News from Earth and Fire -- September 14, 2007
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.....
I hate advertising. The only thing I hate more than advertising is when I have to come up with an ad for the gallery.
I stopped advertising in the local papers years ago. It's extremely expensive (because let's face it, you can't just put one ad in. You have to keep running it on a very regular basis.) and there are several local newspapers you'd have to run it in. There is the Loudoun Times Mirror, Leesburg Today, The Loudoun Easterner, The Loudoun Connection.
Forget the Washington Post. Just FORGET it.
Since my customers exist all over, how cost effective would it be to advertise just in the local papers? "Not very" has been my considered opinion.
Twice a year (or whenver else they run a really, really, really good special rate), I place an ad in Ceramics Monthly - a magazine that goes out to pot lovers all over the country (all over the world, I suppose.) Since I've been working on making the website work harder for me, it only makes sense to target market for pot lovers, not people who happen to live nearby.
I hit upon the composition of "my ad" right before I moved the gallery from Vienna to Leesburg. I had to come up with an ad in the October, 2005 issue of Ceramics Monthly, and I didn't want to put the Vienna address in the ad, because I knew I was going to be moving. Instead, I wanted to stress the website address. I liked the ad so much that I've kept the same format ever since, just changing out the pot that I use. You've seen these ads on my home page ever since I started running them. I put them there as a tie-in back to the print ad so someone who came to the website because of the ad would see something "familiar." And also, if they came to the website with the question "who made that pot?".. the answer is right there, too.
Here's the ad that's coming out this October in Ceramics Monthly:
I like letting the pots do the talking: An interesting pot that is easily identified as having been made by a certain potter or that will engage the viewer to come to the website to find out more about it. The words "simply... functional" to describe both the pot, and what the gallery is all about.
Less is more. It has also taken all the guesswork out of creating my ads. I just have to select the pot for the ad, which is really very easy.
A few weeks ago, one of my neighbor merchants came to me and asked if I would participate in a group advertising effort in the Loudoun Times Mirror in the months leading up to Christmas to try to encourage people to shop downtown. Since I appreciate that he's making the effort, and because I feel an obligation to do my part to support the downtown merchants, I agreed to participate.
This morning, as I was about to send "my ad" to the sales person for the paper, I realized that it wasn't going to work. Having just the address of the website will not be effective in an ad that promotes downtown in a local paper. And do I only want to appeal to pot lovers? Don't I want to stress that the gallery is about more than just pots? Don't I want to get the message out that the gallery has beautiful things in other media?
I had to get creative. Nuts.
I spent a few minutes thinking about the problem, and then gathered up some "eye catchers" from around the gallery.
Here's what I came up with:
Worked out pretty well, I think. I'm worried now that the lettering on the address and phone number will be too small in the actual ad to be legible. I'll have to wait to see the proof.
Before we leave the subject of advertising...
When I find something of quality, I like to pass the word. There is a new TV show on AMC called Mad Men that is absolutely fantastic. The show is about the advertising business (Madison Avenue ad men .. hence the name of the series) in 1960. It airs Thursday nights at 10, but check your cable On Demand feature to see if you can catch up with some of the previous episodes.
Be forewarned, however. Watching it is as addictive as the cigarettes you'll see EVERYONE smoking!
........
By the way, what I just did is called "word of mouth advertising" and it's perhaps the most effective form of advertising there is. It's invaluable, and no business, no matter how large their advertising budget, can buy it.
(Have you told someone about the gallery lately? :)
New at the gallery
I have another new artist at the gallery, Emily Reason. She works in porcelain. I think these carved mugs are especially nice:
Because they are porcelain, they have a very soft feel to them... Extremely comfortable to hold.
Emily is also environmentally conscious, using methane gas from a landfill to fire her kiln.
See the rest of Emily's pots here.
Have a good week.
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