Hey Na,
Im really sorry to hear that you have this dilemma. Hoping that your latest progress is the sign of a much better 2014 for you. I agree with LJ marketing is a very difficult topic. I am also in a similar situation to you Na. I am just starting to market myself and skills as a puppet/prop/costume designer builder. My friends outside my close circle think Im weird and even my mum says "what are people going to want that for?" so I do get some of what you have said before about being the odd one or black sheep LOL
I dont really have any constructive advice or ideas but I would be more than happy to chat/discuss or bounce ideas around or against if you would like sometime. Even if its just for a winge.
Chin up and hang in there. Something will change as you are a smart and talented lady!

I have not been on P&S in a while, but finally had some time this evening. Let me just chime in on marketing to say that it is a complicated topic! Things that work for one person may not always work for someone else. There is a lot of trial and error!
Na, I truly hope that things start looking up for you. How frustrating! It would be fun for all of us to have some Milo together! Hang on Na!

Thanks Lisa; I agree, trial and error is a big part of things. I tend to go by intuition anyway, and I think whilst this might work for some things it doesn't do me any favours for marketing. So my trial and error is to attempt to ignore intuition

I think a Milo together would be great! You know I will happily share one with you when you come my way

Hey Na,
Im really sorry to hear that you have this dilemma. Hoping that your latest progress is the sign of a much better 2014 for you. I agree with LJ marketing is a very difficult topic. I am also in a similar situation to you Na. I am just starting to market myself and skills as a puppet/prop/costume designer builder. My friends outside my close circle think Im weird and even my mum says "what are people going to want that for?" so I do get some of what you have said before about being the odd one or black sheep LOL
I dont really have any constructive advice or ideas but I would be more than happy to chat/discuss or bounce ideas around or against if you would like sometime. Even if its just for a winge.
Chin up and hang in there. Something will change as you are a smart and talented lady!

Thanks Shannon. Progress is at this moment, a complicated topic. It's a bit more like one step forward, 20 steps back. Each day is a new roll of the dice to see how many steps and in what direction.

Personally I think you'll have more luck than I have. There are so many reasons to be envious of your work, it's really amazing stuff. But more than that, you're making muppet-types which are far easier to market. Props and costumes are also good complements. I know of one puppeteer - Hilary Talbot who blogs at Spirits Dancing, her site is worth subscribing to - who does lots of sculpture and mascot stuff as well.

I do think family and friends look at the arts as that kooky thing that some people do. Most of my family aren't disapproving, I think it's more that they're all corporate-y, management, IT or medical types and so the arts gets to be the odd thing just by statistics alone. Even the independent sole business people are less on the fringe than I am in terms of the services/products they provide.

Actually what gets my goat usually is the common introduction. "Hi, how are you?" "Fine, thanks" "So, working on any puppet shows at the moment?" or "So King Kong... you worked on that?" Once you mention you do puppets, they think you're constantly doing shows or working on X thing that they've heard of. It never seems to occur to them that you may a) not be working at all, b) have been trying to get a job but not been successful, c) do other things, d) been working on stuff they will never hear about because it's not West End/Broadway level, e) have other interests or activities...

Then again, it's better than the usual conversation about iphones and the latest LCD TVs, which is a common theme amongst our tech-head family members

Thanks for the offer for chatting - I might take you up on it later. At the moment I'm still constructing a rather large idea for a fundraising campaign and when it's more finely honed I'd love to get some feedback on it. It's very left of centre and though it's not entirely about puppets it would be worth having someone in the same country and craft to look at it and tell me where I'm going wrong.*

Actually I've got the bulk of the rewards figured out, minus pricing everything up. What I want to work on at the moment is development of a decent dialogue/storyline, a prototype for photos, and a strategy for marketing before/during/after. It will include 'toy theatre', shadow-puppet style; and a shadow puppet video.

I'm rather stuck on marketing ideas actually. I need to get into stalls and local craft markets, but I also have quite the social anxiety and am bad at face-to-face retail... so if you have any suggestions on that, let me know. I've been considering small pop-up stores, or window displays, but outside of that and an online marketing strategy I'm at a loss.

-- Hey, while I remember, I'm not sure if you know and maybe you are and maybe I've mentioned it before, but I did a podcast a while back with a QLD'er puppeteer who just this year started his business. He seems to be doing well on the marketing front and the podcast focuses on how he created the business with the NEIS scheme. Worth a listen or a chat to him about how he's doing and exchange of ideas. See #2:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/school-of-puppetry-podcast/id600371728

*You don't want to hear me whinge. If nothing else, it would end up being a very long whinge

Na, sorry to hear of your crisis.  It does sound as though Joe and you are in two different markets, which require two different approaches.  He does the schools, birthday parties etc. and the traditional puppet marketing seems to work for him.  With your ideas, something different is required. 

Have you looked for popup events in your area?  Locally, there is a popup event focused on simple living.  They select a couple of blocks of the street and re-stripe it for a day to be less car-centric and more bicycle centric. During the popup, local businesses open up their doors wider than usual, they look for people to fill empty store fronts.  It's a good pr moment.  It's a thought.

Na, sorry to hear of your crisis.  It does sound as though Joe and you are in two different markets, which require two different approaches.  He does the schools, birthday parties etc. and the traditional puppet marketing seems to work for him.  With your ideas, something different is required. 

Er no not quite. [snip my own stuff... I would like to drop the discussion of Joe and have been requested to do so. Suffice to say the following...]

We use different marketing techniques, not because of the target audience, but because of different concepts about how to market on the net. For more information, read up on white hat vs black hat SEO. It has very little to do with who you are targeting, these techniques are debated and used or avoided no matter what field you're in. They 'work' for anyone of any business type; so it has absolutely nothing to do with what services/products I offer compared to whatever services/products X, Y and Z offer.

