New Business - 6 months in!

[Joy Impressions & Prints]

Hi All
I am a local Ilkley mum who set up her own business 6 months ago. I saw there was a gap in the West Yorkshire area and that no-one local offered the hand/feet impressions and fingerprint jewellery which led to Joy Impressions & Prints. I love what I am doing and the business is doing well but I really struggle with the marketing side. New mums and mums of school children are my main customers but have just had a wedding order. Any tips on how they (we!) can be approached without feeling like the hard sell! Any advice appreciated.
www.joy-impressionsprints.com
Tara

[VickiandJosh]

Hi Tara,
Congratulations on your business, your jewellery and other impressions look really amazing and I for one haven't seen anything similar before. I do marketing for a small company and, whilst our products are certainly very different the ideas should carry over. These are a few initial thoughts after seeing your post this morning:
- The 1st thing you need to consider is your target market - for you I am assuming this is mum's (especially new ones) and also friends/relatives of people with children
- The other thing to think about when you do any marketing activity is what you would like to achieve from it. For your company I would look firstly at building up a list of contacts who you can then keep in regular contact with and hopefully from there generate sales. With everything you do aim to always gain from a contact at least some very basic details such as name and email address, and if possible further details such as postal address, number of children and ages, birthdays etc, although the more personal the information gets the less likely you are to receive an answer, but it is always worth a try.
- The most important information you can get from any contact is where they heard about you from - that way you know where you pennies are most wisely being spent.

I am guessing as you are a new business you do not have a large marketing budget, so I have tried to come up with some ideas that won't cost you lots:

- Your website is really lovely but it may be worth a few additions:
- Add a page with a little bit more about yourself and your family, maybe even a photo of all of you so people will recognise you when they see you in the local area - people love supporting local businesses and are always nosey about peoples backgrounds!
- If you are already attending any events how about a 'see us at' page?
- Somewhere for people to sign up to receive information and offers
- News - new additions to your line, prize winners, achievements in the company, even achievements in your family/staff (When I had Josh they put a posting on my companies News site as lots of our customers were asking after him!!)

- Support as many local events as possible, like you said in your post schools are your perfect target market, so why not get yourself involved in as many of the school events as possible - offer to run the tea/coffee stand at events such as the christmas play, sports day etc in exchange for being able to have your flyers on the stand (as an extra incentive you could always provide the tea/coffee/squash/biscuits). If this goes well in your school approach other schools and volunteer. Aim at these types of things not just to hand out flyers, but to get peoples contact details. Why not run a prize draw where people fill out a form with their contact details and one person wins say a charm or impression - you should get a lot of contact details when a prize is involved!! And you can be sure they will be showing their charm off to all the other Mums/Dads at the school gate for weeks to come!!
- Advertise or ask for an article in the schools newsletters
- Sponsor prize givings etc in exchange for your logo (inc. contact details, most importantly your website) being on the booklet

Outside of schools you could also try the following ideas:
- Recommend a friend schemes are in-expensive ways of getting people talking. Offer an incentive such as a discount to both the person who recommends and the new person, making them both winners and also encouraging them to re-purchase. I know that a hairdressers in town is currently running a recommend a friend scheme where both people receive 25% discount. And make sure you give details of the scheme to the new customer to get them recommending also
- I don't know what your re-purchase levels are like but a loyalty scheme always encourages re-purchases - I for one always make sure I get my card in Caffe Nero stamped and always enjoy my free coffee the most!!
- You could run daytime/evening parties for contacts (a bit like companies such as Avon, Virgin V and even Ann Summers do). Encourage the host to invite lots of friends by giving them a free gift once sales reach a certain level, say 10% off their order once total sales reach over £200, and more discount for more sales. The beauty of these is that you have lots of interested people in one place without having to travel far and if you can create the right buzz, once one person has ordered more are bound to follow suit. Go that extra mile and send some flowers to the host afterwards to thank them.
- Has your company featured in any local papers such as the Ilkley Gazette? Call them up and see if they might be interested in running a piece on a successful local business. They should always be keen to support local businesses - especially with the whole worry over Tesco taking over the town at the moment. If they won't run something on just you try pitching an idea to do a feature on yourself and other local businesses that have started running in the last year to improve community spirit.
- Lastly look at running some email-shots to all of your contacts. The basic message could be the same but differ the way it is written slightly between customers and contacts. There are a few basic rules to follow here, mainly make sure that anyone who you e-shot has signed up to receive them, and do not send large quantities from your regular email account otherwise you will get blacklisted as a spammer and you will not be able to send/receive emails. Contact your current service provider or the people who set up your website for further advise on the ins and outs of this as the last thing I would want is for you to run into trouble!! Include a 'call to action' in all your communications, such as special discounts when they mention the e-shot (a code is a handy way to do this). Great times to contact people are before big buying events such as Christmas, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, or send specific ones if you have managed to gather personal information such as birthdays etc. The more personal the better.

I know it sounds like I have said lots about discounts and even a few freebies here and there but this is so much cheaper than running adverts, usually gets you far more contacts (and hence potential clients), and people always love getting a discount. Just make sure you are not constantly discounting otherwise you are de-valueing your product, only do it as an incentive scheme and certainly not on all your sales.

And remember: always ask where people heard about you from and find some way of monitoring each campaign - cost, sales, profit etc so you know the best places to spend your money and where to put the effort in

Good luck with everything, I would love to hear if you decide to run with any of these ideas and if they work, I get a bit excited about coming up with these things!!

If you have any questions about anything I've suggested I'm always happy to help

Best Wishes, Vicki xx

[caroline36]

My advice hit the toddler groups.

Mums, carers & occasionally Dads. All of which I am guessing are your target market with the added bonus of being during school hours & you'll be able to take your little ones with you. This may not be an instant profit maker but will certainly get your name & service known. Contact the group organiser first but I think most will be supportive of a Mum in business.

If you are planning to attend any wedding fairs, I am a hairdresser wanting to specailise in wedding hair, I would gladly share the cost of a stand.

Good luck

[Joy Impressions & Prints]

Hi Vicki
Thanks for taking the time to give me all this brilliant advice. I'm definitely going to action some of the points you mentioned just need to think them through.
Thanks again your advice has been much appreciated!
Tara

[Joy Impressions & Prints]

Hi Caroline
Thanks for your advice about toddler groups and taking my 2 children along with me - a good way of keeping everyone happy. I will definitely keep in touch as I would like to do some wedding fairs and would be up for sharing the cost of a table.
Tara