Prep for the Holidays EP11: Market Booth Planning & Prep! Tips for Makers, Artists & Creatives

For Week 11 of the Prep for the Holidays minisode series, I'm focusing on market booths!

Now is the time to start planning this year's booth, buying or making any display items you might need, thinking through your signage, ordering business cards, deciding how to coax people to sign up for your email list so you can build a long term relationship with them and... figuring out strategies to encourage higher average order values!

A little advance planning and prep can make a huge difference come market day and help you build long term relationships with customers that last long after the market it over!

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You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.

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And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast

Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.

Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to task number 11 in our
Prep for the Holidays mini-sodeseries.
So this is an ongoing series wehave been doing for 11 weeks
now and that we're going tocontinue doing through the busy
holiday selling season, and theidea behind it is to help you
get ready for the busy holidayselling season.

(00:20):
So the idea behind the podcastis that it was meant to be
helpful to makers, artists,creatives, content creators and
creative service providers and Ihave to be very honest, I think
this week's episode is a littlebit more geared towards the
makers and crafters and artists,as opposed to the creative

(00:41):
service providers and thedigital content creators.
Although, if you are a creativeservice provider and you are
doing some markets this year wetalked about that in an earlier
episode, how that could be agreat opportunity for some of
you then, yes, you probably dowant to listen to this episode
because we're going to betalking about market booths.
So now is the time of yearwhere you want to start making

(01:02):
sure that you have everythingthat you need for your market
booth setup.
So this is there's a lot ofthings you need to think about.
If you're a market veteran, youprobably already have your
setup pretty ironed out.
You're probably pretty used toit.
But if you're thinking ofadding something new or you've
got some new products this yearthat you want to display, then
now is the time where you needto start figuring out how you're

(01:24):
going to display them and whatyou're going to be displaying
them with.
But if you are new to markets ornewer, then you need to first
of all make sure you have atable, and a lot of the smaller
markets, particularly withschools, they often provide a
table, but if they don't, you'regoing to need to go out and get
yourself a table.
I just got a new one fromCanadian Tire this week.

(01:47):
It was $60 for a six foot table.
Usually at school markets whenthey provide the table, it's
eight feet, but I decided to geta six foot one for other
markets, and if I decide at somepoint to do an outdoor market
with a tent, then I would getanother six foot and I'd be able
to put them in a bit of an Lshape and do some things with
them.
So, anyway, all that to say, ifyou're Canadian, canadian Tiger

(02:10):
had a really good deal on for$60 for a six foot portable
folding table.
So, yes, table is where itstarts, but you're also going to
need a tablecloth.
Almost every market requiresthat you have a tablecloth, so
make sure that you have atablecloth.
You're also going to needthings like signage and a banner
to say who you are.

(02:30):
There's lots of differentplaces where you can get these
items.
You probably have a local printshop that can help you with a
banner.
There's also places likeVistaprint that do banners for a
really reasonable price and ifyou get a really good, solid
vinyl banner, it can last youfor a very long time.
They usually come with grommetson the top so that you can hang

(02:52):
them from things or safety pinthem to things or hook them to
things.
So you want to make sure thatyou have good signage so that
people know who you are whenthey're walking through the
aisles of different markets orwandering through a market.
You also want to think aboutother things in terms of signage
.
So you want to think about thesignage for your actual product.

(03:13):
People really like to be ableto know the price of things,
particularly if it's busy andthey maybe can't talk to you
right away.
It's really nice if they cansee the price without having to
ask.
So you want to think about howyou're going to do pricing, and
it could be as simple asprinting price labels off on
your printer or creating a printprice sheet and putting it in a

(03:35):
picture frame or something sothat it's easily visible, or
creating hanging tags that go indifferent parts of your booth.
There's lots of different waysyou can do signage.
You can use little cute littlechalkboards or, like I said,
little picture frames.
There's a lot of different waysthat you can make sure that
your booth is fully signed.

(03:56):
I also like to have businesscards, and I know there's a lot
of you know back and forth aboutwhether it's worth having
business cards anymore.
Honestly, for the amount theycost.
You can get business cards doneincredibly inexpensively from a
local printer or from placeswhere you order from, like
Vistaprint or Jukeboxprint.
You can get basic businesscards very inexpensively 500

(04:18):
that last you for a very longtime but they're a really great
way for people who are justbrowsing to be able to pick up a
card and tuck it in theirpocket.
You also never know who'sattending a market.
It could be somebody who has ashop or who is on the lookout
for new products that they cansell in that shop.
Or it might be a licensingagent who's out there looking

(04:42):
for surface pattern designs younever know.
So these people don't oftenannounce themselves.
They will just very quietlypick up a card and move along
and check you out online later.
So never hurts to have abusiness card.
I also tuck them in to packageswhen I'm packing online orders.

(05:03):
It's just a great way to kindof remind people where it came
from, particularly with Etsy,because on Etsy you can't
mention if you have your ownshop or anything, but you can
tuck a little card in that's gotyour actual website on and
where people can find you, likeyour social media handles and
things like that.
So don't underestimate businesscards.
They are a great way to getfound and you know what often

(05:24):
happens is a couple months latersomebody puts that jacket on,
they reach into their pocket andthey pull out that card and go
oh yeah, she had really neatstuff.
I'm going to go check her outonline right now.
I've done that so many times Ican't even tell you.
So I think business cards areworth the very minimal
investment for that kind ofmarketing.

