What a wonderful thread and many professional viewpoints. Definitely lot of food for thought, especially for beginners like me, who are just starting out with engraving and wondering what and how to do.
I agree wholeheartedly that educating the crowd is the way to and I really try to do my part of it. Being as good or bad as I just happen to be. Actually if one wants and has the motivation to look around, there are many ways skin that particular cat. Many magazines and even TV shows/stations are interested in providing interesting info to their viewers. There was one 5+ minute show about Roland Baptiste where he explained his engraving. Tho I don't understand a word of French, it was still interesting.
One very good and 'modern' way to promote your art is blogging. When you write 1 to 4 times a month about your doings, post pictures and explain how things are done, it can and will create quite a following and will educate the interested people. Just as an example - I started my 'Programmer to blacksmith' blog in April 2007. Now I get constantly around 100 views per day, peaking to 180-190 at some days.
So when you write about the stuff you do, Search Engines will pick up the keywords from there and when people search 'engraved wedding rings' or whatever they find your blog/page. They see that there's an alternative to factory stuff and get something really personalized. When they read your blog, they also see what the work involves and understand the price too. (That was crash course to SEO, search engine optimization ).
One more example. Our local Estonian TV station has a show about different (interesting!) occupations people can have. So one show was about me as 'swordmaker' (it's more romantic/exotic, I guess), but anyway I had a chance also to talk about engraving. When I said I can fit 10 lines into 1 mm, they had quite big eyes... It lasts only 3 minutes, but it's a start!
If you don't mind listening some Estonian language and see me working, check out: http://www.delfi.ee/news/toomurdja/toomurdjad/article.php?id=19407220 (Just click play button inside that small video window).
I agree wholeheartedly that educating the crowd is the way to and I really try to do my part of it. Being as good or bad as I just happen to be. Actually if one wants and has the motivation to look around, there are many ways skin that particular cat. Many magazines and even TV shows/stations are interested in providing interesting info to their viewers. There was one 5+ minute show about Roland Baptiste where he explained his engraving. Tho I don't understand a word of French, it was still interesting.
One very good and 'modern' way to promote your art is blogging. When you write 1 to 4 times a month about your doings, post pictures and explain how things are done, it can and will create quite a following and will educate the interested people. Just as an example - I started my 'Programmer to blacksmith' blog in April 2007. Now I get constantly around 100 views per day, peaking to 180-190 at some days.
So when you write about the stuff you do, Search Engines will pick up the keywords from there and when people search 'engraved wedding rings' or whatever they find your blog/page. They see that there's an alternative to factory stuff and get something really personalized. When they read your blog, they also see what the work involves and understand the price too. (That was crash course to SEO, search engine optimization ).
One more example. Our local Estonian TV station has a show about different (interesting!) occupations people can have. So one show was about me as 'swordmaker' (it's more romantic/exotic, I guess), but anyway I had a chance also to talk about engraving. When I said I can fit 10 lines into 1 mm, they had quite big eyes... It lasts only 3 minutes, but it's a start!
If you don't mind listening some Estonian language and see me working, check out: http://www.delfi.ee/news/toomurdja/toomurdjad/article.php?id=19407220 (Just click play button inside that small video window).