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Discounts & At-Show Marketing

Okay let's talk about discounts and at show marketing, right? We've talked a lot I feel like like discounts is something that we're all really really interested in hey, so here's a point when this goes to you for sure here's a point when I really hammer this home your costs have not changed so why are your price is changing? You don't show up at a regular job where you make let's say twenty dollars an hour and you show up there and you're like yeah, well, it's kind of cold today so your bosses like I'm only gonna pay you eighteen dollars an hour because we have to turn the heat on, you know does just doesn't work that way your costs are the same prices do not change so that's why I like to build discounts into my prices so when we're talking about that multiplication and we took, I'm just going to go over this one more time because I feel like pricing is such a such a major issue for us, but we talked about taking taking our price so it was our cost plus our materials equals uh whateve...

r whatever that whatever that price is times two is our wholesale price, right? And then we take our wholesale price and multiply that times two and that's our retail price um, so then won't we think about offering discounts if we're multiplying this remember when we looked at all of our general business expenses and we saw that big list computer paper fees, this bank fees, credit card fees, booth fees, going to a conference, doing this, doing that all that stuff we write off on our taxes for a business that is when we're multiplying that by two point, five or three. So when you're doing that, you have a little room in there to do a twofer, you know, ifyou're still at that, only to mark your only multiplying it by two you don't have room for a twofer, you know, you're never goingto retire, you're never going to cover your costs of, you know, your credit card he's, so build those discounts in think you guys know by now I love this multiple item discount thing that's kind of my main discount percentage is great, but when you're doing multiple item, you're bringing up that that sail to the ticket, the total of that ticket you're bringing up that that sale price also doing at show special, which we talked about with rebecca, making it clear that this is an at show special, and then I love having a sale bed, so I haven't been that's where all my one ofthe stuff goes I did screen printing so there's always mess up in screen printing so all those shirts went in there I didn't even so my tags on him or anything just messed up shirt goes in there everything in this business five bucks I went back and forth about putting in the back of my booth in the front of my booth so I put it in the front but then you have this big crowd of people blocking the way into your booth but you put it in the front and you draw people in but what kind of people are you drawing in right you're drawing in people like that so I have a little something else front lets them know their sale stuff sale stuff is in the back when you go to the department store where is the sale stuff right because you have to walk by all that cute new stuff that you're eyeing and then you get back to the sale stuff and of course everything back there is yuck and it's also not in your size because only like size super big and size super tiny left back there in any sizing between for like a normal human being is not is not there at all uh so having that in having that in the back draws him through the whole thing so then you go back out and you're like yeah I think it's something else now but I really like that dress so I'm just going to try it on you know and then once you tried on you've touched it it's yours um well then a gift with purchase so that's something else I like you know we don't have any discounts but we are doing a gift with purchase today just like clinic does right where I think you do a little card and it's twenty percent off your next online purchase that that's one of the actual what I'm going to talk about next I'm so happy I'm just going to jump jump through already so offer incentives here so when we're talking about turning those one time customers into regular customers and we want to thank them this is a relationship of ah I think it's like a lot a lycan is on a tree and they have this like symbiotic relationship where the lycan is actually protecting the tree and then the trees getting nutrients from it I'm sure somebody some scientists from our online audience is going to tell me I don't even know what a likeness but um yeah so you don't want to you don't want to miss this opportunity and you want to make it easy and authentic like we talked about you know inviting them to join your social media audience it's an invitation you know it's your audience it's your I hate that term of followers you know I like to say audience like this is my this is my audience these are the people that I'm sharing with um and then newsletter news that let's add that to the tattoo newsletter newsletter newsletter social media's great newsletter is better and then those incentives and those and those thank you's too so what do you want to say? Do you want to sign up for my newsletter or would you like me to add you to our email list? We sent out a monthly newsletter with coupons free d I y projects and information about other shows you know I'm going to sign up for that because I want to keep on and I want free stuff if this is a mouthful you have this on your sign with your newsletter thing you know, written small enough or you just say one thing we sent out at once a month coupon to r you two are news that our subscribers if you you know if you'd like to sign up the list is right there, you know, not it's not like sign up you know it's it's an offers an invitation yeah lisa I think that's awesome I I don't need coupons I don't need