Developing a marketing strategy is important before beginning to market. Think of attempting to conduct a laboratory exercise without a procedure to follow. The marketing strategy should be part of your overall business plan. Two key areas to focus on are making your business different than the competition and targeting your specific niche.
Creating Product Differential
- a stylish/professional website
- emphasize quality workmanship
- offer more/different types of equipment than your competitors
- offer a variety of classes
- have a good image
Targeting a Niche
Consider the following characteristics when targeting your niche:
- demographic (gender, age and occupation)
- behaviour (attitudes, product knowledge)
- psychographic (personality, lifestyle and values)
Two Phase Approach
A makerspace offers a unique product and therefore requires a unique marketing approach, the best of which contains two phases :
1. Initially to establish the makerspace, direct marketing towards engineers, artists, inventors and trades people and local tech/engineering focused schools. This will help to grow the makerspace in a few ways; income from memberships and potential part-time staff to run classes.
2. After the makerspace is established, begin to offer classes for younger, more inexperienced clientele. These young pupils might go off to college and study a subject related to what they were introduced to in the makerspace. Makerspaces are helping to create a new generation of engineers and scientists. A younger clientele might help increase the numbers and bring something new to the makerspace.
Marketing Tools
For any good marketing strategy to work, an arsenal of marketing tools to help spread the news should be employed. Some of those tools and how they can help you grow your makerspace are listed below:
Website/Social Media (i.e. Facebook, Meet Ups)
Below are a list of items to include on the website:
- photos and description of the facilities and tools
- photos and biographies of the management members
- photos of past work
- testimonials
- list classes offered with a calendar
- monthly focus on a particular member and their work
- a running blog on the site to keep people updated on makerspace news
Magazines
Put an advertisement or invite Make Magazine to write an article about your makerspace.
Advertise in the Local Community
- Run advertisements and offer interviews in local newspapers
- Local television advertisements and programs
- Offering free beginner classes
- Offering free memberships for people that will run sessions (offer this to local tradespeople or engineers)
- Getting involved in local events and volunteering to ‘make’ stuff for them
- Monthly newsletter could be distributed as a hard copy and also kept on the website for viewing.
- Promotional flyers that specifically target local college and university campuses, high schools, local shops, community centre and bus stops
Discussion: If you were opening up a makerspace in your local community and your marketing budget was limited, what cost-effective marketing strategy would you employ, and why?
Discussion Summary: After the ETEC522 2013 Winter Term 1 cohort discussion of marketing strategies for the week, it became clear that the strategy employed will strongly depend on your local community. Below is a list of some of the new ideas presented throughout the week:
- Advertising at tech clubs, local universities and with university alumni
- podcasts
- inviting local business leaders for a tour
- editorial coverage
- setting up a booth at a local education centre or event
- host an event at the makerspace
- hold a contest to support local innovation
- offer referral bonuses and vouchers
- develop strong ties with local schools and making it more appealing to kids
Please view the cohort experience in the comments below. If you are accessing this OER after November 3, 2013, you are welcome to further contribute to the discussion.
| ←Last Page |
Knowing what I know about Monterrey and how information flows from one person to another, advertising would be relatively cheap. People here use 3 main forms of communication, WhatsApp, Facebook and parties. Throw a party in your makerspace and people will come for 2 reasons, people like to be seen, there is a high level of social pressure to attend everything here and people are genuinely curious about anything new.
Thank you for your post. Throwing a party in your makerspace is a great idea and as you say very cost effective as well. I found your reasons for people attending this type of event particularly interesting. I’d like to hear what others have to say about social pressures to attend these types of events. Where may this type of marketing work best or maybe not work as well?
It seems to me that the best method of advertisement for a small scale makerspace would be to target the types of people who would be interested in purveying such a space. Advertising at local universities, purposeful marketing towards tech clubs, social media such as meetup groups would also be a way to direct hobbiests to the makerspace. Podcasts and television shows that are target for builders and craft makers would be another way to advertise directly to the preferred audience.
Living in a small town of approximately 900 people, I would print flyers to post in local businesses: the post office, grocery store, and liquor store. As well, I would invite the local business leaders to come and tour the space and ask them to spread the word throughout the community. In my community, as soon as the respected long-time residents advocate for something, it is unwaveringly supported.
You responses so far, really demonstrate how important knowing your community is to marketing. It is definitely not a one size fits all approach. I love the idea of throwing a party, and many makerspaces do rent out for special events. In the Youtube video on TechShop (see Sample of a makerspace) Mark Hutch CEO, talks about having parties where they drink champagne and use heavy equipment:)
If budget was an issue (it always is), I would try to get free editorial coverage by preparing an engaging description of my makerspace and targeting well-known maker bloggers or in a smaller community, local press. Editorial tends to get great response, but it’s hard to get, so you need to write some good, targeted copy, know the publication/media outlet you’re writing to and personalise the press release/letter. You also need to do some digging and find out names/emails etc. so you know who to send it to. If you get a response, then you might have the opportunity to present some results of the makerspace in action (art/product/etc), which is always the best advertisement.
Also setting up a booth in education centres, at fairs, in commercial centres (malls) with mini maker projects would be a great way for people to interact with the maker tools/mind set/environemnt and potentially spark interest. Along with that, providing PD sessions to schools or workshops for kids are a great way to get the word out.
Great idea, setting up booths could really generate some interest. Makerspaces have the ability to produce some pretty incredible creations, putting them up for display could really attract potential clientele.
Thanks for the post!