Rather than continue barking on about the relevant issues of SEO, let's drop the topic as a sideline and instead return to the issue at hand:

Yes, I do agree that my marketing needs to be done differently than those who perform puppets.

Have you looked for popup events in your area?  Locally, there is a popup event focused on simple living.  They select a couple of blocks of the street and re-stripe it for a day to be less car-centric and more bicycle centric. During the popup, local businesses open up their doors wider than usual, they look for people to fill empty store fronts.  It's a good pr moment.  It's a thought.

I haven't really looked into anything yet. The last couple of months I've been focused on finishing something for a client and so have had very little time to work on my own stuff. I've made a considerably large change to my launch concept in that same time and though the ideas get stronger and better every day it's more because it's slowly fermenting in my mind.

I do have a very small idea that popup events do occur, and in fact I've found a number of local stores that offer display windows, and a couple of possible pop-up stores too. (We have a website for people in my state can look up creative spaces for hire. Extremely handy that!) There's also a few designer/craft markets that specifically look for odd handmade stuff. I know of one that actually offers performance space during the market as well, so I could potentially turn up with a stall/performance. Preliminary discussions with the staff were enthusiastic but that was at least a year or so ago.

Mostly right now I want to focus on developing the launch concept as much as possible, so that I can then approach those places and say "hey, I've got this, would you be interested?" Mostly for the spaces I've looked at though, they're hires which means they'll be more interested in if I can pay than if I have an interesting product.

The tricky bit is that the product is going to be something that taps into a book-reading/puppet/arty audience, one that is also interested in X topic. It's hard to know where to find people into X topic without going online and marketing to an already-captive audience. At the same time, pop-up stores require encouraging people to come along; whereas if I go with a display window I can split the difference. People will already be coming by, and I can make a great display out of the puppets. .... Sigh... I'm better off having this discussion later when I can better reveal/discuss the actual plans. Once people know what the product is, and what it's about then they'll see how tricky it might be to market.

Thanks for the offer for chatting - I might take you up on it later. At the moment I'm still constructing a rather large idea for a fundraising campaign and when it's more finely honed I'd love to get some feedback on it. It's very left of centre and though it's not entirely about puppets it would be worth having someone in the same country and craft to look at it and tell me where I'm going wrong.*

No probs....Looking forward to it.

-- Hey, while I remember, I'm not sure if you know and maybe you are and maybe I've mentioned it before, but I did a podcast a while back with a QLD'er puppeteer who just this year started his business. He seems to be doing well on the marketing front and the podcast focuses on how he created the business with the NEIS scheme. Worth a listen or a chat to him about how he's doing and exchange of ideas. See #2:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/school-of-puppetry-podcast/id600371728

Very funny that Brett and myself are friends on FB. I support his page for Troggg and his business and offered him a few leads with some FB start up empires targeting his exact demographic and I think it helped him alot. He also supports my FB page. But I will check out what the podcast has to say. Thanks

*You don't want to hear me whinge. If nothing else, it would end up being a very long whinge

Dont mind. Anytime!

I think a Milo together would be great! You know I will happily share one with you when you come my way Smiley

I m going to hold you to that Na! We are still looking at 2015 for our trip your way! I can't wait to see all your "stuff" and to see how you make the beautiful things that you do. Yes, I know you have posted videos which are very good, but seeing things in person is even better!

I truly hope things start to look better for you!

No probs....Looking forward to it.

I am currently tidying up some things blog-wise and hopefully will have a new post next week or the week after that will be useful in this discussion. Less about the campaign and more about company names. It will highlight a lot of stuff that goes into what I was saying above about audience expectations and the like. From there I'm not sure as I'd like to have some time off during the holidays. There's some stuff to wrangle and I have no idea when/if I'll be able to reveal more about the campaign; mostly I like to just wing it, but this time I need proper pricing and data before I go into it more.

Very funny that Brett and myself are friends on FB. I support his page for Troggg and his business and offered him a few leads with some FB start up empires targeting his exact demographic and I think it helped him alot. He also supports my FB page. But I will check out what the podcast has to say. Thanks

Should have guessed! It seems if you're into puppets in Australia you'll quickly get to know most of the people doing it. Curious to know what you mean about "FB start up empires"...

Dont mind. Anytime!

Thanks. And we'll see. Some of my plans have a direct need to well, 'tell all'. It's not something I'm entirely comfortable with and at this moment I just want to keep things to myself while I work it all out.

I m going to hold you to that Na! We are still looking at 2015 for our trip your way! I can't wait to see all your "stuff" and to see how you make the beautiful things that you do. Yes, I know you have posted videos which are very good, but seeing things in person is even better!

I truly hope things start to look better for you!

Looking forward to it too! Now all I have to do is make sure there are puppets for you to look at
Currently all hidden away in tubs.

And thank you! 

Hey Na, what is  the address of your youtube channel?

http://www.youtube.com/user/puppetsinmelbourne
(or School of Puppetry can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/puppetryschool)

I wouldn't bother subscribing though. I mean to kill off PIM and everything else before the year is out. (Part of a larger master plan!)

I am currently working on fixing up my Flickr account/s though, and once finalised at the end of tomorrow, you'll be able to browse festival pics as well as past builds-in-progress. Far more interesting than what's on Youtube

Re: above post. The Flickr account is finalised. You can easily browse past festival blogging/other stuff, here:
http://www.puppetsinmelbourne.com.au/blog.php/2013/12/11/a-recap-of-2013-and
Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pupsinmelb/