Andrew Tanner - Selling Winning Designs

Andrew Tanner held a great seminar for us last week talking about his career as a designer of contemporary ceramics and the relationships he's built with manufacturers and retailers.

He offered us some useful hints and tips:

• When at trade fairs:
• If you're at a fair aimed at wholesalers make sure you know what your minimum order is and be prepared to negotiate
• Make sure that your wholesale price includes the cost it takes to make the item plus your profit margin
• Work out the recommended retail price. Buyers will typically use RRP = Wholesale Price x 3. Think about if this is how much your product should sell for?
• Have a story about your product to sell to the buyer: Why is it different? Why would their customer want it? This is what the buyer will use to sell your product to their customer

• DO NOT court retailers!!! They will find you not the other way round.

• DO court the press!!! PR is the key, learn to write good press release and get good photographs. If you're going to spend money on marketing, photographs should be key

• His book 'Batch; Craft, Design and Product' has an section written by Barbara Chandler, Design writer for the Evening Standard on how to write an effective press release

• If you only have one option on photography use white crop out images for your work

• Twitter is great for free publicity and information

• Places like the UKTI can help you get selling abroad and sometimes have pockets of funding.

• The BEDG can provide match funding for stands at foreign trade fairs. 

Creative Leicestershire has lots of information sheets on low-cost marketing ideas, writing press releases and getting the public to your stand. Visit our resources section for lots more information