How to Market a Hobby

How to Market a Hobby

Chassity Beals

BUS330: Principles of Marketing

Mary Deming

April 2, 2012

How to Market a Hobby

            Hobbies seem like they would be the easiest products to market. However, in reality, they can be some of the most difficult products to market. Marketing in the Hobby industry means you are probably a hobby enthusiast yourself and/or you have valuable marketing knowledge as it applies to the hobby market. Making a hobby seem appealing or necessary in a difficult economic time is not easy. The positive side is that people, especially in tough economic situations, need a hobby or something to divert their attention from the seriousness and the bleak outlooks of everyday life. This paper will examine the social, psychological, ethical and even legal aspects of marketing in the hobby industry.

            Everyone has a hobby. It could be anything from collecting stamps or comic books to antiques. Some hobbies carry a naturally higher expense due to the rarity or quality of items sought. However, in this economic climate, everyone is looking for a good deal on items they need or want. Marketing creates a value for items and helps in building relationships with consumers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Marketing to a hobby enthusiast means not only creating value, but also creating a feeling of necessity for the product. The key is to make the consumer feel as if their collection is not “complete” without the advertised product.

            Marketing in the hobby industry is all about customer relationships. Customer service is a key aspect of this. It goes beyond just good customer service, though. Relationships in the hobby industry are built on shared interests. In the hobby industry, the relationship between the seller and the buyer is so intimate that stores come to know customers personally. A successful hobby store often finds that they search out items for their customers. Regular customers are often on a mailing list and get personalized birthday and holiday greeting cards, or are notified of and given “first pick” of items of interest to the individual once they arrive in the store. Going these extra steps to make the customer feel special is what builds a customer’s delight with one hobby store over another.

            Hobbies are a very social activity. Suppose an individual has taken up hiking as a hobby. They will shop at outdoor stores that sell special products related to hiking (such as good, sturdy hiking boots, sturdy backpacks, lightweight coolers for carrying drinks, etc). The individual may also join a local hiking club that ventures into local hiking trails as well as takes a yearly trip to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail. Video Gamers now have gaming systems that connect them to the internet, where they can play with other gamers all over the world. Hobbies allow us to connect to others and give us a common ground.

            Hobbies also allow us to learn to respect the individuality of another person we have formed a personal relationship with (Statman, 2011). My husband not only sells toys and comics books, he is an avid collector as well. We met in a comic book store that he owned. It is needless to say that he has been a collector longer than he has known me. His passion or his hobby is one of the things we connected over. I was not very knowledgeable of the comic and toy industry until I met my husband. In our business, we have many (mostly men) sell their collections because their wives don’t like that hobby. I can’t imagine asking my husband to get rid of things he loves. Rather than make this passion for his hobby as stumbling block in our relationship, I found things I like to collect and have started my own comic book collection. It is now a family hobby as our son enjoys collecting as well.

            Hobbyists are amateurs, really (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2008). Hobbyists have a passion for their chosen activity and pursue it purely for pleasure (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2008). Understanding the psychological motivations of a hobbyists helps greatly in advertising in the industry. The most basic question is why do people collect the things they collect? The only way to learn the answer to this is to become well acquainted with individuals in the market.

In the hobby industry, the most likely answer to why someone collects something is because they have a childhood connection to it. With stamp collectors, perhaps their father or favorite uncle collected stamps and they recall fondly time spent with those individuals discussing and learning about stamps. With toys and video games, most often, it is the recapturing of childhood memories that drives collectors.

Micromarketing, defined by Kotler & Armstrong (2012, p. 205), is “the practice of tailoring products and marketing programs to suit the tastes of specific individuals and locations.” In the hobby industry, Micromarketing makes the difference in success and failure of one particular store. The store that is most tailored to suit the local audience is the one that is more likely to thrive.

Appealing to audiences and proper targeting strategies are very important (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Proper targeting is especially important to the hobby industry. Focusing on one successful segment of the hobby industry is usually more successful than trying to place too much emphasis on too many different products. Knowing the local market is important in this aspect. In our store, we offer a wide variety of items, but trading card games, role-playing games and video games are very popular where we live, so much of our emphasis is placed on these three segments of the hobby market. An admitted greater emphasis is placed on trading card games because over 35 percent of our local market is trading card enthusiasts.

