I tried the Facebook ad, and what an eye opener. I cost me a fortune for a lot of nothing. I paid what I considered an outrageous dollar amount per hit and didn't get much for it.

When faced with composing an ad, it got an insightful view of my business. I realized that I am making too much, I feel like I have the equivalent of an on-line department store, stocked by one frantic manufacturer.

 My daughter asked me once if I knew why people shopped on-line. I have been puzzling the answer for while and I think that this question along with my insight into my department store status, has given me an answer.

 People are looking for the unique, not the generic, that they can find while cruising the Mall or a department store. When you are creating at a frantic pace, you can easily end up with the generic, cranking different versions of the same thing, with little thought to uniqueness. This year I created one new holiday product, it took me weeks, and I really love it. My newest Christmas Stocking. I blended my different skills and came up with something definitely more unique. I am leaving the rest of my crafting time to make for my friends and family, and work on my web presence. I am more planning to post photos of items I make for gifts rather than for sale.

 My problem is that I love to make things and have far too much to give away. I do well at craft shows, selling quite a bit, however, with a full-time job, I find going to craft show a strain.  The uniqueness should also show in your website, and/or craft table.

This has become a challenging thought, and a definite new direction to follow.  Now, if I were less impatient, what I am doing might work.  How can you establish a niche or a uniqueness when you keep changing image, every 6 months or so.  It is a good idea to review your business plan and marketing plan on a regular basis, and track what you are doing, to estimate the success of what you are doing, you just have go give yourself enough time to accumulate the data for comparison.  For all I know, what I considered a bad ad campaign was just that, or it was actually good, I just picked a bad time of day.  I will try again, I shouldn't give up so easily, it really doesn't do much for establishing myself if I don't.

Happy Crafting
CraftyLadyLiz