How To Market To Leatherworkers

[EmbossingDieCompany]

Hi,

I own a small sign business in NY. One of my customers approached me a few months back about making a sign out of leather. She wanted to emboss her logo into leather, so I came up with a process to make large inexpensive leather embossing dies. Now that I have perfected this process, I would like to market it to other leatherworkers and I'm trying to figure out the best way to reach/find them.

I can make a leather embossing die out of almost any text font (I have over 6,000), any graphic, or any logo and soon......any photograph. I can make dies that are 1"x1" up to 24"x24". Whether it is a wedding monogram, a graphic of a lake for small tourist town, a family crest or a business logo for leather coasters......I think it will be popular with hobby and professional leatherworkers.

So, other than a good website.........how do I reach out and find leatherworkers to target market to? I doubt I could ever get my dies into a Tandy store or their catalog......but their customers are the ones I need to reach. The only leatherworker magazine I have come across is Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal....are there any others? I assume there must be leatherworking groups......but I can't seem to find any locally.

So any advice that anyone can give me on the best way to find and market to leatherworkers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

[CitizenKate]

Hi Steve,

Looks like you make a product a lot of leatherworkers would be interested in. As far as this site goes, you are welcome to post information about what you offer in our Marketplace area. (Please do not attempt to advertise in any other forum, other than in direct response to general questions other members ask about products you make.)

We also have a business directory for leatherworkers and suppliers. Basic listings are free, or you can get a premium listing that gets your info seen more for a monthly or annual fee. You can also buy ad space on the forum - PM Johanna to find out more about that.

We are also compiling a list of local guilds, but LCSJ publishes a list of them, if you want to contact them by direct mail.

Kate

[EmbossingDieCompany]

Hi Kate,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Please know that it was not my intention to try advertising in the forums.....I just assumed that the Marketing and Advertising section would be the appropriate place to ask my question and I was simply trying to give some background about myself since I only joined yesterday.

I am a member of other forums and I can appreciate the fact that Members don't want advertisements clogging up a thread.

I know it can also be a fine line between a legitimate post and an advertisement........and I will endeavor not to cross that line.

Thanks again!

Steve

[NoahL]

Hi,

I own a small sign business in NY. One of my customers approached me a few months back about making a sign out of leather. She wanted to emboss her logo into leather, so I came up with a process to make large inexpensive leather embossing dies. Now that I have perfected this process, I would like to market it to other leatherworkers and I'm trying to figure out the best way to reach/find them.

I can make a leather embossing die out of almost any text font (I have over 6,000), any graphic, or any logo and soon......any photograph. I can make dies that are 1"x1" up to 24"x24". Whether it is a wedding monogram, a graphic of a lake for small tourist town, a family crest or a business logo for leather coasters......I think it will be popular with hobby and professional leatherworkers.

So, other than a good website.........how do I reach out and find leatherworkers to target market to? I doubt I could ever get my dies into a Tandy store or their catalog......but their customers are the ones I need to reach. The only leatherworker magazine I have come across is Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal....are there any others? I assume there must be leatherworking groups......but I can't seem to find any locally.

So any advice that anyone can give me on the best way to find and market to leatherworkers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

Hi Steve,

Are these dies that you would need a clicker/press to use, or are they compatible with the stamp handles from Tandy, or do they have their own handles? Or are they something where leatherworkers would need to send their leather to you to have it stamped with the die? I think if you can clarify the service/product a bit more I think it may be easier to work out how best to go about spreading the word.

~Noah

[EmbossingDieCompany]

Hi Noah,

Haha! You're gonna get me in trouble with Kate again!

But to answer your question, it really depends on the size. The plastic itself is pretty thin (about 1/8" at it's thinnest). So it can be used in a clicker (if it's say a 1" round maker stamp), or it can be used with a craft pasta machine (if it's less than 6" wide.......perfect for coasters, bookmarks and belts), or it can be mounted on a thin piece of stainless steel and used with a table top vice (I bought one for less than $20) or hit with a mallet. For larger designs, I had to custom build my own stainless steel press (also not very expensive) that I assume I will have to make available to people who purchase the larger designs (however, it may need to be custom built depending on what the dimensions of the die are).

Hope that answers your question, but I'm not sure how that would affect the marketing of the product.

Steve

[UKRay]

Hi Steve,

I believe the thing to remember is that most craft leatherworkers work at home and only use hand-tools. Anything that requires a mechanical press is often ignored.

