Quilting a Brand

Even though their resources are limited, individual craftsmen, consultants and service providers share the same requirements as any business. An entrepreneur’s most abundant resource is sweat equity. Still, there are only so many hours in the day and only so many skills one can master. Eventually there always comes a point when either extra hands or expertise has to be procured. Over the years individuals would barter with me for essential branding elements. Anything more was beyond their means. Interestingly, these clients generally are the recipients of some of my best work. I believe it is the combination of their passion giving them the ability to clearly articulate their business with their trusting me to define it for them.

Nancy Fève is one of those clients. Her passion is to quilt. She enjoys teaching and inspiring others to quilt. The business of selling her quilts is a by-product of her exuberant efforts and not the driving force. She commissioned me to create her first web site for her incredible recombinant fabric art quilts. While she was focused on getting her quilts online mine was on assisting her in seeing that a web site is only one piece of many needed to be stitched together to sell her quilts.

Pieces of a Brand

Much as the fabrics used in a quilt set the tone so too do the colors and logo form the basis of a brand’s identity. The identity I created for Nancy Fève Quilts is the foundation fabric she will use in all of the pieces of her marketing efforts. We began with her web site. Visit Nancy Fève Quilts web site.

Nancy Fève Quilts Web Site

Fève needed a product catalog type of web site and she needed to maintain the site herself. Everything has a trade off. Fève had to trade an optimized user interface for an optimized content management system. The following WordPress (WP) features provided her with the web foundation she needed to manage the site on her own:

• Self sufficient content management system
• Built-in powerful search engine optimization
• Integrated with social media
• Well supported by developer community

Unfortunately, WP’s user interface is designed and built for blogging not showcasing products. Interpreting the blogging interface for other purposes is a challenge. I encountered the same problem with the portfolio on this site. I tried a different tactic for Fève’s site.

Bear with me it is going to get a bit technical here. Goldendog.com’s portfolio is comprised of WP “Pages” using hand-coded html navigation for my examples. Fevequilts.com uses WP “Posts” and auto-generated, php navigation for her quilts. Posts are entries on a blog.  By using posts for each quilt an automatically generated excerpt is displayed in the following places on her site: home, categories and search results. It requires no navigation coding from Fève.

The trade off was that our first, user-focus group demonstrated that most people did not realize that each quilt had its own page with a complete description and several photos. They assumed that the thumbnail was all there was. Two more user-focus groups later we had enough way markers to guide users efficiently around the site.

Photo galleries, which are the heart of Fève’s new web site, also presented logistical challenges getting them to work as desired within the prescribed WP format. Using a simple plugin Fève can maintain these elegant galleries herself. For those of you are interested here is a tutorial on creating Nextgen WP galleries.

I always believed that if you want to master a subject try to teach it to someone else. Showing Fève how to manage her new site was an enlightening experience and a true test of my newly acquired WP knowledge. Fève’s confidence grew as she discovered that even when fumbling about, WP is a forgiving program. Although frustrating, her mistakes were fixable. In no time she was comfortable working in the WP dashboard.

Stitching the Brand Together

WordPress kicked open the door for individuals to reap the benefits of dynamic web sites. Basic computer skills allow an entrepreneur, such as Fève, control over content. FaceBook and LinkedIn offer opportunities to network in ways unimaginable 10 or even 5 years ago. Niche-specific online communities have flourished with robust discussion forums. Media outlets such as Twitter and YouTube are free.

Yet this plethora of options with a paucity of real life examples for individual entrepreneurs is confusing to folks like Fève, who have not drunk the social media Kool-Aid. Self-proclaimed apostles of marketing and branding preach overly simplistic best practices guaranteed to yield incredible results using big business examples as proof. When Fève asked me why she needed a FaceBook fan page I did not have successful examples or case studies to demonstrate its usefulness to her.

Clearly the potential is there. Some people are quite successful and others are seeing resources drained with poor results. Social media needs a steady supply of engaging, appropriate and fresh content to succeed. Difficult for someone like Fève whose core business is off line piecing quilts.

Fève is going to try a FaceBook fan page along with traditional marketing options. I for one will be interested in the results. Your comments are welcome.