Knifemaker Membership and Marketing Techniques

J

jawilder

Joined
Jun 27, 2006
Messages
2,331
I just sat down to write a list of all the knife orders I have and got a bit overwhelmed. I think I now have more knives than I have time to make them.

I have noticed that when I get overwhelmed with my orders I light the forge and just start hammering to make something that I like and usually come up with knives that I like but were not ordered.

I was wondering, for those of you who have a Knifemaker membership, is it worth it? I have seen many knives sold here on the forum and many that were not sold. It seems that a maker could get a Gold Membership for $35 less than a Knifemaker Membership and sell their knives in the "For Sale: Custom Knives (Individual)" area that currently has 56 viewing potential customers rather than the "For Sale: Fixed Blades" area that currently has 49 viewers.

I am a penny pincher and was just wondering if the extra $$$ was worth it.

While we are on the subject, which marketing techniques do you find most productive to sell your knives?
For example, what portion of your sales comes from: Friends, Shows, Return customers, Website where you referred someone, Website from a random visitor, Forums sales, etc.
Jason
 
I've been making knives for awhile, but just started selling them this year. This place is the only place Ive ever sold them from. Ive given alot away as gifts to friends and family, and they all love them, but that hasnt resulted in a sale yet. as a new seller, I started with low prices, and have just recently started upping them as my feedback score grows, and the members get comfortable with what I make. Ive had most of the knives Ive listed sell, but that may be because of the low starting price.

Thinking about where to market. This is the place to be. Where else can I put a knife, where I can get 200 or so views per day, not only views, but views from knifepeople, folks that understand what makes a custom better than walmarts bucks, gerbers, and kershaws? Plus the owners of the site make it easy even for a non computer guy like me to post pics, sumbit feedback, and everything else. Combine that with pay-pal, so its easy to send and recive money. Where else could you get 200 folks to come into your shop ans see what you have for sale? How much would a credit card machine cost you when its included with paypal?

For the cost of the knifemaker membership, a wal-mart camera, and a paypal account, this is the best thing going for selling knives. Buying also, but I havent done that yet.
 
I've had quite a few customers find me via Facebook and my sig line on other forums. Be social, spend a little time posting on related sites where your customers also visit. It's been a while since I posted a knife for sale here because I only post them here when they aren't customer orders or sold before they're done. Lately, that just hasn't happened. I still think my knifemaker membership here was and continues to be an excellent decision and worth every penny. I think it provides the perfect springboard for your sales. When I'm looking up a maker this is generally my first stop, often before a general Google search. Not finding someone here isn't a red flag, by any means, but I can place a lot more weight on information found here than many other places I might find information about them. Take someone like Rick Marchand for example. If I ran across a random photo of one of his tribal style knives on some site with a whole lot of great things to say and a big price tag I would be VERY skeptical. Without being able to see it in person, and without the additional details that're available here I'd probably think it was all hype on a piece of junk movie prop style knife. Knowing what I know from BF though, I'd have a lot more understanding of what goes into his work and the real value.

If you want a site of your own I suggest Host Gator for the hosting account and Wordpress for the software. That's a blog system available on almost any hosting account you get and is about as easy as it gets to manage. I suggest thinking carefully about your domain name and picking one that will work for a long time, potentially for more than just knives since you can use one domain and hosting account for multiple sites. I think your own site is valuable, but I'd do the FB page first. Remember, you want a business page there, it's not the same as your personal FB account. Even if you personally aren't a facebook user, make an account under "Wilder Knives" or something, then setup the business page there with a name that will pop up in searches for your knives. I used Knives by Remy, it works. J Wilder Knives might be just fine.

Right now I'd say 25% of my sales have found me via my sig line on various forums which directed them to either Facebook or my web site. 25% have been friends or friends of friends. And if we only take the last few months into account, the remaining 50% found me via Facebook or my web site by various searches or referenced by others to those locations. For example, I'm friends with various knife folks on Facebook. Someone looking through their page on FB might then jump to mine. When writing for your web site, and on facebook, it is worth considering key words that folks will include in searches. For example, I just discovered that someone searching "custom knives connecticut" will NOT find me. I need to fix that.
 
A Gold membership is for selling of property you have bought.
You need a Knifemaker membership to sell your own work.
 
Great idea about Facebook. I am still in the R&D stage of the webpage and found that "Wilderforge" is available. I think it is simple, to the point, and easy to remember, but hope that everyone else thinks that too.

Esav, that helps clarify things too.
 
You know I switched from godaddy to host gator and not only did my monthly cost get cut in half my site is 10x better and easier to manage! I'm working on a facebook page at this very moment just so I can keep the knife stuff separate from everything else on facebook.
 
Jason, that sounds good on the domain, nice and simple, easy to remember and type, and not too long.
Guys, when doing the fb page for your knives, just make sure it's a business page, not a personal one, very different animals. It's easy to mix them up at first. You also want whatever account you use for admin of the business page to be recognizable as you and as a public image you don't mind.
 
A domain name from godaddy can run as little as 3 bucks a year, host gator can do you 12-24 bucks for 3 months with unlimited bandwidth.
My wife designs and develops websites for CUE, a national organization dedicated to missing or abducted persons cases, as well as individual pages for the families of the missing to help with their search. With her hostgator sever, she's hosting, currently, 138 websites, each with unlimited bandwidth for 50 bucks a month.
One nice thing between hostgator and Wordpress is the SEO (search engine optimization) options which will ensure that a google search for Jason Wilder Knives (for example) will throw your link to the top of the list and port over to other search engines, such as Duck-Duck-Go.

