Launching in a couple of weeks :)

[Jonatan Padan]

Hi everyone ,
I am waiting for my ULS 3.50 system which should be here in a couple of weeks. I will be launching a laser engraving business and wanted to ask for everyone's opinion as to what would be the best way to market the new business. I made business cards, built a very nice website and now I wpuld like to consult with the many members of this forum. How did everyone here begin their business? small shops door to door? flyers? postcards? any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[paul mott]

My suggestion would be to get known in your local community, free stuff for local voluntary organizations perhaps.
If one person tells just two others the word will spread.

Paul.

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

Find a local Woodcraft store and let them know you are available. I get lots or request from the one I visit. Since I dont do that kind of work I turn them down all the time.

[Dee Gallo]

My advice is to get VERY comfortable with your software and laser, experiment with substrates and see what you like to work with BEFORE you try to market yourself as a laser engraver. Running in one direction will get you there faster than zig-zagging all over the place.

Step two is to research your desired market area to find the customers who want and need the services you want to provide. Create a niche for yourself if at all possible, and become an expert in that area, the one everyone recognizes as the best. Direct your website and advertising towards a focus group. Join on-line communities of people who will buy what you sell and become a strong member there.

If you dabble in twenty areas, your biz will flounder on the hobby level.

One last bit: give yourself time to develop and don't give up! After two years, re-evaluate the plan.

Good luck, dee

[Joe Pelonio]

Practice making items that would be sold by sign shops, such as cut acrylic lettering/logos and engraved signs. Then find the local sign shops that do not advertise having a laser and visit therm with samples and offer a wholesale price. If they are currently using a manufacturer like Gemini
you can charge close to the same price and save them the shipping for a higher profit and make a decent amount for yourself with some steady work
while you market the retail side.

[Michael Hunter]

A real "how long is a piece of string" question : unanswerable, since you say nothing of your existing skills nor your future aspirations.

Dee's first paragraph sums it up well.
Unless you have previous experience of using a laser and fair skills at Corel (or your chosen graphics software), then you should allow at least one and perhaps up to three months of practice and experimentation before you make serious attempts to get paying customers.

If (as I do), you advertise as being able to do almost anything, you must get yourself into a position where you can instantly say yes or no to a job and give a reasonable estimate of the cost off the top of your head - without this ability, potential customers will quickly realise your inexperience and go elsewhere.

Customers (bless their hearts) will come up with any old rubbish as their "artwork", so another group of necessary skills is scanning, tracing and generally cleaning up bad graphics, as well as converting from obscure file formats into something acceptable to Corel.

[Jonatan Padan]

Thanks for everyones' response

I am great with Photoshop, Ive been using it for a few years and am very familiar with it. From what Ive read most engravers use Corel which I am not familiar with but assume it is pretty similar to Photoshop.
My understanding is that Corel is good for cutting and for any non-cutting jobs I can keep using Photoshop so I don't see any designing software issues.

And Michael. How long really is a piece of string? :-)

At this time I will offer everything, wine bottles, awards, mugs, frames, dog tags, glasses, etc.
I built what I think is a beautiful website ;-) which will be published as soon as I get the equipment and am ready to operate. I guess with time I will see which niche works for me.

I just really wanted to get some advice from experienced people as to how they started marketing their services and what advice could they give.

Thanks

[John Noell]

... From what Ive read most engravers use Corel which I am not familiar with but assume it is pretty similar to Photoshop.

CorelDraw primarily is a vector-based program (like Illustrator) and not bitmap-based like Photoshop. The differences, even in navigation keystrokes, can drive you a bit crazy when learning CorelDraw if you use PS a lot. Plan on spending a fair amount of time to get proficient with CorelDraw.

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

Corel and Photo shop are two very different programs tha fill two differernt needs. If all you are ever going to do is raster then you might be able to get away with just photoshop. This drasticly limits what you cando with your laser.


Form this comment allone tells me that you need to spend a lot of time with your laser. It is very important that you pickup some sort of vector drawing program like coreldraw or ilistrator and spend a month or two playing with it before you even think about launching.


I am very good with Photoshoip. As an artist and photoagrapher I rely on it. However I still prefer Corel Draw as my control point for the laser. You can pickup a copy of X4 for under $100 on ebay. If you really like Adobe products then ilistrator may suite your needs. I personaly dont like ilistrator but thats just a preference.

[Dee Gallo]

I don't know about everyone else, but I can only access the Epilog driver through CorelDraw, not directly through PhotoShop.

~ dee

[Bill Cunningham]

I don't know about everyone else, but I can only access the Epilog driver through CorelDraw, not directly through PhotoShop.

~ dee

My Epilog treats the driver as a printer, and I can send any thing from anything.. Just hit <cntrl>P and choose the laser! Actually the laser is the default printer on my system

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

Some of my better rastered engravings came from photoshop but its a pain to get all the dpi settings matched to the epilog driver. One false move and you get banding.

Also coreldraw gets real flaky when you handle larger bitmaps at 600dpi.

[Chuck Stone]

I am great with Photoshop, Ive been using it for a few years and am very familiar with it. From what Ive read most engravers use Corel which I am not familiar with but assume it is pretty similar to Photoshop.

They're both the same, except for Corel.

It will take some time to get used to. You have to deliberately not think
about Photoshop. Don't look for the same tools, don't think that the programs
might work the same. Even if you see similar tools, they may not work the
same way or do the same thing.