What's the Best Way to Advertise My Products?

Hi, try the flea market, continue with the boutiques in the malls, small mom and pop stores. I hope this helped

try Etsy.com. there are many wonderful handmade products there and it would probably be a great community to plug in to. good luck!

Y E,

Try some of the Fall Arts and Crafts Shows. I have really great results at them year after year! If you live near Houston, send me a message and I'll give you some good ones.

Peace,
C.

I agree with the other responders.. ETSY.COM is AWESOME!
Aside from the basics I buy all my "specialty" children's items on Etsy.com
Nothing but great transactions - I've made over 40 purchases in the last year.

Best wishes!
H

Laurie gave you great advice. If you start calling the churches and schools in your surrounding area NOW, you can participate this fall and that's usually when most of them are. If you're in The Woodlands, or close by, Panther Creek has it's annual craft show in November or first part of December and it's HUGE. There are lots of churches and schools in this area that have fall shows also. Allot of them advertise for vendors in The Villager, but not all. Sometimes other organizations like the Lions club or rotary have events in other places also (like Wal-mart parking lots). Get on the phone on Monday and start calling. Make certain you have a calendar and find out what their booth price is. The George R. Brown always has at least a couple shows in the fall and so does the Fort Bend County fair grounds and Montgomery County Fair grounds. Good luck!!

Another idea is consignment shops. I do suggest Etsy, they are great! And Craigslist is fine, get a PO box and a Paypal account. Put some photos on Craigslist as well as a website link. You can have a website for pretty cheap and put the link to your site on your Craigslist ad. There's no reason why the craigslist customers should know your address.

Make sure you repost your ad periodically as people tend to look at the most recent (as in last couple of months) ads.

Good luck!!

I actually have been using craigslist for years. It is safe if you are smart. Don't answer weird emails, make sure you get a phone # (which you can sometimes reverse search to verify name), meet in a public place, etc. Common sense. Craigslist won't allow you to state that you accept PayPal and frowns upon shipping, but in your ad you can state "other" payment and delivery methods are available, then state that when they email you. A good place to sell hand-made items is www.etsy.com. Free and ONLY for hand-made items. eBay is too expensive now.

Hi! Just wanted to let you know about a great opportunity for you. Just Between Friends is a childrens consignment event that happens twice a year. We offer vendor booths but we also offer a Moms Smart Pack which goes out to our first 500 shoppers. If you give us 500 pieces of promo materials (can be just a coupon or your contact info printed out on your home computer). We place these in small bags and give them out at our event to the first 500 shoppers. This costs only $50. Our booths cost $100. Also, if you consign with us (sell your baby, kids, maternity items) you can shop early at the presale. You could even sell some of your hair clips and make 65-70% of the selling price. You could package them along with your business card as well. Just some ideas. Go to www.jbfsale/sugarland for complete details. Good luck with your hair clips! Let me know if I can assist you with getting the word out at our event.
M.

Have you thought about having "shows" at your friends' houses, like Pampered Chef? If you could find a couple of other women who make their own unique products then all of you could put on a trunk show. Word of mouth is always a good start.

H.

etsy.com is a great site for handmade items. I think you could reach a large market with this site.

mamasource has a section where you can advertise your products/businesses. www.etsy.com is a great way to get your type of products in front of people. An ebay store is also another way to expand your market. Good Luck.

Try the website ETSY-you'll be amazed at what is there for sale.

diaperswappers.com (WAHM forum)

There's a very good website just for moms called CafeMom, it's better than facebook or myspace because there's no spam! It's very well organized. You can either sell on ur page and/or they have a "MarketPlace" for it or join a group that have other moms who sell/buy things.
Good luck!

I see you are in San Antonio, but you might want to check out public venue's like the City Wide Garage Sale in Austin or something like that. Anytime your child's school has a carnival or something, join in with another person doing something different like art and share a booth. Seems to be the best way. Have a flyer and simple website to direct people to. Get the book called Guerrilla Marketing and glean all kinds of ideas from that. Believe in your product, but don't turn all your friends off. You may have to give some away before it catches on. Hopefully that helps.

My suggestion would be to set up an Etsy shop. Then you should send some samples out to prominent mommy bloggers. If they like your stuff, they'll probably mention you on their blog and drive tons of traffic to your etsy shop.

Have you thought about setting up a web site and then putting an advertisement on facebook? You can usually set up a website with your email for free and the advertisement on facebook is also free. I have an ad for Avon on facebook and it seems to help some.

You can advertise for FREE on Mamasource. I advertise my candle business.

