Branding / Marketing advice needed

Cardinal Knife

Cardinal Knife

Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
340
Greetings all, I need some advice on branding/ marketing. I am on the outset of this journey, and am fully aware of the difficulty of making money in this hobby, but I want to put myself out there the correct way if I am going to venture in, and if I can sell a few knives to fund this addiction all the better. I came up with a name a while back “Cardinal Knife Co.”(story is on my about me page why I picked that name) and created a free wordpress site, but am having second thoughts on the name. I was leafing through the latest issue of blade and they talk a bit on this particular subject. One of the things they state is to use your name e.g. Loveless, Randall, Russell, Levine… , mostly all use their name on the knives. This makes it easier for buyers to track them down as knives get traded and passed down through the ages.

I just had some stencils made with CK and a Cardinal head (click link below to see on my homepage if you want) and my questions are as follows.
Should I have new ones made and put my last name (Wiehle) on my knives? Assuming most of you will say yes, that moves me to my next question. Should I start from scratch with my site as well or do you think it would be OK to leave it as is but maybe have it display Cardinal Knife Co. Custom handmade knives By Chris Wiehle. This would leave me the opportunity to have an umbrella site where I could list other knives as well that are not mine. I don’t think it is a big deal to change the URL name along with the title as there is absolutely no traffic due to it being fairly new on the web.

Thanks in advance
Chris
 
For sure your name should be prominent at the top of the website. "Cardinal Knives, custom knives by Chris Wiehle," perhaps.

I might use "CW," your initials, instead of CK with the logo.

If you're going to sell other makers' knives, use a different name for that business perhaps? A sister site? Definitely need some way to distinguish your own custom knife business from your retail-dealer business.

Using wordpress for a template-based website is smart, IMO. Consider springing the extra $9 for your own domain name. www.namesilo.com
 
Bob W said:
For sure your name should be prominent at the top of the website. "Cardinal Knives, custom knives by Chris Wiehle," perhaps.

I might use "CW," your initials, instead of CK with the logo.

If you're going to sell other makers' knives, use a different name for that business perhaps? A sister site? Definitely need some way to distinguish your own custom knife business from your retail-dealer business.

Using wordpress for a template-based website is smart, IMO. Consider springing the extra $9 for your own domain name. www.namesilo.com
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Thanks Bob, I really don't know where this venture will lead, but I would rather get it handled as opposed to 2 years down the road. I could see how selling knives other than my own would "water down" my brand, so I think you make a good point in that aspect. Now I have to decide if I should keep the cardianlknife name or start fresh with a new domain like wiehleblades.com or wiehlecutlery.com so it is more clear to the buyer what they are buying and who they are buying from
 
You could always get both domains so you have the real estate down the road should you want to ever have a production knife site and a customs site perhaps. Just depends on your clientele and who you envision selling to in the future as well.
 
Chris, I moved this to Shop Talk as a knifemaker question. General Knife is more for discussing actual production knives and steels.

Please go to Settings(upper right)
then to Permission Groups (left side)
then select your Basic membership level.
 
Bob W said:
For sure your name should be prominent at the top of the website. "Cardinal Knives, custom knives by Chris Wiehle," perhaps.
Click to expand...

I like this idea better than dropping the Cardinal name altogether. Your last name is unique (good!) but hard to spell. You're better off having people search for "cardinal knives" than "Chris Wielhe" on accident.
 
Imagine a circle cardinal knIves stenciled top half, sketch of a cardinal (the bird) center and on the bottom by... Your name
 
In my opinion, operating as a brand name is appropriate if you (a) plan to stock batches of knives and sell them through an e-commerce site with immediate delivery, (b) plan to hire or collaborate with anyone for non-trivial tasks, and/or (c) plan to market yourself as a brand for any reason. Where do you want to be in 5 years? Do you want to be seen as a master craftsman or the president of a small cutlery company?
 
P.Brewster said:
In my opinion, operating as a brand name is appropriate if you (a) plan to stock batches of knives and sell them through an e-commerce site with immediate delivery, (b) plan to hire or collaborate with anyone for non-trivial tasks, and/or (c) plan to market yourself as a brand for any reason. Where do you want to be in 5 years? Do you want to be seen as a master craftsman or the president of a small cutlery company?
Click to expand...

I've done the e-commerce thing with car stuff, pain in the butt and would def take the fun out of knife making. Point taken.
 
I make sure to promote my company as well as my own name. I do more than make knives and have much more diverse plans for Wildertools. "Rick Marchand" is the craftsman but I am only one man and won't be able to work forever. I want something to pass on to my kids... but the reality is that I have no freakin idea what might be presented to me, tomorrow and having options is the key to longevity.

The most important advice I can give you is to make what YOU want as a knifemaker. Custom knifemaking is an expression of your creativity and trying to do what you think everybody else wants will kill the individuality that sets you apart from the rest.
 
cwiehle0 said:
Greetings all, I need some advice on branding/ marketing. I am on the outset of this journey, and am fully aware of the difficulty of making money in this hobby, but I want to put myself out there the correct way if I am going to venture in, and if I can sell a few knives to fund this addiction all the better. I came up with a name a while back “Cardinal Knife Co.”(story is on my about me page why I picked that name) and created a free wordpress site, but am having second thoughts on the name. I was leafing through the latest issue of blade and they talk a bit on this particular subject. One of the things they state is to use your name e.g. Loveless, Randall, Russell, Levine… , mostly all use their name on the knives. This makes it easier for buyers to track them down as knives get traded and passed down through the ages.

