Being Disney to your customers

So you have been working on your branding for the past week. Since I have not heard from any of you either things are going well or you haven't started, ha ha. No worries my posts will be here when you are ready. If you need help or have additional questions please email me, I don't mind if fact that is why I started this blog.

So now that you have a good handle on your branding it is time to start thinking about your marketing/advertising. Now if you are anything like me you have zippo start up capitol, so you need out of the box ideas for getting your name out there. Here are just a few ideas...

First and foremost, make business cards! This is a priority not a suggestion. There are so many things that you can do with them. You can get some designed for you if you have a little extra money or get them at vistaprint.com for free, these won't be well designed but they will do for now. (**Now on a side note, I do design business cards for fellow Etsy sellers at a huge discount compared to my usual price for design, for the reason of I know what it's like to try starting up a company on a dream and a prayer.)

There are a few places that you can use them at; first restaurants: leave them with your tip or drop them in the "win a free lunch bowl". Believe it or not the people cleaning out that bowl every week take the time to look at who's in there, especially if you get cards that stand out. I made my cards 2" x 2", they are not the normal size of business cards (2 x 3.5), which brings up a good point, they don't have to be the usual size. Things to remember are: you want them to fit in people's pocket/wallet without being a problem.

The second thing you can do with business cards is leave them on tables at Starbucks, or bulletin boards, Barnes and Nobles, leave them on a bench in the mall - you can leave them just about anywhere for people to find them. Liana, at BusyMomCreations, suggested leaving them in your back windshield wiper for people to take. This works especially well if you have a car decal. Which by the way she sells at a fantastic price! Here is the link if you are interested,
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6089748

Lastly about the business cards, they are great for handing out face to face, or giving to other shops for their promo bags. Etsy has several groups that get together and "trade" business cards for the purpose of helping each other promote, check out the forums for how to get involved. BTW - you don't have to always be the one handing out the business cards. Give some to your family, friends, co-workers anyone you believes in your store and can talk you up! Or place a couple extra business cards in with your orders, if your buyers really like what they get they are going to talk about your shop with others and if they have extra cards they can give them those.

Some other out of the box ideas are, moving billboards, not actual billboards. Your car. You drive all over the place, place an ad on it. Great exposure there. If you use the link from above to check out BusyMomCreations, you can get your name and URL made into a vinyl sticker that you place on your car. How cool is that. Pair that with some business cards and you got a good thing.

Think about your packaging too! How is your stuff packaged? Do you just throw things into a box and ship it off or do you take the extra step to package things nicely before sending it off. One shop I know of makes their own bubble mailers to ship their products in. They were nice of enough to share how to do this here http://thisis.notarobot.net/2007/08/make-your-own-bubble-mailers.html. Now you don't have to go this far, but think on what your customers sees when they receive your package. Go beyond their expectations and they will return. Why do you think Disney is so popular? They didn't become they #1 vacation destination by meeting every ones expectations, but by blowing them out of the water! Think Disney when you are branding, marketing and advertising yourself and you will have more customers than you know what to do with.

Something else that you can do is link all your sites together. What sites, you ask? Or better yet what sites should you have? First you should have an online store where people can view your work. If you are not on Etsy.com and you sell handmade goods you should be, if you do something else make your own website with a store. You can buy a domain name at GoDaddy.com cheap and use weebly.com editor with free hosting. If you are on Etsy you can still have your own website and link it to your Etsy store with Etsymini. Other things to think of are myspace.com, cafemom.com (for all those moms out there), indiepublic.com, flickr.com (I have yet to set this one up) and a blog just to name a few. There are more things that you can do but these are the main ones I use. Myspace, cafemom and indiepublic all have the same general idea the are a meeting place, but they can be great exposure for you as well. You can put an Etsymini on your page which links your page to your Etsy store. You can blog on these sites and check out others you think could be potential buyers (use your info about your target market to decide who to target) invite these people to check out your shop. You can also let people know of new items you have with pictures that you post or leave comments so they know about coming sales or other info you would like them to know. These pages also let your potential buyers know a little more about who you are. I don't know about you but I am more willing to buy from someone when I know more about them. Plus an extra added bonus is that you can make more friends with these sites and more people backing you and your store. Again if they believe in you and your store they will tell others.

This next section is mostly for Etsy sellers, though you might be able to apply some of it to other shops as well. Other great ways to get your name out there is in the forums. Join in on discussions, or start one yourself. There is also a chat room on Etsy that has some cool features to it, like posting photos of some of your work or others in the room that you like. Remember people like to be complimented about their stuff, you if let them know that you like something of theirs odds are they are going to check out your shop and see what you have. Just from participating in the forums on Etsy I have notice a huge increase of traffic at my store. And more interest in my items.

Another great way that costs nothing is joining groups on Etsy. I belong to Etsymoms and EtsyTexasCrafters. Both have their own forums that I can post to, to get the word out about what's going on with me. I also find out what is going on with others, how their shops are doing what sells and what doesn't. All of these are great for finding out if it's just slow right now or if I am doing something wrong. You can bounce ideas off these new "friends" and since they all have shops and are wanting to make it - they are likely to be more honest then your mom and Aunt Kitty. (No I don't have a Aunt Kitty).

One last thing is when you do sell something remember to include a handwritten thank you or free gift. Let them know how much you appreciate their business, 80-90% of your business should be repeat customers and word of mouth. Remember that the next time you are rushed with an order...

These are just some of my ideas for marketing/advertising. I would love to know your ideas, post them here on my blog and let others know how you capture your customer's attention. Next time we will discuss an often overlooked part of owning your own business...organization. Stay tuned for the exciting story and how to master the clutter of your office (this could be your living room, dining room, bedroom, garage - where ever you work)