Author: Robin Houghton
Source location: United Kingdom
Date published: 13 November, 2003
Copyright: Lewes Artisans

Lewes Artisans, an artists' collective in England's East Sussex region, markets the work of over 70 artists via the web, hard-copy publications and through being active at local community events. Read more.

Robin Houghton has over a decade of experience in the marketing industry where she gained valuable insights into brand management, strategic planning and business-to consumer marketing. She particularly enjoys helping small businesses come to grips with their marketing and believes that ethical and best-practice marketing is the key to longterm success.

She provides marketing advice and assistance pro-bono to Lewes Artisans.

INTRODUCTION

Lewes Artisans (http://www.lewesartisans.com) is an umbrella for a great many diverse artists, makers, practitioners and skilled tradespeople based in and around Lewes, East Sussex. It came about purely as a promotional vehicle to help individuals become better known to both a local and wider audience – audiences are therefore central to its mission.

We currently have around 70 members, from a starting base of two founders plus half a dozen of their friends. That’s how the name came about – founder John Hinitt used to refer to his network of ‘artisan friends’, and lewesartisans.com was born. Members have to be based in Lewes or within a few miles of the town. Speaking for the members, all of the Artisans are in business – the business of selling their own creations, skills or services. It is therefore imperative that they develop both visibility and a continuing connection with their audiences/markets.

MARKETING LEWES MEMBERS’ WORK

Lewes Artisans is three years old and has developed via a certain amount of trial and error. The two founders (a painter and a web designer) began by recruiting through word of mouth and offering lifetime memberships.

Their strategy was simply to bring in as many artisans as possible in order to reach a critical mass of members. The main channel to market was always the website, and a lot of work in the early days went into making sure the site was prominent in search engines and linked to from relevant sites. This involved keyword research (finding out the terms that people search for), optimisation of the site (making the content attractive to search engine spiders) and submission to the major engines and relevant directories. Each artisan’s page is promoted separately (for the relevant keywords) as well as Lewes Artisans generally.

In early 2002 I came on board, and as a marketer I have attempted to introduce a more methodical approach. I was new to the town and found the lewesartisans website, thought it was a great idea and contacted the founders. They were looking for fresh input and were very receptive to the idea of reviewing their objectives and making their activities more strategic.

Founders Simon Dale and John Hinitt were approaching the time for annual membership renewals and were concerned that some members would not renew. To address this we initiated better communication among artisans and between members and founders, starting with a member survey and leading to regular social gatherings, members’ newsletters and co-operative such as joint advertising and a shared presence at community events.

POSITIONING

We target local people who use the internet regularly in their lives, local people who do NOT use the internet (this group we have only recently made efforts to target), anyone searching via the web for what our artisans offer. Previously our objective was to get people to the website, whereas now we also have a printed version of the complete directory, for those who don’t use the internet. We have distributed this leaflet door-to-door, at events and we also produced a version as a ‘cut out and keep’ insert in the local community paper.

More tightly than that we do not target – mainly because we have allowed Lewes Artisans to become so all-encompassing it’s hard to imagine anyone NOT wanting at least one of the skills/services/products on offer!

Recently we have produced a printed directory of members which we distribute at local events. But without the website we would lose our essential identity and reason for people to join us.

Lewes Artisans are all individuals or small operators, few of whom see marketing as one of their strengths, and to whom the idea of positioning themselves as a brand would probably not be intuitive. Some would even find it tasteless.

Nevertheless we have one or two members who, with instantly recognisable products, longstanding reputations and an ardent following could be described as proto-brands in their own right – although I don’t believe they have deliberately positioned themselves that way. I am thinking here of potter Mohammed Hamid (http://www.lewesartisans.com/people/hamid.html) and textiles designer Susanne Wolf (http://www.lewesartisans.com/people/wolf.html).

We always talk about Lewes Artisans as being ‘by local people for local people’. In publicity we try to always talk about the artisans themselves, including aspects of their own lives as well as their art/craft/trade. We find audiences relate to people rather than just their products or services. We try to find the human element – the motivation, the stories behind the story, in order to create empathy.

We believe we occupy a unique position – local focus, global reach, non-selective, non-profit, internet-based, but the human element is central. There are other organisations for artists/makers, such as the Sussex Guild, which are very selective and have quality standards which members have to satisfy. We made a decision NOT to have minimum standards or to offer any kind of promise of workmanship or quality to the general public. We don’t see ourselves as a topdown body imposing standards on members.

