Course Syllabus
Craft Marketing


PC 220 Craft Marketing

Class Hours Per Week: 3

Laboratory Hours Per Week: 0

Semester Credit Hours: 3

Contact Hour/Lab Credit Ratio: N/A

Prerequisites: None

Description:

This course introduces marketing and business planning as applied to hand crafts and development of a written marketing plan. Emphasis is placed on self-evaluation, goal setting, development of a business idea, presentation skills, professional image, and organizing and writing a marketing plan. Upon completion, students should be able to demonstrate realistic craft marketing goals, individual presentation skills, and professional image and organize, write, and present a marketing plan.

Upon completion students should be able to:

Course Outline

Students will keep a notebook through each section of the course, using writing prompts defined by the instructor and the results of individual research. Notes will be used to complete two projects: a personal artist’s statement and a marketing plan. The course will also include field trips to craft galleries and fairs as possible.
  1. ELEMENTS OF A PERSONAL MARKETING PLAN
    1. Personal Profile
    2. Definition of the Business
    3. Customer Profile
    4. Competition
    5. Price
    6. Place
    7. Promotion
    8. Cost of Marketing
  2. DEFINING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
    1. Analyze the way other craftspeople present their work
    2. Identify how product mix contributes to defining image
    3. Identify a common thread or theme that ties products and services into a coherent body of work
    4. Define what sets one’s work apart in the marketplace
    5. Define a marketing niche
    6. Choose a name for one’s business
    7. Define how one presents oneself in the marketplace
    8. Describe one’s own work with customers in mind
  3. GOAL SETTING
    1. Set specific goals with specific deadlines
    2. Set realistic and ambitious goals
    3. Set goals shared by others
  4. MARKETS
    1. Research retail outlets
    2. Research wholesale outlets
    3. Research commission work
    4. Research consignment work
    5. Research shows and exhibitions
  5. CUSTOMERS
    1. For each of the following five markets--retail, wholesale, consignment, commission, and exhibition--define
      1. the customers
      2. customer needs and problems
      3. customer attraction to one’s work
      4. customer fears about one’s products and services
      5. strategy for addressing the fears
    2. how to keep customers returning
    3. overlaps in thinking about customers for different market segments
  6. PRICING
    1. Research the current prices of similar products and services to the ones produced for the markets chosen
    2. Identify factors determining price in the various markets
    3. Determine a price range
    4. Determine the factors that would cause the need for a change in prices
    5. Determine potential reasons for a discount in prices
    6. Determine the amount of profit one needs to make
    7. Understand the difference between "price points" and "price range"
  7. PLACEMENT
    1. Define a network of communication so that customers can find out about one’s work.
    2. Define specific outlets for your work within the five categories under "Markets" above
  8. PROMOTION
    1. Develop goals for the promotional plan based on product placement plan
    2. Collect examples of promotional materials prepared by other crafts people
      1. business cards
      2. brochures
      3. hang tags
      4. press releases
      5. professional statements
      6. resume
      7. advertisements
      8. letterhead
    3. Analyze what one likes about the promotional materials of others
    4. Identify how promotional materials will help serve customers designated
    5. Analyze how to name one’s business by looking at how the business name fits with promotional plan of other craftspeople.
  9. COLLABORATIVE MARKETING APPROACH
    1. Define responsibility for the promotion and marketing of one’s work.
    2. Define promotion and marketing tasks
    3. Define which promotion and marketing tasks are best done by oneself
    4. Develop a plan for fulfilling the tasks one finds difficult
    5. Define people who can help one promote and sell one’s work
  10. COMPETITION
    1. Identify one’s specific competitors and the ways in which they are in competition
    2. Identify what one needs to know about one’s competitiors and what can be learned from them
    3. Analyze how the competition might affect one’s work and the outlets one chooses to sell in
    4. Define a method for researching what the competition is doing
    5. Define the advantages and disadvantages of competition
  11. REVIEW
    1. Define how many craftspeople work in one’s area in one’s media
    2. Define the project mix and price ranges of individual craftspeople in the marketplace one has defined
    3. Define the strengths and weaknesses of the salesperson or craftsperson in selling
    4. Analyze the most common types of promotional materials accompanying the selling
    5. Develop a personal collection of promotional materials for one’s own reference typifying the market
    6. Define effective methods of display or overall presentation
    7. Understand why one wants to sell in a given venue or market
    8. Define the customers who come to a given market
  12. COMPLETE A PERSONAL STATEMENT AND MARKETING PLAN

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