The Basics of Marketing: How Do You Know if You’re Clueless?

Do you know what you don’t know?

The Discovery

I typically never go to networking type meetings, but I was at a women’s business networking group a few weeks ago with a friend who is much more of a joiner than I am, and I was surprised that about 5 out of the 20 or so women had bead and handmade jewelry related businesses.

I made a shocking discovery at that meeting. It was hard for me to believe at first, but many of the women in the group were basically clueless about basic marketing concepts, and especially internet marketing basics.

Having little experience with offline networking, I imagined that people who were savvy enough to want to network would at least know some marketing basics.

Are You Clueless Too?

So here’s the point. Maybe you are in that clueless category and don’t even know it. I don’t want to be harsh, but I call it like I see it. And hey, everyone has to start somewhere. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until someone enlightens you.

I must admit that about a year or two ago I was in that clueless category too. As artists and craftspeople, sometimes we just want to make things in our studio and not really interact with the world in any way. At least I feel that way. I started learning about marketing because it’s necessary, not because I love selling or advertising, or even because I find it at all interesting on its own.

The Dream of All Jewelry Designers, Artists and Craftspeople

I bet you’re a lot like me.  If I could create all day and have an enthusiastic salesperson/girl or boy friday do everything else I’d be as happy as a clam.

The Naked Truth

The world doesn’t work that way though. You can be the most brilliant craftsperson in the world and make the most beautiful things that the world has ever seen but it wouldn’t matter. The marketers make the money. That’s just the way it is.

The first step, as they say, is acknowledging you have a problem. This first article in the series is all about knowing what you don’t know.

Can you answer these Basic Marketing Questions?

Marketing Questions:

The top 3 questions are the most basic. 

• Who am I targeting (or who is my audience or ideal customer?)
• What do they need?
• What is the problem I am solving for them?
• What are features and benefits? What are mine?
• Do I have a marketing strategy?
• What is my marketing strategy?
• Do I have goals?  What are they?  Are they specific and measurable?
• How can I get people excited about my product?
• How is my product different from others?
• How is my marketing different from others?

Research Questions:

• How do I find out what people want and need?
• How do I find out whether people will pay for what they want?
• Who is the competition?
• How well is the competition doing?
• How am I different from the competition?

Basic Internet Marketing Questions:

In no particular order of importance:

• What is search engine marketing?
• What is web traffic?
• What are the best ways to get web traffic?
• What is Google Adwords?
• What are keywords?
• What is a "list"?
• What is search engine optimization?
• What are backlinks?
• What is an autoresponder?

These are some of the most basic questions there are for anyone with a business. If you are planning on selling your jewelry entirely offline, with no website or web presence whatsoever, maybe you won’t need any internet marketing. I suggest though, that you should at least have an email mailing list so that you can follow up with regular customers. I’ll discuss this further in a future post.

I don’t want to scare you, but if you can’t answer most of these questions, you’re in the "clueless" category.  Don’t worry though, there is lots of information out there for the learning.  Much of it is free

Action Steps for Today:  

• Relax.
• Let some of the question percolate in your mind for a bit.  At least now you know what you don’t know.  
• Write a comment below.  Let me know what you’re thinking.