Interestingly, membership tends to self-regulate – I think members check each other out before they decide whether to join. Although we are a directory, we actually offer more than a standard web directory listing. Each Artisan liaises with Simon who creates and maintains his or her webpage, it’s not automated. Although our only ‘manifestation’ as a group is a website, we mostly communicate face-to-face or by phone.

PROMOTION

Basically, we collaborate with members – we encourage them to promote Lewes Artisans in all of their own publicity and at events. This has the effect of everyone promoting everyone else, and although not all members are good at remembering to do this, it does grow our profile.

Since we are a non-profit organisation we find other, complementary organisations are happy to promote us, link to us and allow us to share editorial or advertorial space. For example performing arts, ethical, environmental, alternative education, fair trade, community and political groups.

We feed the local press with media releases and they are always used. We encourage members to tell us when they have something newsworthy going on – although it takes a lot of coaxing to get them to tell us, as they either don’t see what they’re doing as being newsworthy, are too busy to tell us about it, or they tell us the day before an event! As a non-profit we get free advertorial space in community newspapers which are surprisingly influential.

Promotional materials that we produce include window/car stickers, periodical door leafletting, recruitment leaflets which we send to prospective members when we hear about them, and mugs which we give away to members as and when appropriate (eg as a thankyou).

Our website is our main communicative tool with the public. We spend time optimising and submitting it to search engines and directories and it gets about 1,500 unique visits average per month. Very few individual artisans have a website so this is their primary web presence. They are all offered a lewesartisans email address also, although not many of them use it!

Recently we exhibited at the Lewes Farmers Market for the first time, distributing a printed leaflet featuring all our Artisan members (refer attachment 2). First indications are that it was a success – for example we had six prospective new members approach us during the morning – many people who do not use the internet were for the first time made aware of Lewes Artisans and what our members offer. Several artisans came and helped out on the stand and the feedback we had from them was that they really enjoyed the opportunity of showing their work and meeting local people in an informal setting. It’s also a social event – everyone visits the Farmers Market – we even made contact with the local MP who offered us part of his shop window display in the high street!

Word of mouth is a big promotional tool. By communicating with artisans through newsletters and regular get-togethers we encourage them to talk about LA to their friends, family, audiences and clients. Every time LA is mentioned it helps to bring all members to a wider audience.

We also participate in co-operative advertising in the local press – every few months, before key events/shows or holidays, we buy a page in the local paper and populate it with artisans news and small box displays for any individuals who wish to take part. They each pay a small fee (less than if they bought it directly from the paper) and we make a small profit which goes to help us produce more and better promotional materials. The page is branded with Lewes Artisans colours and masthead and generates a lot of interest.

We are still in our infancy as regards to true relationship marketing. Our public is so diverse, if you take into consideration that our member base spans everything from plumbers to stain-glass artists and chiropractors. We do not get involved with the individual marketing efforts of members, where they exist, and strictly speaking Lewes Artisans does not have a ‘public’ of its own as we have nothing to promote except the work and interests of our members. We do however have plans for a newsletter for the general public with a signup on the website – to enable us to talk and listen to ‘friends and fans’ of Lewes Artisans.

AGENTS, DEALERS AND OTHER INTERMEDIARIES.

Rather than working with agents or dealers, since Lewes Artisans is so diverse we tend to work with broader bodies. Local government is very sympathetic to us – Lewes District Council allow us to join with their arts mailings for free if we wish, and we have had discussions with them about setting up a Lewes Town Arts and Crafts Trail in collaboration with some of our members.

GRANT FUNDING/SPONSORSHIP/PARTNERSHIPS

We do not have any sponsorship and part of our appeal is our independence – although for a special event we may seek sponsorship help. We have never had any funding. Members pay a £40 annual fee, and we derive a little income from co-operative advertising, which covers our costs.

Basically the three people who run it do so on a pro bono basis, and we get as much mileage as we can from activities that require our time and expertise rather than cash – eg PR, appearances at events, door-to-door leafleting, articles in community newspapers etc.

TIPS FOR OTHERS

We should have done more member research early on to find out exactly why people were joining and what their hopes/expectations were. We probably spent too much time trying to recruit members in the early days, rather than trying to raise the profile of LA with the general public, which is really our remit. We are starting to redress that balance and it has showed in the fact that members are renewing their memberships, we are getting unsolicited testimonials from artisans about how LA has helped them, and recognition of Lewes Artisans among local people is high.