Combined with a gallery system like Tiltviewer, and you'll have a fairly modern and easily managed page.

As to memberships--as a fellow beginning maker who has to watch his orders and pennies, I do suggest, if you're already swamped, getting the knifemaker subscription and just holding off on orders, or setting up a waiting list. My rule of thumb has been if I've two or three complicated, high priority orders, I set up a waiting list and inform people it'll be at least two months before I begin, this way, if I need the time it's there OR if I finish early and can start sooner, it's a little extra oomph for the customer to know they get bumped.
However, I also have docs on my FB page and website which outline the making process so customers who aren't familiar with customs can understand the lengthy process.

Good luck Jason, I'd offer to have my wife do the site for you, but would hate for her have to ask a fellow maker to pay for her services, especially when I know they're on a budget like me.
 
I'll probably buy one soon just for the sake of supporting the forum itself. Probably about 6 months to a year away from actually selling a knife though.
 
Thanks Ed. I have actually designed and built several websites and am maintaining one now for our city, but didn't know if it is really worth exchanging shop time with computer time to build one for myself.

Guess I'll just have to get the site and see what happens.
Jason
 
That's the beauty of Wordpress, I literally redid my whole site, including upload time for the files (easier to just re-upload/import than move them from the old setup) in a few hours. Most of that was spent watching TV while the uploads processed, so you could be grinding. After uploads, a few minutes making the initial pages and images and it's done. If you look at my site you're literally looking at about 5 hours total effort. Taking new pics from the camera and doing any cleanup/tweaking needed or cropping and resizing... takes more time than the rest of the work for a post.

Now, my site's nothing special, but it's quick and easy, makes uploading and posting photos easy, and requires almost no effort. It also makes it easy for me to see how much traffic I'm getting and where it's being referred from.
 
Jason, for the sake of clarity...

It sounds like you're looking for the best venue to sell the knives you made that were not aligned with orders you received. Is that correct?

Because it also sounds like you are specifically NOT looking for a solution that drives more orders your way (for the moment, at any rate). Is that correct?

- Greg
 
Greg, I am looking for both.
Something short term and long term, I just don't want to waste time and money in unprofitable marketing.
 
s2f said:
I'll probably buy one soon just for the sake of supporting the forum itself. Probably about 6 months to a year away from actually selling a knife though.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I did, which is why I try to clarify that fact in my description.
 
Keep in mind, while a Knifemaker membership is $60 a year, a three year membership is $160, a $20 discount for buying up front. And, a three year membership also gets you a hosted knifemaker forum here. Check these out: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/807-Hosted-Knifemaker-s-Forums

This may not be as attractive at first, but if you find you are interacting with a regular client base on Bladeforums, this is a great way to do it. You can post closed and stickied threads with lists of standard models you offer, approximate charges, special offers and contests.

When you are just beginning, though, you don't want to get overwhelmed with orders and ideas before you've developed some capabilities and your own style. Lots of "buyers" will proclaim, "I'd take two of those!" but won't be there with money when you churn out a dozen or so.
 
I have sold a bunch of knives here over the past few years (nothing lately....... you guys are slacking:)) The costs of a "Knifemaker" status is so small that it is almost funny.

When I think about buying a new piece of equipment, or supplies, or even taking a short vacation, I think in terms of "How many knives do I need to sell" in order to pull this off.

Pony up and enjoy the ride. Think "Quality First"........ The rest will take care of itself.

Robert
 
My knifemaker membership paid for itself in two, maybe three sales, if I include materials in that estimate. It's a no-brainer, even if I had never sold another knife this year. As it happens, I have, and have a small but steady stream of work coming in.

Paid memberships also help keep the forum open and free for folks who just want to poke around, whether they just want to learn about knives, have some work done, or learn to make their own. Which is precisely how I got started making knives.
 
Yup. At this point I'd probably be just fine not selling knives here, but the extra money over a regular membership (for pm's and such) is nothing compared to the value of this place. Sure, I don't HAVE to pay, but it's worth supporting and that little extra "rep" from being here as a maker rather than regular member can't hurt if someone just wants to look at it that way. Every day I learn something here. It might not be something I can use just yet, but it's one more little bit of information floating around in my head that may be important later.
 
why are you people so damm f@#$%^ cheap??? I am a gold membership and proud of it. they ask a little bit of money for the membership and you guys stay as Registered User. if you dont want to pay for the right membership the find a board that lets you break the rule. I can not afford a dealer membership so I dont sell my old stock knifes here because that would be just plain wrong to sparkie.
what you pay to take out your family for dinner one time is a membership for one year.
 
Go for it, why limit yourself to not being able to sell your customs here, the cost is recooped in your first transaction and its a tax write-off!
My site was being hosted and i was paying 15 bucks a month, the only problem was i didnt have access to the site to manage pics, and i would have to give this guy a thumb drive, that he would include in a mass data upload....a week later? Needless to say it didnt work out, and i began the quest to build my own site, i bought and own my domain name, i tried square space and it was to complicated to get ips pointed, the original hoster was not responding to my request! Defeated once again i put my head down and got back to the grind stone, then one day my sheath guy starts talking about weebly web service, interested i threw a google fu chop on em, and low and behold a legitimate, user friendly, FREE web service!! Again you cant go wrong with a web site, unless its operation costs way exceed your sales, and memberships in multiple forums and collectors groups are good sound simple investments.
Oh ya business cards are real handy too.
GHaile
 
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