Branding Your Handmade Products

Branding is about making sure people remember your business. It encompasses the look of your business, you logo, website, packaging, etc. and also the way your customers feel about your business.

Examples:
Walmart is known for low prices.
Volvo is known for safe cars.
Domino's is known for fast pizza delivery.

What do you want to be known for? In my case I want Noadi's Art to be known for beautiful and quirky sculpture and jewelry.

You want more business right? Building a good brand image will help you generate more business. If your customers remember you well they're more likely to buy you're creations again and also to tell their friends and family about you.

Being a small indie business myself I know that budgets for this sort of thing are small so I've compiled advice that requires little or no money to implement. Do expect to spend a fair bit of time doing this when you first start (though once the initial work is done it gets easier).

Visual branding is the fun part of this (or should be for a creative person). It's designing the look of your brand. You logo, webpage, business cards and packaging of your products.

MOO does some really beautiful photo business cards. If you're budget is really tight you could try out VistaPrint's Free Business Cards all you pay is shipping. If you're feeling really DIY you can print your own out at home.

Simple Tips

Pick a theme. It could be a color scheme, a genre (retro, victorian, country), or set of textures.

Stay consistent. If you want to change your visual look do it all at once unless the change already fits what you've been doing.

Be inspired by others, don't copy them. If you like the box someone is using to package their jewelry it's fine to use the same shape box but make it your own with the colors and printing on it.

Okay, this should be a no brainer (though plenty of big businesses get this wrong) the way you treat your customer is key to how they perceive you. Maybe if you make billions of dollars a year it doesn't matter but for us little guy it's incredibly important. It's also pretty easy.

What to Do

Be kind and courteous. Treat your customers nicely and without rudeness. If they become rude with you do not respond to them at all unless you have to.

Be prompt. Meet deadlines or ship orders when you say you will.

Be available. Answer emails, letters, phone calls, etc. from your customers as quickly as you can.

Be cooperative. If someone is having trouble with your website or a product help them out as best you can.

Brand Personality
This is related to the customer service. Show your customers you aren't a faceless entity. Be fun, be quirky, be sweet, but find what feels right to you and go with it. Don't force it or it won't feel authentic, it needs to fit you not fit what you think your customers want.

There are endless things you can do yourself that are creative and makes and impact with your customers.

Wear a shirt, totebag, hat, lab coat, etc. that's been screen printed with your name and logo.

Use recycled materials like old wrapping paper, playing cards, postcards, etc in your packaging or advertising materials.

Post flyers around town.

Include thank you notes or small free gifts with purchases.

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