If you want to start selling crafts patterns watch this video first
because I'll be talking about the challenges.
You need to look out for how to stand out
and position yourself to make the most sales production pricing distribution and a whole lot more.
Hi, my name is Maei and I help makers artists
and designers make a consistent income from selling their handmade products
online a pattern business refers to selling the instructions
or the pattern instructing a crafter how to make an item.
It can be a knitting crochet cross stitch embroidery
or a sewing pattern or any other craft you can think of like for a punch needle or kumihimo.
What I think is the biggest appeal to a crash.
Pattern business is that it's very easy to scale.
So don't mistake it with a passive income business
because there's a fair bit of work you have to do so,
it won't really truly be passive.
But what I mean by a scalable business is that
whether you sell one pattern to One customer or a thousand patterns to a thousand customers,
the amount of effort required is about the same.
So the sky is really the limit
here and the only income ceiling you have is limited by your marketing
and we will talk about that later.
So with a pattern business you do a bit more work getting set up at the front
and you know at the start
but you can sell an infinite number of items with very little additional effort.
So if you sell a pattern for that crochet blanket,
you can sell dozens or hundreds of that pattern a
week and it doesn't matter if you're sick or you just want to take time off and go on vacation.
It's also relatively affordable to start a pattern business.
You know, you'll need a computer and perhaps some special software.
We need a camera and as I'll talk a little bit later.
You may need to hire a photographer or a graphic designer to give your patterns more polished look,
but that's all you need to get started the typical pattern price ranges between $5 and $12.
That means that many people will purchase your pattern without too much hesitation.
So that's a good thing for you. It's definitely a lot easier to persuade someone to To buy a
five dollar item than it is to buy a 200 dollar item right having said that there are a number
of challenges that you need to look out
for and I think it's important you think about this now so you can plan ahead.
I'll start with the one I alluded to earlier which is the price point
because you are selling items that are in the single digits.
You will need to sell a lot of them to make a living.
So having a successful marketing strategy in place is so important another challenge.
Aware of is that patterns typically come with a customer service expectation that
is if someone has difficulty with knitting a certain Stitch,
they'll contact you to get help the question may be about your pattern.
But it may also be the case that the user just isn't a very experienced Knitter
and if you aren't careful,
this can generate a lot of work
for you the best way to avoid it becoming an issue is to provide
as many resources to your customers as possible in the way of tutorial.
Owls and Fa Q's, you know, you can pre-recorded videos
or have text-based written tutorials with lots of pictures
and point your customers to these resources.
So you don't have to manually answer people's questions one by one Speaking of tutorials.
Another challenge is that the crafter will expect a lot of support
materials video links inside a pattern are quite common
when you're getting started with your business.
You may find that the first pattern takes a really long time.
Time to make because you're creating a lot of supplementary
materials to help ensure the best experience
for your customer.
The good news is this time / pattern will decrease
as you produce more patterns
and you've front-loaded the time spent making all these supplementary support materials.
Now, let's talk about your shops Niche this may sound completely obvious,
but I'm going to say it anyway because I still see a lot of business owners go wrong here.
You need to offer designs that people actually want to buy
because if your designs aren't in demand that they aren't going to sell I have seen a lot
of designers get disappointed to discover that there are successful patterns aren't
the ones that they find personally enjoyable to
make so for example,
if you are a very skilled Knitter that maybe you enjoy knitting complicated charted cabled sweaters.
However, producing complicated design
such as this significantly Narrows your Right the patterns that sell well tend
to be accessible to beginner to intermediate Crafters.
Once you have a few design ideas, you want to think about
what they share in common
so that your line has a cohesive Common Thread that ties everything together.
What you don't want is a pattern line that's confusing with no connection kind of
like what I call a garage sale shop
and just to give you an example cross stitch patterns by itself is Not a good enough
theme in a very competitive Marketplace like we are in now.
So we need to go deeper and find a niche a good starting point to do some market research to see
what other patterns are out.
There is to search on Etsy. Normally I would say to avoid niches that are too competitive
but having said that the pattern space is a little bit of an anomaly if you create a
basic t-shirt sewing pattern that's gorgeously executed
and accompanied by really Marketing,
it could be a best-seller.
So don't automatically and immediately shy away from a crowded space
but think carefully about how your designs are different.
We'll talk more about that later. You also want to really think hard before you offer something.
Absolutely. No one else is doing for example,
there aren't many patterns for men's knitted sweater patterns.
You may think this is an excellent opportunity.
However, I know a couple of very talented designers.
Who tried very hard to grow in the men's sweater Niche
and it's just hard most Knitters are women which already decreases your potential audience.
And so the number of sales which will be few just didn't add up for those designers.
So start with Etsy for research.
It's a good place for that because so much of the information is public right?
You can see how many sales a shop has how long they've been in business
and how many times an item has sold if you're a Knitter or Crow?
Are you can also check out Ravelry which also provides great
statistics about how many times a pattern has been made?
Okay. So you've narrowed down your best ideas to designs that you're pretty sure people will
want now let's keep pushing a little bit harder to be successful.
You want to make sure your product stand out,
right? So what's special or different about your patterns?
Maybe it's something about the techniques used in your designs.
Maybe it's the aesthetic of the design itself.
Self maybe it's the quality of the tutorial videos you provide you want to become known
for what you do and the best way to do that is to really just keep repeating.
What makes you different in everything. You do shout it from the
rooftops imbue that in every design you make
and in your branding and marketing over
time when your messaging is clear
and consistent you will train people to think of
you as being the brand that specializes in whatever it is that makes you different
and people will think of you first.