I feel getting kids hooked is the most important. Tobacco and McDonalds know this. I see a lot of workshops advertised with making useless little baubles that would be attractive to kids. Once one of the neighbourhood kids is cruising the streets with a custom water bottle holder (okay, might need to work on my hook), everyone will want in.
I would post messages on the e-mail bulletin boards for both the school district and college staff. I would also put posters and announcements in both the high school and college to attract students. In addition, I would set up an information booth at the trade fair as well as the high school and community ‘Presentation of Learning days’, where schools showcase the work done by their students.
Some very good ideas to get started. Another factor to consider are popular communication tools used by students in your area. Are they on instagram, facebook? These pages might draw more attention than just the email bulleting boards – especially if you put in some pics of cool projects.
I would use my social media to let my circle of friends spread the word. Facebook get an idea moving quickly and easily.
Also, Twitter could be used as well. With some flyers or posters in like minded venues a twitter account could be advertised to follow. Tweets about new items or project people are working on in the space may interest some to try it out.
Good point Lois. Social media today is key for spreading the word especially amoungst 20/30 somethings. Younger people tend to be migrating towards instagram and other social media tools, but Facebook and Twitter are still popular with the 25+ crowd. Knowing your age demographic and what tools are popular is important for marketing. Someone here said that in their community a different app was popular.
Through the readings this week, I have gained an appreciation for how specialized these maker spaces can be. In several of the readings, it has been mentioned that those with post-secondary education are the likely users of such a space. Engineers, in particular are named, as are high tech employees.
I hesitate to be so emphatic, but I think University Alumni groups should gather together and create makerspaces. They would likely have the skills and interest. And they would likely have social connections, through work/life/alumni group itself to market such a venture.
Maybe it is a crazy idea, or maybe it is already being done, but it makes sense to me that alumni groups and makerspaces seem a natural fit. Diane
Great suggestion. I never thought of targeting that specific group. Local college/university alumni groups could be a very fruitful group to target.
Thanks for the post!
I think a great way to connect with people is Social media. Creating a FB page or twitter account looking for individuals that would interested in pursuing the same venture would be a great way to advertise and connect plus, both mediums are free. Another great way is word or mouth, talking to people, sharing your thoughts is another great way to creative excitement and to spread the word about ones ideas!
These are both good suggestions. Interesting, and refreshing, that one suggestion is high tech and the other low tech. This is a reminder to look for both simple and more complex marketing strategies.
Marketing to the three post secondary institutions as well as the Vancouver Island Tech Park would be critical elements of a makerspace marketing strategy in Victoria. Holding events at these locations would be important to making direct connections with those that may be interested in becoming makerspace members. Setting up “mini-makerspaces” to allow individuals the chance the experiment with the idea of makerspace could be attractive to many young, tech savvy or do-it-yourself types. A Victoria makerspace would also need to be supported by a strong, local social media presence as well as a publicized annual event, such as a contest that promoted local innovations. This way individuals can have the opportunity to learn more about makerspaces online, through the exceptional work of a member or by experimenting with the spaces themselves.
Once a makerspace is established a tactic could be donated or discounted, branded products to businesses in high-traffic areas. A customised display case bearing the brand if the makerspace could attract a lot if attention to the space and possibly kick off demand for similar projects. I tend to see makerspaces turning to factory-style production by offering members with spare time incentives to participate in image generating projects.
Some other marketing tactics are:
1) ‘Refer a friend and redeem your prize’
This is a stronger marketing tactic than a passive ‘tell someone you know about us’.
The refer-a-friend tactic will require design and printing of vouchers that promote a prize to be redeemed by a member or their guest when the guest uses or joins the Maker Space. The prize is likely some kind of discount – e.g. reduced membership fee, reduced class fee or one free class, x% discount on hire space booked between particular dates, and so on.
A digital version of the voucher can run alongside printed vouchers and be run through social media (FB, MeetUp, other sites).
2) ‘Vouchers on retail receipts’
Contact the marketing managers of the petrol station brands or supermarket brands in the area and try to negotiate the printing of a voucher (or small advertising message) on their local store customer receipts. Petrol stations will have the largest consumer base in the local community, so using them as a marketing channel makes sense. Likewise, supermarkets have a wide reach. This tactic is one way to get a message about the Maker Space to a lot of people. Ideally, it doesn’t cost much and you would negotiate the message to run for 2 to 3 months.
3) ‘PR magnet’
Think of a novel event to hold related to the Maker Space and do the pre and post publicity for the event.
Make sure to hold the event on a weekend to attract community members (ideally a competition intending to make something intriguing using maker space tech skills). It might be only members of the Maker Space participating or it could be community members at large (depending on equipment and tools required). The essential thing is to think of an event that has a competition theme and that will involve doing something intriguing (e.g. “Make the biggest 3D banana competition”). Anything novel attracts a crowd.
However, the crowd will need to know beforehand that the event is happening. So, try to get some publicity in local media (radio/press) and also in social media. If you are holding a novel event, and it’s a competition of some kind, the radio/press organisations will probably be interested to run a short publicity message. You would need to contact the media organisations and send them a ‘media release’ (1/2 to 1 page media statement ensuring it includes Maker Space contact details and name of event organiser) a few days leading up to the event. Make a courtesy call to each media organisation after you send the information to make sure they got it.
While the competition is happening, take photos. Then upload those to social media with a catchy paragraph or two. Send the same photos and a summary to local media for them to run a short after-event message (they may not do it if they gave pre-event publicity but it’s worth a shot). Make sure the message clearly states the location and contact details for the Maker Space.