Marketing Your Work - Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag
In this episode, Robbie O’Brien shares some personal experiences and ideas about how to market your work.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag]
Mailbag question: How do you market your guitars? What worked, and what hasn't worked?
Robert O'Brien: Today's Tips du Jour Mailbag question comes to us from Florida. "Robert, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about how you market your guitars, what worked and what hasn't worked. Mark in Florida."
Very good question, Mark, and one that I actually get quite a bit. Let's, first of all, talk about the progression through the building career.
Guitar building career progression
First of all, here's what usually happens. You build your first guitar, perhaps two or three guitars. Somebody in the family or a close friend notices your work and says, "Hey, can you build one for me?"
Stop right there. First of all, if you want to build a guitar, sure, go right ahead, but you need to charge something. Your work is worth something. Your time is worth something.
Now you need to decide how much that is. Here's what I recommend. First of all, charge materials. At least charge for the materials. Materials are quite expensive these days, so why should it come out of your pocket?
If you charge for at least the materials, this will allow you to keep building more and more guitars and allow you to refine your craft. We all know that any artistic endeavor, not only guitar building, but anything takes a while to hone those skills. So the longer you can keep building and the more you can keep building, the better. So charge for at least materials.
As you progress, as your work gets better, both tonally and visually, then perhaps charge materials plus something else. That's the first thing I recommend.
Find a local charity to donate to
Here's something else that's worked for me. Find a local charity. Now that can be a win-win situation for both you as the builder and the charity. Charities are always looking for ways to make money. Look for one that is going to have a fundraiser. You can either donate or sell, at a symbolic rate, the guitar.
Sometimes the charities will even have a meet-and-greet with the artist, people that have donated or sold things to the charity, and they'll have a local auction, and you can go and get the brand recognition, name recognition, hand out some business cards at the event.
You also get the satisfaction or the pleasure of seeing a charity make some money, and this can help benefit a lot of people depending on what the cause is. So charities is a great outlet as well, and the one that will also give you some type of business return.
Getting your guitar into the hands of a known musician
Here's another question I get a lot.
"Robert, there's a local player here that's just fantastic. I'd love to give him one of my guitars."
All right, once again, pump the brakes. Here's my experience. Who benefits, the luthier or the player?
Well, here's the benefit to the player. He gets a free or drastically reduced price on a fantastic playing and sounding instrument, in most cases, depending on how far you've developed your skills. He or she usually also promises, "Hey, I'm going to promote the heck out of you as the builder and show everybody this guitar."
Now you as a builder get the benefit of saying, "Hey, so-and-so plays my guitar." Now, that could be good or bad depending on how famous they are. The promise of, "Hey, I'm going to promote the heck out of you and your guitars" usually doesn't pan out, so don't give away guitars based on that.
Another benefit that you as a luthier get is if you have a small shop and you need to get rid of some guitars and create some space, well, hey, you just gave one away, and you created some more space. That could be a benefit as well. But I don't generally recommend giving away guitars. I think you need to value your skills and your time.
Here's what I've done for people that are players and have somewhat of a name. I reduce the price of the instrument and the rate that I usually work on is about 20%. That way, it's a win-win for both of you. The player has some skin in the game. He's invested as well. I think that if he really likes your instrument and wants to play it, then he should pay for it. And if you want to reduce that, hopefully you can work out some type of deal. What I usually work on is about 20%.
Now with that said, if a David Russell or a Carlos Santana or somebody wanted a guitar, yeah, I'd probably give him one.
Here's something else that could be a downside to that. I've heard of guys giving away guitars to big name players. The player will play it once or twice, and then he winds up putting it on eBay or selling it at a profit because he has nothing invested. And usually they wind up making more money pocketing more money than you as the builder. I think that's a real bummer for you as a builder and a truly sad story. So try and avoid that situation.
Take your guitars to gigs
Here's another idea. Show up at a gig with one of your guitars or a sample of your work. Now I'm a little introverted. I don't like the limelight. Now I know you guys are finding that hard to believe, but when I'm off-camera, I'm actually really quiet and shy. So I don't like taking my guitars to gigs and trying to push them on artists.
There are some drawbacks to that. First of all, you're interrupting a sound check or a meet-and-greet after the show or even before the show, and the artist is more focused on what he has to do that evening. He or she won't give you the time that you need to actually evaluate that instrument. Because the idea is to get an instrument into somebody's hands and let them evaluate it. Usually the people are so busy and polite that they're not going to give you that no-holds-barred opinion that you seek. Now, if you're in the beginning of your career and you're seeking that acceptance or that approval from an artist saying, "Wow, this is a great instrument," you're not going to get it.
Now, a lot of the luthiers that I know that have been doing this for years and years no longer need that approval or that acceptance from the artist or the playing world, in general. They're already very secure in what they do, what their tone is, and what the visual aspects of the instrument are. So they don't need that so why even go to places like that? I'm not saying don't do it, but it really hasn't worked for me.
Social media marketing
The old way of marketing, taking out ads in magazines and things like that, I've done a bit of that. It hasn't really worked well for me.
In today's world of marketing on social media, that's what I focused on, and it's free so why not take advantage of that? So that's what I've done, and it's also worked fairly well for me with virtually no expense.
So, Mark, those are some thoughts or some ideas that I have from personal experience about how to market guitars. I'm sure there's some ideas that I'm leaving out, but this is what has worked for me, and I think if you try some of these ideas, I think you'll have some success. So happy building and happy marketing.
[on-screen text reads: More Luthier Tips and online courses available at www.obrienguitars.com. Private and small group guitar building and finishing instruction available.]
