attend these. And if you're planning to sell on the internet, it's no good having a target market who are computer illiterate! Geography should also be taken into account.

They should have money to spend
If you're selling luxury goods, your target market need to have extra income to spend on them. And even if you create a fantastic product that solves a problem for your intended customers, if they can't afford it you're not going to sell any! The more affluent your target market, the better.

There should be enough of them
Narrowing down your niche is good, but don't take it too far! You still need to appeal to a market that is broad enough to make it worth your while. So don't choose a target market that you're going to saturate in a short time.

You can relate to and enjoy their company
If your customers' needs and wants match your knowledge and expertise you'll be a perfect fit. And as crafting is a creative and personal activity, you'll enjoy your work much more if you're creating your products for an audience that has similar taste to you. It will also make it much easier and more enjoyable to interact with your customers if you can relate to them, particularly if you're selling at craft home parties or fairs.

Taking the time to consider your target audience will set you up for success in your craft selling endeavors. So don't wait until you've learned the hard way, get yourself a piece of paper and start doing some profiling. The short amount of time you spend deciding on your niche market will be repaid to you over and over.

If you're serious about making your craft business successful, I recommend you get James Dillehay's Craft Business Success Package, a series of books which cover all the most important areas of selling crafts profitably. You can find out more about it, and other recommended reading, in my Craft Book Reviews.

Click here to send me your tips for choosing a good target market.