Finding Your Niche: Keen Peachy Stationery

This post is part of our Best Next Step series, where you will hear from creative business owners like you, who are wondering what to focus on next. The background stories and questions are from all kinds of businesses in various stages of growth, and I share my ideas for how to proceed forward most efficiently and ambitiously. I hope you’ll enjoy these! Today we’re hearing from Keen Peachy Stationery and we’ll explore finding your niche.

Keen Peachy

Business: Keen Peachy
Owner: Amanda Ngur
Site: keenpeachy.com
Minted shop: Keen Peachy on Minted

Below are screenshots of Amanda’s website and associated shops:

About:

My business is named Keen Peachy, and it is a design and stationery business. I sell art prints, greeting cards, tags, stationery. My work can be found in the Keen Peachy Etsy shop, on Minted, and soon on Paper Culture, and I have an art print currently being sold by West Elm. Keen Peachy is unique because it’s bold, modern, colorful, and has my unique perspective. Keen Peachy’s business personality/style is colorful, modern, considerate, professional, and high-quality.

Challenges:

I started Keen Peachy in March 2013, and I think one of the things I’m struggling with is finding my clear voice and niche. I love many different kinds of art and design, so it’s hard for me to pinpoint where I want to go and harder yet to find my own style. I think I’m torn between where I should put my focus.

I have limited time to work on projects and promote them. There are opportunities that I have with online stationery sellers (if designs are selected), and then opportunities for work sold on my own when there is time. One of the biggest things since I work full-time is finding the biggest return for my time spent, but I’m scattered!

Objectives:

My potential next steps include rebranding my logo and collateral to better reflect the modern side of my work. I have been trying to finish my business plan (cart before the horse, I know!) for months, but new work comes up and it is put on the back burner. That said, my goal is to complete my business plan by the end of the year, as well as logo development.

I may be letting the Etsy shop close because it is so time-consuming on the back end, and I have limited time to promote and add new products. Without promotion and new products, it gets very little traffic.

My financial goal is to increase my earnings by 15-20% next year. I have been able to reach my earnings increase for this year already.

Blog features of my work are a publicity goal.

The primary internal business goal is to know my brand and have a clear style that can still encompass many design interests.

Promotion:

Currently, I use the blog (aka free website on Blogger) to announce new work. I previously sent work to a stationery blogger in the hopes of a feature, but it was only the one time. I don’t use social media myself. I have a Facebook profile to view one community group alone. I am curious about best practices for blog or press features.

I pretty much get zero sales of my work from Etsy. My sales have been primarily through online stationers and commissions, as well as commissions from a piece selling at West Elm.

Keen Peachy’s Best Next Step

Hello Amanda,

Thank you for entering our Best Next Step giveaway – hooray, you’re a winner! My thoughts follow (read them with a grain of salt, since I only have a brief outline of your business and challenges right now).

First: I love your business name! It got stuck in my head the other day, and it is so cheery. Turning the “peachy keen” phrase around makes it feel new but still familiar. Love it, and boy would it be fun to create a logo for!

Finding your voice

Finding your voice and niche is going to be mostly about you, with a dash of your customers’ preferences. Obviously, you want to narrow down to something that will sell well, but I don’t recommend choosing your least favorite style or product to focus on, because as the sole creative talent at Keen Peachy, you need to feel interested in what you’re doing.

The Field Sketch art caught someone’s eye at West Elm, so continuing with that style seems like a possible path, for sure! They know what sells. Take a look at your other top sellers and see if they form a cohesive collection (it sounds like you’re leaning modern). If not, pare them down by which ones you’re most fired up about, or which ones you feel are the most unique – looks you haven’t seen elsewhere in the stationery world.

Promoting your work

Your Etsy shop has had 3 sales. I would recommend closing it, at least temporarily, if you’re not excited about promoting it.

Promoting your work to customers and wholesale clients is where you’ll want to turn your attention. It’s easier to promote your work if it makes sense together as a group, so narrowing your range of styles down to one “Keen Peachy” style will be where you want to start.

From there, you need to spend time pitching your work and developing wholesale relationships. Pitching to blogs, magazines, and the press is vital.

Good luck finding your niche and telling the world!

Thanks for the chance to learn more about Keen Peachy. I hope this all makes sense, and I encourage you to figure out what exactly Keen Peachy is all about, design-wise, and then tell the world about it! If there is anything we can do to help launch you on your way, please let me know.

Are you ready for the next step?

If you’d like the power and experience of the Aeolidia team behind you, please get in touch! We would love to untangle your business priorities and take a few tasks off your hands so you can do your work. Contact Aeolidia – we never bite!