HandMade Candle Business

She could set up an online store at etsy or bonanza they bring some traffic to you. Maybe write articles about it for a blog and article marketing too. PPC really isn't a waste of money it gives you targeted traffic.

I think putting an ad in your local newspaper would be a great idea. Ever thought about giving out business cards or flyers/brochures to friends and family. Word of mouth travels faster than most people think.

You could also try calling up a local candle store and try to work out a deal that would allow you to sell your wife's candles at their store.

Anyways, good luck

Jake

Advertise herself on Facebook. Have her own site made. Place classified ads in Gumtree and Craigslist. You try as many options as possible. Hand out flyers and also put some up. Hand out business cards. Email everyone she knows and ask them to tell everyone they know.

Create a wordpress blog and go to iwriter and have some articles written around this niche, from what I see you should be able to rank quite easily.

I have already gathered a list of keywords for you that will give you the quickest rankings, if you want to go that route I'll PM them to you.

Trade shows. Whatever style of candle she is making, target that kind of trade show. I have a friend of mine who just recently died (sudden heart attack). He was a multi millionaire from his candle business (half a million bucks in his pocket after taxes EVERY quarter). He started in his moms basement a long time ago and struggled until he started going to trade shows.

After he started hitting trade shows his business exploded and he was able to hire sales people etc. to get his products distributed all over the planet.

Keep in mind he was the first to make this kind of candle and he had a lot of copycats after. He also spent a lot of money on lawyers fighting people to uphold his patent.

After the economy flopped in the states his business took a huge hit but he was still able to keep on going, just not as strong. He had some tax problems too which took a toll on him. Sadly, the extreme stress of keeping up his business is what gave him his heart attack. A sad catch 22.

A great idea!
She could try out with social media marketing targeting specific groups who may be interested on the product.
Additional,i also agree with some warrior here that an online store can work a great deal.

I built a website several years ago, I mean several times 3 lol. The biggest thing that made it successful is the teaching aspect of it.

Don't let her think in terms of promoting those candles. Let her think of it as a trade school where she teaches, and then a gift shop on the side, yeah wait till I'm finished before yah start barking at me!

Now we need a blog or TWO. One will do though. A blog with a membership site and an online store. We need some videos on there promoting her what she does what she has to offer.

The blog needs to be very interactive because the more interactive you are with your following the more successful you will be.

Now she needs to open that membership site and put free on it. Start with the basics.

Later she can start with intermediates and advanced and open a paid section.

Don't roll too fast as it will only make you trip.

Something like that if you have really good content will be picked up by the serps for sure and propelled, also youtube videos should be a hit as well.

Not going to tell you how to promote though since you can go to the wso's and find youtube programs and such and not going to point to any of mine.

I will point you to a man that built a site with his dad in a niche similar and is very successful and someone you should follow. We all should. this is a very wise man and I listen to him all the time.

View Profile: DustonMcGroarty

I hope that helps you and know it doesn't answer your question completely but if you follow that link I think you will get all the answers you want.

A very, very well-done site that shows off the candles and the reason to buy them over just driving to Yankee Candle, along with Product Listing Ads in Google, can be both simple and totally effective.

I've seen it done. I also recommend Shopify for the store. Online shoppers can't smell these candles, so product photos will be key. Get them professionally photographed.

For a good example, check out All Natural Soy Candles By Diamond Candles

^agreed. Professional photos make a HUGE difference, by the way.

There's lots of good advice in some of the posts.

Here's the thing to know about marketing. It isn't about PPC or Facebook or newspaper ads or direct mail, etc. Any of those can work and any of them can fail. The first thing you need to identify is who are the people most interested in these or most likely to be interested in these? In other words who is already buying scented candles? Targeting is the first most important part of marketing, if you pay for advertising of any type that's targeting the wrong kind of people you're going to fail either by not getting sales or not enough sales to justify the costs of the ads.

Then you need to figure out what people are really buying when they buy your products (hint, they aren't buying scented candles, they might be buying a calming feeling or ambiance, etc.) and why they are buying them. This will help you to formulate an attractive offer. If you have a great targeted offer to present to a target rich market in high density then it doesn't matter nearly so much whether you reach them by Facebook or newspaper or in a gift shop or at a home candle party so long as the message gets through to them.

The lowest hanging fruit for her will be her personal network of connections but she's still got to figure out how to package it right so it's attractive. Here's a thought, do an exchange with spas, offer to help them with email or online marketing in trade for them selling her candles to their clients and including the candles in their emails as a new special offer. By you assisting them it's a win-win (I'd probably give them a percentage regardless) and because you're doing the marketing for the spa you can ensure there's great presentation of your wife's candles in there. You might even get the spas to buy them for use there. This raises another option, go to a massage therapist convention or something and promote the candles to the therapists to use in their massages (they often do this anyway so it's just a matter of convincing them to use yours instead of someone else's and i doubt they are that loyal). You might even convince the therapists to sell the candles to their clients if the clients like the candles. Through something like this you can also offer a discount on a massage to anyone who buys a candle to help the therapists who are in your network and create a win-win.