Tandy have developed a range of 3D stamps which employ a single standardized form factor that is accepted by most craft leatherworkers as the 'industry standard'. I assume you have investigated these. It is possible to create (or grind off the original to create) a blank stamp that will allow you to fix an embossing plate to it with double sided tape. This can work very well as a tool carrier but it effectively dictates the size of the stamp you can use as a simple hand-tool. Maybe you have found a way around this?

I'd appreciate an explanation of the craft pasta machine please. I have never seen one! I'd also, personally, like some idea how robust these stamps are and what kind of plastic they are made from.

Marketing to craft leatherworkers isn't massively difficult. Explore the media and spend some time understanding where your market goes for their tools and who they trust before spending money on advertising.

My personal advice would be to advertise here on the forum when you feel you understand your product fully and can demonstrate how people can use it effectively. Publish a collection of images in the forum gallery so people can see what can be achieved, spend some time writing an advertisement for the marketplace area and finally make sure you have a good, well written, directory entry.

Explore the hobby press and see which run features on new products, all the usual stuff you would expect really.

Best of luck!

Ray

[NoahL]

Hi Noah,

Haha! You're gonna get me in trouble with Kate again!

But to answer your question, it really depends on the size. The plastic itself is pretty thin (about 1/8" at it's thinnest). So it can be used in a clicker (if it's say a 1" round maker stamp), or it can be used with a craft pasta machine (if it's less than 6" wide.......perfect for coasters, bookmarks and belts), or it can be mounted on a thin piece of stainless steel and used with a table top vice (I bought one for less than $20) or hit with a mallet. For larger designs, I had to custom build my own stainless steel press (also not very expensive) that I assume I will have to make available to people who purchase the larger designs (however, it may need to be custom built depending on what the dimensions of the die are).

Hope that answers your question, but I'm not sure how that would affect the marketing of the product.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I don't think I'll get you in trouble--we are discussing how to go about advertising at this point. It does sound like your products are limited to presses and that does mean you will be cutting out a good portion of craft leatherworkers, just as Ray explains:

I believe the thing to remember is that most craft leatherworkers work at home and only use hand-tools. Anything that requires a mechanical press is often ignored...

I completely agree with this, as I am one of those part-time, home-based leatherworkers that uses all hand tools except for a drill press. It would be possible to make a jig for my drill press to mount these embossing plates but it just isn't convenient and that's a big problem for us part-timers

[CitizenKate]

LOL Nobody's in trouble, it's a perfectly legitimate question. Just explaining the guidelines to the noob, here. Good luck marketing your product.

Kate

[EricDobson]

My standard response to any question about niche marketing is you need to sign up for The Challenge (formerly the Thirty Day Challenge) and go through it, step by step, applying every lesson to the niche you're interested in. This is absolutely the best training available to get started finding and connecting with your potential customers online... and it's free! I've worked personally with Ed Dale, the challenge founder, and he's the real deal. This stuff can change your life.

Enough hype... I just wanted to impress upon you as strongly as possible how much I believe in this, and how much I think it could help you market to a really small specialty group like leatherworkers. It's not an overnight or easy solution, but if you're serious about pursuing this over the long haul, this is how I'd approach it.

[bruce johnson]

Thinking a little inside the box here. At one of the Reno leahter shows a few years ago there was a stamp company who made embossing dies. It was a hard plastic type 8-1/2 x 11 sheet. They would do s many of a single impression or several impressions that would fit that sheet for one price. You could cut them out, attach them to a hardwood block and they got good results with a small arbor press from Harbor Freight. If a guy is taking these kinds of orders, factor the cost of the press into the intial pricing of the order to the customer. I used an arbor press for small dies for a few years. I sized up and sold it. I use some delrin and metal press plates a fair amount. A $200 shop press does that job. For the people that don't have one of these or the room for one, I would bet a little asking around will find someone you know who does. Other options are book presses or woodworkers vices.