Instead of your competition
when they're ready to buy
what you sell one of my really good friends Stacy truck started
and used to run a crochet pattern business that she sold a couple years ago.
So I asked a see what she things the hardest part about starting a pattern business today is
and she said when I began designing in 2008 putting a link to a video in it was
novel many of my customers bought my patterns
because my instructions showed them every step of the way now,
Today's that depths of instruction is widespread almost to the point of being
essential the level of quality expect it now is just Next Level.
So the expectations are high and you got to make sure you deliver that if you want to succeed now,
let's talk about pricing when it comes to pricing patterns.
You're going to be pretty restricted by your competitors at the time of
this recording most knitting patterns sell between six
and eight dollars and most sewing patterns are in the Up to $18 range.
The reasons behind that difference is historical.
So for example sewing patterns used to be printed
and the price didn't move when they convert it to digital and a knitting customer will likely bulk.
If you price your knitting patterns at $18.
So with pricing more or less fixed your business is all about the quantity.
You can sell with the exception of a bit of customer support you're doing the same amount of
work whether you sell one pattern or a thousand,
right? Now in terms of the production of the pattern itself
while most designers think of their product as the thing they're designing for example,
the sweater the embroidery art thus own hat.
Your product is the pattern. Of course,
you need to design something
but customers will judge the quality of your product by how nice the pattern is this
means you need to be very Discerning about four things.
Number one the instructions. You must make sure there are no errors.
I recommend hiring a tech Editor to go over your pattern
and run your pattern through around of test Crafters before actually releasing
and selling it number two the illustrations which
for sewing and embroidery patterns make up the pattern itself.
And if you're not able to digitally draw the pattern it is worth
hiring out the step to a graphic designer
number 3 the photography the hero image of the final end product is
what sells your Turn right.
So if you can make a variety of samples and photograph them in a variety of body types,
if you make something to be worn number for the pattern layout again here,
it's worth hiring a graphic designer to craft your template
so that it's professional
and on brand and consider it a worthwhile investment
because it's a template you'll be using
for all of the designs in the future when starting your business.
It can be heart-wrenching to spend
so much time upfront creating your first few patterns
be Or any sales come in but please spend that time up front to make sure
everything's in Tip-Top sheet it is worth it.
Because if your first few patterns are poor quality or give your customers a poor experience,
it will damage your customers trust in your brand and it's hard to grow from there.
Now. Let's talk about distribution because patterns are mostly digital.
I recommend setting up an automated system that will deliver the pattern to the customer immediately
and automatically if you design
it or Crochet patterns you'll likely want to add your patterns to Ravelry which also has
code that you can use to deliver patterns on your own site.
Etsy also has an instant delivery option.
I always recommend that you have your own site,
even if you're using other platforms for selling your patterns,
so if you're in Shopify, you'll need to add an app to do automatic digital download deliveries
and there are a ton to choose from in the App Store
and in the future once you've gained a following there's always the option of printing your Burns
and distributing them to Local craft stores
or even publishing your own book that's a whole different topic
but keep in mind that it is an option.
If you're buying your supplies to make your samples at retail prices,
then pattern designing can get expensive.
So I recommend partnering with supply companies for your designs in the yarn industry.
This typically looks something like you mentioned the yarn Brands name specifically in the pattern
and they'll give you the yarn to make a sample with in the sewing World Companies don't tend to
do as many a Partnerships partly
because lines of fabric change more than Yarns
do but you can connect with a company to purchase Fabrics in wholesale quantities
while these options may not be available to you for the first design.
It's important to keep in mind as it's a way to significantly lower your costs.
Once you have your pattern line launched you want to set up your own
website where you'll be selling your patterns.
I talk about why your own website is better than Ed see in this
video here if you are curious about that,
but Sure you invest in professional high quality product photos.
I have seen that successful pattern designers tend to have amazing photos.
It's what draws people into your patterns,
right? And it's also what makes them trust you great product photos give your brand more credibility
and authority and that makes people more comfortable to buy from you.
You'll definitely want to put some sign up forms
and collect email addresses from people who visit your site
so you can send them emails later on to continue building that relationship.
A ship with your potential customers you can use mailer light to host
an email list of up to a thousand subscribers
for free and email list has one of the highest conversion rates of any marketing.
That means it's really high Roi
and it's one of the only marketing avenues that you actually own like you
don't really own any of your social media fans.
And if you lose your Instagram
or Facebook account tomorrow or the algorithm changes out of your favor,
which you can't control then you're stuck.
Right. So set up your email marketing funnels start an email list
and put a sign up box on your site.
Even if you aren't actively sending emails
yet or if you're not even getting traffic
yet because you'll be glad that you've got all of those things set up
when you do start to get traffic besides email marketing.
I believe content marketing is going to be key here.
Now. I don't usually recommend this to physical product makers
who sell a finished end product like jewelry
or clothing or wall art,
but as and makers you're in a unique position
because you're ultimately selling education
and Educators really benefit from content marketing that is writing informational blog posts.
YouTube video tutorials livestreams setting up a Facebook group to share your experience
and advice and build a community content marketing is especially
useful for people who need to build Authority
and as an educator the biggest challenge to get people to buy is they need to trust you.
They need to know that you are a good teacher. Sure,
and that you know what you're talking about content marketing certainly takes more time to
do but focus on Evergreen content,
make sure it's super high quality stuff
because that's when people will share your work without you asking them
because it's just that good and helpful right besides content marketing.
I believe doing media outreach and Facebook ads will be just as effective.
You can pitch yourself to be on podcasts
as a guest or write articles
for a popular magazines or website so you can start building a name for yourself.
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