These are of course just front end channels and haven't addressed the question of what the compelling offer is. Once she gets going she'll also need to pay attention to repeat business and maximizing each client, which is a whole other strategy.

I wanted to show you a picture...I just went and took this. This is the large candle. Ignore the paper plate I put it on! ...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfplnl2jjc...2014.47.56.jpg

Jamie, you have gotten a ton of great advice here! I just wanted to add a few ideas, take em' or leave em'.

I had a restaurant on a rural highway. Lot's of tourists during the summer. One of the locals used to sell her candles, sugar scrubs, lotions, and soaps in my place. What made her stand out is:

1. She was local. Don't panic here! Local people have friends all over the world! Word of mouth is amazing. The tourists made it even more "viral".

2. Her products were original. What I mean by this is, she would even place pressed flowers in soaps and candles... you get the idea? No two were alike...

3. She was easy to contact. That didn't mean her products had to be there the next day, quite the opposite actually, she would make them wait. She wanted her products to be "worth waiting for". Her buyers knew they were getting something she made just for them. She also had easy to order items, but she included "make your own scent" kind of features.

Her items weren't just in my little rural restaurant. She was all over the two bigger cities, and in two big cities (Portland and Salem).. she got there from word of mouth, and using the above advise to market herself.

It can happen! I wish you and your wife lots of luck!

~ Theresa

Look for distributors. They're the shops around town where you can deliver several candles a week, and they'll sell them to their foot traffic.

Trade shows were mentioned earlier, and I hope you thought it was a good idea! Get out there and target people who wanna buy a candle, and more importantly the people who will sell your candles for you.

We have a big Candle Factory in town, and her candles are sold in stores all over the state. Why search for 1 sale when you could search for 10 sales per week? That's how she got started, in the basement.. getting in stores. When she opened a storefront next to the interstate.. everyone already knew and loved her brand! Within 3 years she had to build a newer, much bigger building just to handle all the people.

Plus her candles are awesome.

First of all crazy join date! And only 20 or so posts wow! Anyway, facebook is a really good way to go, but first set up a store on wordpress or ebay, and start a fanpage. If she shares it to her freinds, and ten they share it to help her out, and then those friends share it, its a good way to go viral.

Try putting an ad in American Classifieds. They are national and I think the last quarter page ad I did was around $250, but the response was massive. It would probably work well for you.

Something that may work to get local customers is if you have a radio station that has a "trading" spot where folks call in selling their items. You may be able to place an ad there, people tend to be listening closely to find things they may buy.

Here is what you can do if you do not have a site up but want folks to start buying:
1. Set up an eBay account.
2. Set up an auction or two.
3. Create an about Me page.
4. Register a domain.
5. Create a subdomain name and redirect them to your about Me page on eBay here is an example of ours eBay View About Me for ventaselect

Remembering your domain name is a lot easier for your clients or for ads that will be placed over the radio...then later you can set up a website with wordpress using woocommerce and when you create a nav button for auctions you use the link you created to direct your customers to your auctions. *Tip when yo are starting out also redirect your main domain to the eBay about Me page till you set up your website should someone only remember your domain name.

Be sure to pm me your sales site I enjoy scented candles they make great gifts too.

Wish you the best,
Ann (Mom Internet)

I have a literal candle factory in the garage. The wife uses them so much that its cheaper to just make them, and I went all out, buying molds, digital turkey fryers..etc. I had a lot of people asking me for them so I started selling them to whoever wanted.

What i learned is that there are a hell of a lot of people that make candles and many of them have been doing it for a long time are are at the 'artisian' level of candle making. So if you're just pouring wax into a mold or a mason jar, cut your losses now because you probably won't do much

You need to have a 'catch'..something that sets you apart from everyone else.

If you're doing container candles, then you need to do funky containers, because anyone can buy a bulk of glass candle containers from containers-r-us.com. What I did was looked around on ebay and found bail wire fruit jars. Many people collect them for various things and at the time I could buy them for about $1 ea. They easily sell for 3-4 bucks by themselves. I poured candles in them and by the time everything was all said and done, i had about $1.75 in a candle that i could sell all day long for $8 and not even break a sweat about it. Some wanted the candle, some wanted the jar, some wanted both. Your local salvation army is also a good source for funky little containers to pour candles in.

For pillar candles, I used to make 'surprise' candles. I bought various kinds of polished stones. They were nothing of real value, just really neat looking stones and then went to the flea market to a jeweler and bought a batch of semi-precious stones. Nothing high end, stuff like turqoise, topaz..etc. When pouring into the mold i'd drop a couple of the nothing stones and 1 semi precious (usually toward the end of the pour) so that as the candle burned down, the stones would be revealed. The catch was that I marketed these as GoldMine candles, pointing out that they had semi-precious stones in them

The semi precious stones are usually really cheap because most people don't want to buy them. I bought the entire batch that i used for $70, was able to make 30 candles and sell them for $15 each and they moved pretty quick

The point is if your wife is just starting out and not necessarily skilled as an expert candle maker, then she needs a 'hook' to make her candles worth buying over the other guy who is making a seriously good looking candle because they have been doing it for years

Here's my suggestion.