I just had some stencils made with CK and a Cardinal head (click link below to see on my homepage if you want) and my questions are as follows.
Should I have new ones made and put my last name (Wiehle) on my knives? Assuming most of you will say yes, that moves me to my next question. Should I start from scratch with my site as well or do you think it would be OK to leave it as is but maybe have it display Cardinal Knife Co. Custom handmade knives By Chris Wiehle. This would leave me the opportunity to have an umbrella site where I could list other knives as well that are not mine. I don’t think it is a big deal to change the URL name along with the title as there is absolutely no traffic due to it being fairly new on the web.

Thanks in advance
Chris
Click to expand...

Its not necessary to name your company your name. I mark my knives Fiddleback by AR. Its a simple mark thats easy to etch on a spine. Fiddleback Forge as my brand name lets me have a catchier logo, and makes t-shirts and other things easier to sell. I like your company name. Your website is an education tool. If thats how you plan to sell your knives, I hope you have better luck than I did. About a year ago I ditched my expensive and time consuming shopping cart based website for a blogging site. I like this much better. I sell my knives here in a forum dedicated to my product, and through dealers. It is way more efficient. Before that matters you have to build a customer base. That is what the dedicated forum is for.
 
Fiddleback said:
Its not necessary to name your company your name. I mark my knives Fiddleback by AR. Its a simple mark thats easy to etch on a spine. Fiddleback Forge as my brand name lets me have a catchier logo, and makes t-shirts and other things easier to sell. I like your company name. Your website is an education tool. If thats how you plan to sell your knives, I hope you have better luck than I did. About a year ago I ditched my expensive and time consuming shopping cart based website for a blogging site. I like this much better. I sell my knives here in a forum dedicated to my product, and through dealers. It is way more efficient. Before that matters you have to build a customer base. That is what the dedicated forum is for.
Click to expand...

Hey Fiddleback, first off let me say I really like your knives. As far as your post goes you make a great point in the Cardinal knife name being easier to market than my weird name, as Zhyla also mentioned. Unfortunately, I am very sporadic sometimes and yesterday I went and created another website . Only took about an hour and only spent $18 total on the URL, so it's not a total loss if I decide to ditch it and go back with the cardinal name and theme. I also understand the dealings of an e-commerce site on something like this. The little monthly fees, merchant accounts, having to answer e-mail and so forth takes a toll after a while. Especially after a month or two of zero sales. I can deal with $18 a year and simply having people call me to discuss pricing and options as opposed to a shopping cart.

So, I guess I will put some more thought into it today, but I have a feeling I may simply stick with the cardinal themed website, but have "custom knives by Chris Wiehle" as a subtitle. Remove the misc knives so my eventual line will have somewhat of a theme. Keep the cardinal head in my makers mark but use my name "Wiehle" with the cardinal head instead of initials CK. Keep the opinions coming please.
Thanks Chris
 
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Unless you plan to take orders, I'd leave the word 'custom' off of your branding material. Do a search, I wrote a thread some time back about the 5 reasons not to take orders. Its all opinion, so take it for what its worth.
 
NickWheeler said:
Um... can you... like... make knives?
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It sounds like Nick is being abrasive here, but I don't see it that way. In fact this consideration of whether a guy can make knives is secondary in most conversations I have with new makers. They are interested in learning to make knives, but this isn't the goal. The question is always this, "Can you teach me to be a full time knifemaker?" Very rarely do they have a finished knife to show me at the time, but a notebook full of designs. I'm not saying this is the case with the OP. I have no ideas on this. Usually, they are focused on bringing their innovative knife vision to the marketplace and get rich before Christmas. They aren't even asking about processes. Its brand and marketing questions. I hire knifemakers and allow them to work on their knives in my shop during their off hours. Most of these 'full time knifemakers' questioners aren't interested in being a full time maker for $12/hour plus whatever they can sell of their own work. When, in reality, I've turned out several full timers with this system and the stupid $12/hour is as critical as the teaching, pricing help, branding help, and letting them sell in my forum to my gathered market. Imagine making $12/hour plus selling two pieces a week. Its not bad money if you are hungry enough to put the extra hours in on your own stuff. If you aren't its a dirty hard 12/hour job. Its not for most folks and without the desire to make knives I have a lot of turnover.

How about a pic or two of your knives Chris?
 
rickmenefee said:
Good stuff sells itself.
Click to expand...

No offense, but that's the biggest line of bull-puckey ever perpetrated in the business world.

Of course you're all 100% correct that making really good stuff helps a great deal... but it doesn't "sell itself". If no one knows it exists, no one's going to care; and they're certainly not going to knock on your door and hand you money. On the other hand, the vast majority of knives sold today barely qualify as knives... but they're marketed well.

Selling anything requires effort and hard work that has absolutely nothing to do with making knives (or jewelry or guitars or pies or automobiles or... whatever).

My advice? Keep your designs simple, figure out what knives you like and understand, learn what customers are willing to pay for, develop your own "style", use the best materials/techniques you can to bring your ideas to fruition, and get your work out in front of people. Not just with pictures.

The single best "marketing" thing I can recommend is, make the finest coolest knife you possibly can and send it out to strangers in a passaround.
 
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