I am a member of the juried group Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail, http://www.sccottontrail.org/artisans.html (sorry - I can’t figure out how to put a link in!).
We are a juried group that covers five counties in South Carolina, and were formed to help market, promote, support, and educate artisans (with a wide definition!) in our area.
While some of our members are long time professional artists, some are very new to the effort to market and sell their work.
We are working on a branding campaign, and have a logo, rack cards, etc. to get out the message of who we are, and what buyers and viewers can expect when they see that logo.
We are less than a year old, and have already put on one sale, one exhibition, and have another sale scheduled the first weekend in March.
In our first strong effort at reaching out to retailers I stopped buy a local store aimed at tourists (Young Plantations), and run by the local pecan processing plant. It is right at the intersection with the interstate, and gets north/south traffic bound for Florida and the Carolina beaches. In addition to a wide range of nuts they have an ice cream counter, a small deli, a fresh bakery, and a gift shop. I felt our work would be a good fit for them.
The manager was lovely to deal with, and we made an appointment for me to come back the following week with a selection of work for her to view. Our president created a form in Word that he sent to all our members, that they could print out which had our logo and name on it, so the work would be branded.
We asked each member to tag each piece they submitted, and to use the logo form to attach a retail price to the piece. I bought an earring spinner display from Rio, since there are two of us that are jewlery artists, and the store had no displays. I also bought two acrylic sign displays, and made signs based on our rack cards, with our logo and story, that the store can display with the work. These emphasize that the work is both local and hand made.
I wound up taking her work by two painters, two photographers, two jewelers, and one clay artist. She bought almost everything! It was truly wonderful.
On Monday I will take a different group of work to one of the premier gift shops in Florence, Porter’s, for their buyer to look at. This is quite a different market, being very upscale. They carry everything from fine china and crystal to Vera Bradley to hand made items, going up to quite a high price point.
Another member is taking a selection of work to a new museum store opening in Lake City, on the way to the beach and Charleston.
All these new marketing efforts are very exciting, and I am delighted that we are taking off so well in our first year!
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