[EmbossingDieCompany]

Hi Ray,

I agree with you that Tandy has has created a standardized form of stamp......and I'm certainly not trying to re-invent that. The majority of the Tandy stamps are less that 1" and very generic.......if you want a 3/4" shamrock stamp or a 1" stamp using one of their six available fonts, then Tandy is the way to go, no doubt about it. But what if you want a 4" letter using the Walt Disney font........or an 8" company logo.......or a 4" Damask pattern......or a whole poem? Tandy doesn't offer those......and never will. And if you want to spend $200 or more, then a metal stamp is also the way to go. But my dies are low-cost and designed for limited use or unique projects. Also, my dies do not require a mechanical press (although that would make it easier to use).......some of those pictures I posted were made using a mallet......and almost any of my dies can be used that way......just use the double sided tape technique to mount it on a small piece of stainless steel that I provide.

For the "craft pasta machine".......just type that into Google and you will see a ton of them for sale for less than $25. They're usually sold to people using them for polymer clay.......but in effect, they are a small table top press......you can place one of my dies against a piece of leather (ie. like a coaster shape or a bookmark shape) and run it through the pasta machine......and in less than 2 seconds, your image is embossed on the leather. You could take that same die and run off 100 coasters in less than one hour. It's a neat little machine....but again, limited to six inch widths.

You mention the "hobby press".......I guess that was kind of what I was looking for........the names of some of the publications that leathercrafters read and trust.

Edited September 17, 2010 by EmbossingDieCompany

[Johanna]

Ummmm...the way you get the word out to your target market is to advertise here on leatherworker.net! I'll be happy to set up an account with you that matches needs to budget.

Why do people think of the magazines first when we get over 50,000 unique visitors a week? We're not even in the same ballpark, and we have (I am repeating myself) your target market, right here. Best advertising value for the buck

Johanna

[Spinner]

Ummmm...the way you get the word out to your target market is to advertise here on leatherworker.net! I'll be happy to set up an account with you that matches needs to budget.

Why do people think of the magazines first when we get over 50,000 unique visitors a week? We're not even in the same ballpark, and we have (I am repeating myself) your target market, right here. Best advertising value for the buck

Johanna

Johanna's right. I own 2 copies of the journal (don't even know how I got them) and 3 books. The rest of my learning and the list of suppiers/instructions bookmarks I have all came from this forum and the adverts above.

[funnygirl62221]

Hi,

I own a small sign business in NY. One of my customers approached me a few months back about making a sign out of leather. She wanted to emboss her logo into leather, so I came up with a process to make large inexpensive leather embossing dies. Now that I have perfected this process, I would like to market it to other leatherworkers and I'm trying to figure out the best way to reach/find them.

I can make a leather embossing die out of almost any text font (I have over 6,000), any graphic, or any logo and soon......any photograph. I can make dies that are 1"x1" up to 24"x24". Whether it is a wedding monogram, a graphic of a lake for small tourist town, a family crest or a business logo for leather coasters......I think it will be popular with hobby and professional leatherworkers.

So, other than a good website.........how do I reach out and find leatherworkers to target market to? I doubt I could ever get my dies into a Tandy store or their catalog......but their customers are the ones I need to reach. The only leatherworker magazine I have come across is Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal....are there any others? I assume there must be leatherworking groups......but I can't seem to find any locally.

So any advice that anyone can give me on the best way to find and market to leatherworkers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

I saw the Spock stamp and my nerd meter went to def con 3! How much and where do I get one??

Seriously, I would love to know more about your prices and stamps, especially a maker's mark. And to put my 2 cents in on advertising, the place I look for leatherworking goodies besides Tandy is EBAY. I would definitely check out your website if I saw it at Leatherworker.net too.

[Peter Ellis]

I subscribed for several years to LCSJ. It's a good magazine and probably the best print media outlet for reaching this niche.

But, Johanna is absolutely right. This forum - this community - is the place I come to for ideas and advice about equipment, materials and suppliers. I bought a nearly $3,000 sewing machine from a company that advertises here based on reviews and advice I got here. I'll be buying steel rule dies from an outfit recommended to me by people here. I haven't been able to finalize the design for my maker's mark, but when I do I'll order it made by someone recommended here.

See a pattern ?

[UKRay]

Steve,

I couldn't help but notice that you side-stepped my 'type of plastic' and 'robustness' questions? Perhaps that was an oversight?

Ray

[bkingery]

Ummmm Embossing die dude Where did you go????, I dont know if you realize it or not but on this site there are literally THOUSANDS of people from all over the world that are and could be interested in getting your products and you just disapeared into the wild blue. If it were me I would keep in touch with the people on here, try to do some samples try to find out for real what it is we would want, TEST TO YOUR TARGET. I would personnally like to try out some of your stuff,

Bryan