As with any other industry, the toy industry has product life-cycles. Some trading card games, for example, are fads. They rise in popularity very quickly and decline in popularity very quickly as well (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Comic books are a product that is of great interest. They have been around for a very long time and have waxed and waned in popularity many times over the years, fitting the life-cycle of a style. Within the last few years, DC Comics has recently restarted its entire comic book lines, with all titles beginning at number one again. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Grant Morrison, a comic book creator, was asked if he felt that the restarting of all issues was a desperate move to attract new readers, Morrison responded with, “There’s always going to be a bit of that [desperation], because comic sales are so low, people are willing to try anything these days,” (Hiatt, 2011).

As of 2011, crafts and hobbies represented around $30 billion in consumer spending in the United States (Craft and Hobby Association, 2011). The Craft and Hobby Association is a not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to educating and training those in the hobby industry on how to successfully market their products. There are many trade organizations and individuals that are willing to lend a hand in the hobby industry. These individuals and organizations are very passionate about the hobby industry and are more than willing to help educate others who share their enthusiasm for all things hobby-related.

Setting a price is an important part of selling in any industry. Pricing is the amount of money charged for products (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Pricing is the only aspect of marketing that represents income (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Customer value-based pricing uses” buyers’ perceptions of value, not a seller’ cost as the key to pricing,” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012, p. 291). Hobby retailers seem to rely on customer value-based pricing, as the products more often than not are attached to the perceptions and emotional attachments of customers.

The hobby industry also involves using competition-based pricing, where each competing company offers to match prices or services that other competitors’ offer (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012).

Economic conditions also have an impact on pricing (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). In the current recession climate, prices of necessary items seem to be rising (as the demands for these items continue to rise or remain level) and the price for unnecessary items, such as hobbies, falls (as the demand for those items fall because consumers do not have the extra expendable income to spend on hobbies). Pricing decisions in any industry are complex, but in the hobby industry, with the emotional attachments of consumers, prices can be tricky to navigate. If an item is priced too high, it will detract buyers. If it is priced too low, it is likely underpriced and has not met full profit potential.

Marketing a hobby is best done at a personal level, rather than by a large company. Social Media can be a contributing factor to the success of a hobby retailer. Keeping customers informed about upcoming events and special sales. Keeping customers connected to the store, personal service and great customer experiences will keep customers coming back time after time.

The ethical and legal implications of marketing hobbies can be complex as well. Hobbies sometimes have children as their target audience. Advertising to children carries its own ethical implications. It can be a hotly debated issue, with some parents finding the incessant marketing efforts directed toward children annoying and unethical. However, there are guidelines for marketing to children. Children between the ages of 8 and 18 watching an average of 4 hours of television per day, not including video games and time spent online (kidshealth.org, 2012). Children are bombarded with messages, but the guidelines in place insist that there be truth in advertising products to children.

Like many other retailers, the future of retailing in the hobby industry lies in online sales rather than physical locations. With sites such as eBay, Craigslist, individual websites and groups on networking sites like Facebook, it has become easier than ever to sell items in an online format. Selling online makes a business a global presence and gives them the opportunity to sale to a wider range of customers. While some of the personal relationships are removed, selling online generally nets a higher profit than the sale of an item in a physical retail location. 

There are several positive aspects of having and marketing hobbies as well. Hobbies cultivate individual creativity and help create balance in personal relationships. They represent a large portion of expendable income spending. There is clearly a market for hobbies, but marketing hobbies to the right audience can be a complex series of decisions, but one that has an enjoyable reward in the end, for consumers, marketers, and businesses alike.

References

Craft and Hobby Association (2011). About Us. Retrieved April 2, 2012 from: https://www.craftandhobby.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=cha&WebKey=077a4ea7-7c8b-4de2-bd48-61e444916782.

Hiatt, B (2011). Grant Morrison on the death of comics. Retrieved April 2, 2012 from: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/grant-morrison-on-the-death-of-comics-20110822.

Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2012). Principles of marketing (14^th edition). Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Root-Berstein,M. & Root-Berstein, R. (2008). Hobbies: the path to personal creativity. Retrieved April 2, 2012 from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imagine/200812/hobbies-the-personal-path-creativity.

Statman, C. (2011). How individual hobbies can strengthen relationships. Retrieved April 2, 2012 from:  http://balanceinme.com/balanced-relationship/how-individual-hobbies-can-strengthen-relationships/.