Embroidery - Marketing your Talents

You know you need to market your embroidery business but you're just not sure what to do....exactly. Sure, you wear clothing with your logo out into the world and you carry your business cards with you at all times. You may have even sent out fliers in the hope of securing a few new customers but it's a slow-go and nothing is guaranteed, right?

Well, it is said that the best advertising is word of mouth so why not inspire your current customers to speak...about you and your business! Offer them a benefit to talking about your talents and reward them when you acquire a new customer through an established one. Word of mouth works better because it appears to be an unsolicited, let-me-give-you-a-hot-tip sort of thing. Everyone wants to know the inside scoop and feel like they are "in the loop". Talk to 5 of your best customers and ask them for what you want. Ask them to tell every business contact they know about you and give them some of your cards to pass out.

Of course, you still want to pass out your cards like Halloween candy yourself. If there is a retail business board where you can leave your cards, do it. Always post them in places where you have the highest content of people interested in your services and they will do the most good! Search out new niches to go after. You never know, the next customer you may be embroidering for just might be the person next to you on the bus, in line after you at the store, or the owner of that cute little fashion clothing store around the corner that you like.

SO, tell us what you do to market your embroidery business and what works the best for you!

Embroidery Stock Designs - What are you looking for?

Since NeedleUp has added a stock design website to the world wide web, I've been curious to know.....What are your criteria for purchasing stock designs?

I guess it would be different things to different people. Depending on whether you're running a business or just embroidering as a hobby or crafter, but just generally, do you go first for price and then appeal or do you pick what you like and worry about the price second? And what about quality? Do you only purchase from vendors you are familiar with?

Would you rather purchase sets of designs or one design at a time?

What insires you to purchase one stock design or set over another? Tell us what you think, and visit our new stock design website at: www.creativendeavors.com

Embroidery - The moralities of stitching

Let's talk about the moralities and political correctness some embroiderers face from time to time. What may be a non-issue for some, really bothers others.

Let me just ask: We all know that recreating copyrighted logos and designs is not only wrong but illegal (without permission), but how do you feel about embroidering words or images that are offensive? What about offensive politically slanted views? How about a job with pagan symbols if you're Christian (or anything religious that you don't believe and view as negative)? Or what if a job for some warmup jackets came through your front door, with some strange symbols or words that you learned were gang related?

Do you turn away jobs for moral or PC reasons or is it "Just Business" and you set aside personal feelings to do the work? Is it not that black and white? Where do you draw the line?

Tell us what you think........

EMBROIDERY - 60 wt Thread

What's the deal with 60 wt thread? Well, here's the skinny....anyone who's ever been frustrated with small lettering (and really, who hasn't?) has one more avenue to try with lower weight thread. The problem is, for those in the commercial production side, it's more trouble than it's worth as far as some are concerned. Not only do the embroiderers not want to carry a full complement of 60 wt thread inventory because it's costly, you must also use a smaller needle with 60 wt which is also adds to the cost. For the production conscious embroidery company, the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to this option. Text has to be digitized specifically for this wt thread which causes another problem; you have to have designs edited (or be able to do it yourself) to enlarge the same designs for other applications. All stock designs are created with the industry standard 40 wt thread because that is by far, what everyone uses. What's more, digitizers will create logos for 40 wt unless told otherwise. We can certainly customize the design for 60 wt when we work with the embroiderer directly but many times, we digitize logos for customers that purchase the stitch file without knowing who will be doing the production. This requires us to stay with the industry standard 40 wt.

So what's an embroiderer to do? You have to make the best decision for your business; what's cost effective for you. If you're a small, one or two head shop, is it worth stopping the machine to change out thread and needles for short runs? What about if you run multiheads, can you afford the time it takes to change out needles and thread across the board? Is it worth the expense considering you have to carry at least a few colors available for your customers in quantities to match the number of heads you run? And, if you're spending the extra time to put up special thread and needles, you'll have to charge more, right?

One final thing: some embroidery companies with multiheads find that it is worth carrying 60 wt thread in a few basic colors, in order to be able to provide small lettering to their customers by dedicating one needle color to the 60wt thread and leaving the smaller needles on the machine so they're not changing them out constantly.

SO HERE'S THE QUESTION: Have you made this decision for your business? How do you feel about this topic? Post your comments & questions.........