(05:46):
You also want to start lookingfor fixtures.
What are you going to displayyour products on, and remember
that at markets, height is key.
So when people are walking theaisles, they can't they're not
necessarily in a position wherethey can look down onto your
table.
So you need to make sure youget items up and visible to
people who are walking by,preferably at a distance.

(06:08):
So you want to think of waysthat you can add tiers or layers
or height to your table.
This will also give you moreselling space.
So you might be looking forthings like risers or lifters.
So you might be looking forthings like risers or lifters.
You can get really creative.
A lot of crafters will maketheir own fixtures or, if they
have a crafty partner or spousewho can help them out with that,

(06:30):
thrift markets are a greatplace to go look for pieces.
I have one that I'm in theprocess of refurbishing right
now for my sticker display, butthere's also actual shops where
you can buy fixtures.
So there's a few.
There's like Eddie's Hangups,which is one that I've used a
few times.
There's a lot of stuff onAmazon.

(06:51):
Most cities have large citiesin Canada will have some kind of
fixturing place where you caneither go shop in person or you
can order online.
This is particularly importantfor things like greeting cards,
which require a bit more of acustom, like a specific type of
fixture, and I have often foundthat for things like that,

(07:13):
amazon is usually the mostexpensive place to shop.
So if you can find a fixturingstore or look on Marketplace, I
find card spinners onMarketplace for sale on
Marketplace all the time Any ofthose types of things.
Check those out and see whatyou can find booth um tips and

(07:40):
display tips and I can't thinkof the exact name of it right
now, but I will find it and Iwill put it in the show notes
both on the podcast and onYouTube For those of you.
Uh, because there's all kindsof if.
If you sell it.
Somebody has asked about how todisplay it in that group.
It's a really great resourceand lots of pictures.
It's very picture heavy so youcan see what people have
actually done, so it can giveyou a lot of great ideas.

(08:03):
You also want to start settingup Once you've got your table
set it up in your house and setit up with the tablecloth and
start playing around and seewhat it looks like.
You don't want to be setting upyour display for the first time
at your market that's not thetime to work out the kinks, so
you want to do that now.
Your market that's not the timeto work out the kinks, so you

(08:24):
want to do that now.
And you can see how full it is.
You can see where your troubleareas are, where you might need
to search out something inparticular that could be to help
with a particular displayproblem.
You also might want to add someprops in, depending on what it
is that you sell.
If you're a creative servicesprovider, then props are going
to be really key for you,because you're going to be

(08:44):
trying to tell your storywithout any product.
So think of what you can dofrom a prop standpoint.
If you're a photographer andyou do a lot of studio shoots
with families and things, youprobably have a pretty good prop
collection that you can borrowfrom and take in.
But maybe you wanna get someframes or something that people
can hold up and do fun poses,things like that.

(09:07):
So think about that kind ofthing If you.
I mentioned before in a previousepisode how there had been a
travel agent at one market thatI did who specialized in custom
Disney vacations and she had allkinds of Disney props and stuff
, so made it really fun.
She had a castle backdrop andthat people could take pictures

(09:27):
up against and just you know,fun stuff to try and draw people
in.
Because that's what you want tothink about.
You want to think about howyou're going to draw people in,
how you're going to get noticed.
People shop with their eyes atmarkets and very often it can be
crowded and they may not get agreat sight line to you.
So you want to make sure thatyou've got some way to kind of

(09:48):
stand out.
There's also lots of things youcan do at your booth to draw
people to you.
So you can have like a spin thewheel and you can get a
spinning wheel on Amazon.
That's just the right size fora craft market table.
You can have people come dothat.
People always get excited whenthey see something going on at a
booth and it kind of draws themin.
Unfortunately, a lot of peopleare doing the spinning wheel now

(10:12):
, so you'll see a lot of them atmarkets and it's kind of losing
its novelty.
But if you haven't seen it atmarkets that you do locally,
then maybe give it a try becauseyou might be the first person
to do it where you are, butstart to think about those ways
that you can draw people to you.
And we're going to talk a littlebit more about markets and
selling a product in futureepisodes, but I wanted to do

(10:35):
this one this week because nowis the time.
If you need to order fixturingor business cards or banners or
any of that stuff, now is thetime to do that, because if you
leave it to the last minute andI made this mistake my first
year doing markets I left mybanner to the very last minute
and I wound up paying a premiumfor it because I didn't plan

(10:56):
ahead.
So if you can get all of thatstuff done now and be set up,
then you're going to be muchbetter prepared come market day.
So that is it for this week fortask number 11.
I'll be back next week withanother new task for prep for
the holidays, and next week wewill also have a brand new

(11:19):
episode for the new season ofthe podcast, where we're going
to be talking about averageorder value, and if you are
doing markets or if you sellonline whether it's a physical
product or a service or adigital product average order
value is a great way If you canraise your average order value,
you can raise the amount ofprofit that you're making, and

(11:40):
it's quite easy to do it to do,and there are so many ways that
you can do it.
So we're going to be doing adeep dive into average order
values and how you can utilizethat, not just over the holidays
but long-term.
So it's a great uh businessepisode, um money-making episode
next week.
So tune in for that.
And that is it for this week.

(12:03):
We will see you all again nextweek.
Thanks for tuning in.