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ADAPTING TO THE "NEW NORMAL":
TEACHING OAXACAN ARTESANOS HOW TO SELL REMOTELY
IN THE TIME OF COVID
COVID-19 has wrought changes large and small to communities the world over. For a majority of folk artists in Oaxaca, the collapse of tourism has had a calamitous impact on their livelihoods, since they rely primarily on selling their works to visiting tourists, collectors and gallery owners in their home workshops (talleres) or local artist cooperatives. The pandemic has effectively upended this traditional way of doing business.
FOFA was established 13 years ago, during an equally precarious period for Oaxaca's folk artists. Since that time, thanks in part to FOFA's ongoing educational programs and juried competitions (concursos) for young artesanos, Oaxaca's folk art traditions had been thriving - until the current crisis.
FOFA Pilot Program in Remote Sales and Marketing
For FOFA, this dire situation presented both a challenge and an opportunity: if tourists were no longer visiting the artesanos in Oaxaca, then it was worth exploring how to bring the artesanos and their works to potential customers via the internet. The FOFA board hatched the idea of creating an instructional curriculum, supplemented by online materials, to teach artesanos the fundamentals of branding, marketing, customer service and remote selling. A two-month pilot program to test this concept was launched in July, with outstanding results.
Twenty-four young artesanos participated in the pilot program, which was taught by two dedicated experts in Mexico: Lorena de la Piedra (top left, in photo) and Diego Morales Toledo. The robust program included online group workshops and individual online tutorials covering a wide array of subjects, including: the importance of storytelling in building a personal brand, how to set up and use social media, customer service considerations, product photography, creation of personal online catalogs, and best practices in packing and shipping.
Here are examples of students' pilot program assignments in creating marketing materials for online sales:
Monserrat Raymundo Sánchez and her sister Laura are among a handful of Oaxacan folk artists who work in the modality of flores inmortales (dried flower art). Above is an example of Monserrat's product photography that she will feature as she builds a social media presence for herself and spreads awareness for her unique artform. According to her instructor, Lorena de la Piedra, "Monserrat understands it is very important to create your own brand as well as the products you are going to sell."
Teotitlán del Valle textile artist Constantino Lazo Martínez, who won 1st Prize in his category in FOFA's 2018 concurso, uses natural fibers and dyes in his work. He applied the design tools he learned in the pilot program to create an online sales piece (below) in which he tells the story of his love for the countryside, writing metaphorically about planting seeds and seeing them grow. "You reap what you sow," he says.
Jewelry designer Esperanza Martínez Velasco's unique creations are fashioned from silkworm cocoons and dyed with natural compounds. With the instruction she received during the pilot program, Esperanza created a signature logo (below), an Instagram page (@joyeria_de_seda_artesanal), and an online catalog with artfully shot product photos.
As their final project, each participant in the pilot program exhibited a piece of their art on FOFA's Instagram page, including product details, pricing and contact information, an assignment that put all the skills and tools they acquired during the course into practice. Their instructors have been available to mentor them through this practice, and so far, close to half of them of have experienced a sale to a U.S. customer as a result! If you haven't had a chance to view this exhibition yet, please visit FOFA's Instagram page at: www.instagram.com/friends_of_oaxacan_folkart. With the rewards and effectiveness of the pilot program now confirmed, FOFA will offer this training to two more groups of young artists, with a fall session starting in October, and a winter session commencing after the New Year. In addition, FOFA will commit a portion of its website to the instructional materials developed for the course, covering a broad range of topics in great detail, so that all artesanos may benefit from them. The pilot program was made possible by a generous grant from FOFA board member Bill Scanlan and his wife, Cecil. Please consider making a contribution to FOFA to enable us to continue supporting Oaxacan folk artists through education and advocacy during these challenging times. (See Donate button and contact details below.) For further information or questions, please contact us at: [email protected]. Many thanks, and stay healthy! |
