Breaking into Business: Four P's

During our workshop, we talked about the 4 P's: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These items help define your work and how people find about your work.

Product: My current set of products include oil paintings on canvas (where the sides of the canvas is painted, so as to not require framing) and 11 x 14 matted prints. The prints are sized to fit within a standard frame that can be purchased from any craft store or frame shop without the need for special framing.

Price: In terms of the oil paintings, the price range from $75 for a small 9" x 12" to $400 for a 22" x 28" painting. The typical painting purchased is the 16" x 22" for $275. The prints are priced at $20. The reason for the pricing of the print deals with the fact that I sell my prints at craft shows. When people get money from the ATM, for a craft show, the denominations are typically $10 and $20. Therefore, I try to make it easy for someone to pull out a single bill out of their wallet for the print.

Place: Most of my paintings are typically sold in two locations: my office and craft shows. For my office, I give office employees a 10% discount on all purchases. This tends to provide incentive when the holiday's come around (Mother's day is a popular one for me) or someone needs a personalized gift. Most of my sales, though, come from craft fairs. I've been doing a couple of shows, here and there, for a couple of years and have sold a number of originals through this venue (although, the prints are typically the item that move the most at a craft show).

Promotion: This is the part that I'm extremely weak in. For promotion, I rely on the advertising of the craft fair. I need to improve this area of my business.