Good Luck.

this time of year there are a lot of "craft" shows. Try one of those. I live in New Braunfels and they advertise the event in the paper. They are usually at church's. Things like that sell great at the shows. Its usually a $25 - $30 table fee. Its usually only 1 day and you get to meet a lot of kind people. Good luck...

Hello,
I would suggest that you become a vendor at various arts and crafts fairs around your metropolitan area. If you reside in or near Austin, I'd be happy to send you a list of some of the A&C festivals coming up this fall.

-Jen

If there are any craft shows in your town you could see if you can participate. Also at some shows you could split a booth with someone and sell at different events, like festivals.

When schools have auctions for fundraisers, donate a few of your items (especially elementary schools) and ask them to place your business cards next to the items so that people will know that you have them for sale.

Congrats on your desire to venture out with your hair clips! As a mom of a 13 year old i can share an idea with you. All of the teams that the girls play on like to have matching hair accessories. THey usually use ponytail holders though, as clips tend to fall out during activities. So, one idea is to transform some into ponytail holders and find freinds with teenagers that are in different groups like cheerleading, dance teams, volleyball teams etc. They all like wearing matching hair bows. Just a thought, we are always trying to make them and not all of us are good at it!!
Good Luck

Use a car top sign, Seriously they work. Park your vehicle in shopping plaza's, or Walmarts...where ever your target market is.

These are the best for the money.. http://www.americancarsigns.com

I'm the owner, and the mom!!

What about your local schools? I know the cheerleaders and drill team use alot of hair accessories. Try them.

Have you tried etsy? It's like ebay for handmade items. I shop there all the time!

Im not sure where you are located, but hair salons are another place to display your hair things too. I would be interested in the hair things in a few years.

Hi if you want to advertise your handmade hair clips please go to www.dial4dough.com It is a new program where dial4dough members get paid $1.00 to listen to advertisements on their phones to whoever is selling products, goods or services. Dial4dough members are required to spend 20 percent of their earnings they made from listening to the ads on products, goods, or services from the advertisers. Go to www.dial4dough.com and contact John Head at ____@____.com tell him Meeko28 referred you to the program.

Hello - I manage a high rise in the Galleria Area & we have a few vendor fairs through out the year. How many peices do you have already made & what is the price range? Also we don't charge for you to be apart of our vendor fair, which is unheard of in the Houston area. If this is something you might be interested in please let me know. Feel free to send me a private message to further discuss! Thank you!

Check out this website.

www.etsy.com

You can market for free very easily. Look for bulletin boards in stores that you can put up a flyer with pictures of your products. Tell all you friends. Send an e-mail advertisement explaining the launch of your new business. Your address book is most likely filled with people you know that will want to help you by spreading the word. Put in you e-mail that if you don't have a use for hair clips, please pass the e-mail to someone that needs hair clips. Also, stop by dance studios in your area. Dance and cheerleader studios would fit your niche. Craigslist is a great way to advertise for free. Advertise under business and under kids clothes, jewelry/accessories. You can advertise in different cities with Craigslist, as well. You can also open an e-bay store for free to sell world wide. It would only take one boutique or dance studio to start feeding your sales. If you are going to meet someone that you met online, meet in public. Starbucks or McDonalds works well. You can also use magnetic signs for your cars. Magnetic signs are relatively inexpensive. Be sure to list your business on Mamasource. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Have a great day.

etsy.com it's a grat website kind of like eby but for handmade items. I absolutely love it and know lots of people who use it.

Since money is at a limit right now as you just started, why not have your friends throw a party or get together where you can showcase your hairclips and sell those that are already made or take orders for custom made ones. You can also buy an small ad in a school program as they are inexpensive and you might make a custom one for that school and you would be surprised how that can take off and everyone in the school would want one or want to wear it to a game or something. Go to dance classes in your area or gymnastics gyms, cheerleading gyms, they all wear hairclips to their competitions. I would also go to a local gift shop and see if they would let you put a few out to sell or take orders. If it is a chain they usually will not do this, but if it is a local mom and pop, locally owned they usually will for a small percentage of the profit. Do you have any resturants (again mom & pop or locally owned) that would let you put some out as well. Also do you have a friend that could put some out on display in their office breakroom or have a party after work in the office breakroom for you to see and take orders. I would start out this way since money is tight and I have to agree with your husband. You never know who you are meeting on Craiglist and I surely wouldn't want to have to drive to someone strangers home or have some stranger come to my house. Good Luck to you for taking this on. You need to just be creative in where you can push your items just like you are creative in making them and everything will go well. I wish you much luck in your endeavor.