1) Pick a charity you like. Kids charity, breast cancer something like that. Donate 10% to that charity and use that as your advertising hook.

2) Put them on etsy for some instant sales.

3) Start an eCrater online store, it's free.

You need a marketing hook and the charity will really help. Etsy is the obvious choice for handmade goods, but you will have some fees. Build the eCrater store in the background. They are very professional but not well advertised, you have to do that yourself.

Once you get popular enough you can drive most of your traffic to your eCrater store where you will have no fees.

I had a similar business last year (though not candles). While I ultimately decided to pursue other things, I did pretty well while I did it.

I built a website, linked to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I listed the items for sale on Etsy and used their paid promotion tools.

I used SocialAdr for my Twitter account and gained some followers that way. I don't have tons of friends on Facebook, but I asked them to "like" my newly created Facebook page, and got about 40 likes. I built up my Pinterest page to about 2k followers, then posted all of my items on there as well. The items I was selling were $12-20 each, but only cost me $1.50-3.25 in materials, so I could afford to give them away.

Here's where I really took off, though. I gave away two of my items free every month, one on Twitter and one on Facebook. I posted a photo on Facebook saying I would give this item away for free to a random person who liked my page. I then posted the photo to my followers on Pinterest, made sure I noted that the item was to be given away on Facebook and to like me in the comments, and watched my Facebook page grow. Basically, I used each social media platform to promote the other, if that makes sense. I asked my Facebook users to retweet something on Twitter to get a chance at another free item, and gave one to a Twitter user. I asked my Facebook and Twitter followers to follow me on Pinterest as well. Always make sure you announce who the lucky winner was, just so people know it's not a scam and you really followed through with giving the item away.

I know I can always go back and pursue this again if I wanted to, but between my day job and some other things I'm working on, I've decided to let it go for now to go after some easier money. But it works.

Hi,
I had a hand made candle business years ago also. It's a hard business to break into because of the cheap imports and other competition. Etsy is one of the best sites to showcase her work. You can set-up a "Yahoo" store but candles are a product that sell best when people can see, touch and smell them.

I had very good luck with home party sales. Have others sell for her, go to local shops and negotiate to have them carry her product. Consider teaming up with a wedding shop, spa, florist, and gift shops.

Also offer a monthly subscription gift service where you send a different scent to the recipient each month for a flat one-time fee. This is a popular candle gift service offered online.

Market her candles as different and special than others. For example soy candles, hand made and smokeless.

Hope this helps.

Yep, candle biz is very competitive. There will be lots of consolidation between major manufacturers over the next few years, due to cheaper imports, especially in the cheap to mid price mainstream stuff. You must go very high end and custom, something foreign makers find tough to do.

Do your homework, candle making comes with enormous liability. YOU are introducing FIRE into peoples' homes. The chemistry is complicated w/ various ingredients and amount of fragrance. Putting in flowers and objects causes candles to burn unevenly and can make them collapse down a side, creates a very unstable candle and jacks up the risk of fire tremendously.

Make SURE you have commercial liability insurance. It is a must. Do burn tests on your candles before you sell them, for every different variety candle you sell.

Does anyone have luck selling individual candles on ebay, amazon, etsy etcc? Can you make a buck or two when considering shipping/handling/packaging?

Thanks.

I'm finding this thread very interesting. Not candle related and not trying to hijack your thread, but my cousin has been making soap for years and other then giving it away or selling to just a few friends she really needs to get started selling, plus she could use the income.

So I am looking at the responses here to see how I can help her along and to get started.

Rhia

My wife is a scented candle fanatic... but she would never buy from an online source. Why? She's the type where she needs to hold the candle, physically inspect the candle and see if she likes the scent.

just my $0.02 on the topic.

Thanks

First of all I want to ask you that Do you think if you get orders online, can you complete the orders? as you mentioned your wife makes them at home so how many candles can she make in a day???
Why don't you target your local area, then go for the whole city and then further.

Make a facebook and twitter page. Get your real friends to like and follow so that others see it and like and follow as well. Go to flea markets and craft fairs and have your business card with the website on it. Once you have a decent amount of FB and Twitter followers do a contest and give away from free candles for "liking and sharing." Put the craft fairs you are going to in "events." Start a Pintrest account with beautiful pictures of the candles. Ask local stores (mom and pop type shops) if they would like to carry the candles- tag them with your website.

I would think your chances are better offline in gift shops than online where there is so much competition.

I would ordinarily recommend Etsy as an excellent way to market your product but I just did a search on Etsy for "homemade candles" and got over 4500 results. I know you know that your products are better than most, but unless you can convince potential customers of that, you're simply part of the crowd. You might also try Shopify.com.

This is a good example of a succesfull offline business that can become a success online as well