Part 21? Wow, this series is officially an adult!

So with all your new found publicity skills you might just have been promoted in a magazine article or a feature on Hand Made News or receive a thousand hits from a high profile blog feature but what was todays feature will be tomorrows fish wrappers as the saying goes. You will need to start thinking longer term to the next six or twelve months and ask yourself one question: How can I keep the momentum going?

A successful marketing programme is based on frequency and keeping your business name and products in your audiences face until they recognise your brand and then buy your products.

Before devsing a marketing plan or create your marketing materials, you need to have a clear understanding as to who your target audience are. Get to know your customers, how do they spend? How much to they spend? What blogs or magazines do they read? That way, you can create materials they will respond to. Knowing your customers specific wants and needs will help you put together products to meet those desires.

As you begin to put your marketing plan together, assess your goals and budget. If you need immediate results to stir up interest quickly try advertising or getting into a high traffic blog (like mine!) However for most of us small business owners in the craft world we have the time but no money! In this instance, put your money into publicity rather than advertising. Send new material to editors, follow up and remind them of your company until they bite. Publicity is not a marketing method for the impatient, you may spend days putting together press kits and sending them out and get no response, it might even take months for an article to be published.

It is also worh bearing in mind that not all of your ideas, products or sales are appropriate for PR activity - it is for you to decide what is important to publicise and what can be skipped over.

I must admit, writing this blog has made me think about having an actual marketing plan, something I donot have as yet. It would be great if you have any marketing tips to share, please comment......