02 | Making Sales in the Quiet Months with Your Handmade Business
This article and all others on the School for Modern Makers blog are written by a lovely human - Julieanne Steedman. Please enjoy this small business advice and expertise, ideas and inspiration, plus the occasional typo (or two).
Quiet months are normal when it comes to running your handmade business but there are tons of things you can do to maximize the use of your time during these periods and also to increase your revenue and get those bills paid.
Check out these eight ideas and see which might be a great fit for your handmade business.
01 | OFFER OFF-SEASON DISCOUNTS, BUNDLE PRICING, OR RUN A THEMED SALE
Consider running a ‘studio clear out’ or a ‘spring cleaning’ sale for your handmade business. Or, even better, come up with a fun made up name for your sale. Cheerfully Made (a fabulous store selling a mix of handmade goods, Canadian made products, and generally joyful stuff) runs a super cute January Shmanuary sale each year and the marketing and silliness that they infuse into it is well, just fun.
You can also consider offering limited-time bundles, off-season collections, or mystery bags/bundles to help generate cash flow and clear out inventory sitting on the shelves.
02 | DIVERSIFY YOUR SALES CHANNELS
If you mainly sell your art and handmade goods through craft shows and your online shop, think about trying out an additional sales channel. You might open an Etsy shop (with all of the same products you offer in your online shop - just literally getting your work seen by shoppers on Etsy), or look into stocking your work at your local consignment shop for makers.
03 | HOST WORKSHOPS OR ONLINE CLASSES
You’ve likely become quite skilled at what you do so it could be a good time to start offering classes or workshops. This quiet season is the perfect time to market and then offer a class or series of classes. You can decide if you want to offer these online or in-person.
04 | COLLABORATE AND CROSS PROMOTE
This can be a great opportunity to collaborate with other creative entrepreneurs who have similar audiences to cross-promote each others products. This could be working on a marketing campaign together, developing collaborate product lines, or bundling your products together to provide value (and something fun and new!) for your handmade-loving customers.
05 | WORK ON YOUR NEWSLETTER
Are you straight away thinking - but Julieanne, how does your newsletter generate revenue? Well, working on building your email newsletter list, your automated welcome sequence, and then sending consistent newsletters is the KEY to building a thriving and profitable business. This quiet time is the perfect time to up-level and get your newsletter working for you and bringing sales into your business.
If getting your newsletter welcome sequence set-up is on your to-do list, our Quick Start Guide makes this process super easy!
06 | EXPLORE ADDING AN ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAM
Here you can consider if it’s a good time for you to expand into wholesaling your work, or adding an additional revenue stream to your small business. You might consider: teaching, coaching, hosting a retreat, creating a colouring book. writing for a magazine, starting a Patreon membership, setting up affiliate marketing, taking custom orders, or making DIY kits.
Hosting a retreat or a workshop is a great way to offer a something new for your customers, connect with them in a new way, and a lovely way to create a sense of community.
07 | CONSIDER ADDING SEASONAL-SPECIFIC PRODUCT LINES
Research opportunities to add items to your product line that are specific to the ‘off-season’ for your handmade business. For example, if you focus on creating goods that are specific to the summer months, think about creating something that is for a completely new season. Conduct product research and poll your audience to see what they would be most interested in.
08 | CONDUCT MARKET RESEARCH
Once again, the off-season is a great time to conduct research and refine your products, design new work, and gather feedback from your customers. You can conduct surveys, analyze your previous sales data, and invest time in creative product development that you can then launch during your peak seasons.
In the early days of running my handmade business the ‘off-season’ was a period of time I really didn’t enjoy and quite frankly. stressed me out. Now I can see that these months are so great for my business and that there are many things I can be doing to not only make sales during this time, but also boost my business up so that I cam make the best of my busy period when it arrives.
I hope this article helps you get some inspiration about what to do in your off-season to best use your time, and to help your handmade business generate more profit.