Is there anything more satisfying than crafting your own products that you love using and believe in? You can take your passion for design and create your own brand of unique goods, like jewellery, clothing, or accessories, that you feel confident will sell well. The beauty of these products is that you get to take your pick from a range of brilliant styles and bright, vibrant colours that you know your customers will love.
You can put your talent to good use and develop your own products for sale online with a blog. It’s easy to set up a blog with WordPress.com, and you can use their free, easy-to-use tool, E-Book Form, to create an e-book featuring your crafting skills and style. Your e-book doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to be good enough to entice customers to purchase your products. Once you’ve established yourself as a talented designer with a solid following, you can apply for merchant accounts with reputable payment services like Stripe or Paypal, which will give you the confidence to accept credit cards on your site.
Pick A Niche
As a beginner, it’s important to pick a niche. The term ‘niche’ refers to a small group of people or a specific community you aim your products at. For example, if you are passionate about designing jewellery, but want to create stylish, affordable earrings for the average person, you might want to explore designing hair clips or brooches.
When choosing a niche, it’s important to consider the type of product you’ll need to create in order to fill a gap in the market. You don’t want to choose a niche that is already well-served by competition. For example, if you are passionate about designing men’s suits, but there are already many high-quality, affordable suit designers in the market, consider becoming a haberdasher or a custom tailor.
Choose The Right Blog Platform
If you’re just starting out, you might want to consider going with a free blogging platform, like WordPress.com. These are easy to use and don’t require any technical know-how, which is great if you’re looking to establish a web presence quickly. Plus, you can use their free platform to set up your blog in less than ten minutes.
When choosing a blogging platform, make sure that you are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each. For example, WordPress.com has a good amount of built-in functionality, such as a search engine optimized (SEO) platform and a drag-and-drop page builder, but lacks the design flexibility of a custom platform.
Make Sure You Research The Market For Your Product
When entering the world of product design, it is important to do your research. Familiarise yourself with the market for your product and become an expert in your chosen niche. If you want to sell well-designed jewellery, for example, you’ll need to know a little about the market for gold and diamond jewellery. Furthermore, you’ll need to identify key competitors and study their designs and pricing structures. Are there any design trends that you need to avoid? What are the major retailers, brands, and design houses doing currently that you can use to make your product stand out? Key industry information and trends can be found in industry reports or through word of mouth from experts in your niche. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty by doing some research!
Establish Your Design Style
Every product designer’s journey is slightly different. When you start out, it’s important to establish a design style that you’ll use consistently across your projects. This way, you can ensure that your work will look cohesive and that your customers will recognise your signature look.
In the beginning, you might want to take a “trial-and-error” approach, making several prototypes with different materials, dimensions, and designs. You can use these trials to establish the elements that make up your design style. Is there a particular type of wood or metal that you find most suitable for your projects? What type of inlay (e.g. marble, stone, or ceramic) do you prefer? What shapes do you like to see your products in?
Choose An E-book Platform
If you decide that you want to publish an e-book featuring your work, you have numerous options to choose from. If your product is designed using a particular platform or software (e.g. Photoshop, Sketch, or InDesign), you can easily find detailed information on how to format the book in that software. Remember, though, that your e-book will need a cover, so don’t forget to take that into consideration when choosing the platform.
Think About Marketing And Promotion
Once you’ve established your blog with a decent amount of content, it’s time to start thinking about marketing and promotion. What’s the point of having a blog if no one finds out about it? You can set up a basic Google alert for your blog’s URL so that you’ll be notified whenever someone searches for your blog’s name or URL. You can then respond with a helpful, informative guide that features your work. Are there any events or exhibitions that you can take your product to? Is there an online community that you can get involved in, where you can promote your blog and product?
Marketing and promotion is a large part of the success of any small business. When it comes to promoting your blog and product, you have two options: paid ads and SEO. Paid ads are expensive but can get you highly targeted traffic, if you’re aware of the right keywords. SEO takes a bit more work but can get you free, organic traffic from Google searches that relate to your product.
Make Some Money
Finally, we need to talk about the most important point in any guide like this — how to make money. There are several options, some more reliable than others. However, if you’re looking to make some quick cash, you can become a freelancer and sell your services to companies or individuals who have a product to promote. Just make sure that you establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field and create a portfolio of previous work.
On the more traditional route, you can start an Etsy shop. Etsy is the worlds #1 marketplace for handmade and artisanal goods. If you’ve got a product that you think would look fabulous in a gorgeous, hand-crafted bag, you can start an Etsy shop to sell your products. Plus, you can also take your pick from a range of brilliant, high-quality products from independent designers.
If none of the above seem like a fit, you can start your own design company and design product for clients. There are many different ways to make money as a designer, so find what works best for you.