newsletters but I will go for the d y e I project but for the other person who wants to know where to go to to see you next that covers it all man, I'm so using that they think this person is at there at this show, so obviously they like craft shows, and they want to know about the next one that's usually the one, like when I say that they're like, ooh, you know, so you think of when you're we talked about our ideal customer, what does your ideal customer wants? You know, does your ideal customer wants, you know, uh, mix like to listen to when they work out? I kind of dio I would love it if somebody sent me a monthly, you know, a link to their like top ten workout songs of the month, that would be awesome. I don't want to listen to m and m every single time. Um, do you have a recommendation about, like, monthly works for me? Because I get a lot of emails, but about how often to send out a newsletter? Yes, I d'oh I say to pick a frequency that works for you, so I feel like monthly is a is a good fit for most independent businesses doing something once a month by weekly, possibly weekly. I don't know who has time for that. You know, I've heard a lot of people say you have to send a weekly newsletter, that's, how you you know, you you keep them in I can't do that so but I do think that having that frequency that works for you so they know that they're expecting it it's every third thursday of the month you know it's every other thursday of the month or you just do a smaller newsletter you divide that one newsletter up into two and you do it by week really? But you always have to give something in there you can't just be shouting out you know hey, buy this like buy this right now you know it's like here here is you know, hear my top three picks from my vacation to portland last week thinking of going to portland and you know, read this here's a coupon hears this here's that here is my love for you yeah lisa uh my frequency is every four to six months I just really but I fit in there like you know, the important just the important key things that are happening in the business and in life it's like my people newsletter and here's the new products but it's they love it they look forward to it they respond they, uh my customers that's their frequency I guess also yeah, and if you figured out that that works that that works for them great I mean, you should really be reading your analytics on your on your newsletters that you send out click throughs yeah, you get a report of how many people opened it you can see who opened it who opted out long what they clicked on what air they clicking on I'm always surprised when I look at our six I'm thinking everybody is totally going to love this block post that I wrote about you know why you should be a part of your creative community or something and then I look through and I'm like really everybody wanted to read the post I did about spinach artichoke dip you know, but you just you don't know and that's how you know and that's how you khun taylor it and then this is another thing that I think is important that, uh we don't think about us how we could benefit from this interacting with your online audience and we talked we talked a lot about bringing that in person audience into our into our online audience, but what about taking that online audience and giving them that in person experience? So offering your online audience a glimpse into this other side of your business it's more personal site of your business and you know you do that by sharing on social media while you're at the show I am you were social media person ever, but even I can do one instagram post you know? Yeah, we had a slow show and everyone tweeted about it and posted pictures on instagram like oh we're all here was a pop up so is really small and then like a whole bunch of people came oh yeah oh yeah like that's a strategy yeah yo shows right? Yeah totally I mean, we need to be utilizing our social media raid that actually happened one of the first couple patchworks one of our vendors was uh kind of cool dude, you know? And he was like, what you doing he's like, oh, I'm just you know, sending out on facebook message or whatever about the show this was one facebook was more popular and like thirty minutes later all these super hot guys showed up to the show on like bmx bikes and life with like two beards and stuff and like adorable glasses and like rad shirts like I don't know so that it does work that day of stuff you want to encourage those customers on your social media to come to come down to the show like, come see me here you know I have a free gift with purchase of the show, you know? Come see me here I'm showing you know such and such come see me here I am here with these people, you know, these are the people I'm here with, you're tagging them, these are the people I met today this is what I look like in my booth you don't see very many pictures of me here's a picture of me and my booth like you're giving that personal experience you're sharing your sharing that with them uh also I like to take pictures of my customers so like when somebody buy something this is great for you everybody hugging your pillow you know take I will put the world in stocks polo yeah I'm like oh do you want a picture of yourself hugging that yeah on then they take it home with them and then I just snap a little photo that I could put on instagram or whatever but yeah and they probably put that on there narrator and then their friend comes over and is like always goes that's so cute I love that pillow they put this sticker stamp on that I know and the bottom of that I have a rubber you see we got the great mind's way we're both like speaker stand branding, branding promotion and make it happen really cool we have someone from online who says that they are they make personalized jewelry live during the craft shows and I'm so customers love that and they feel like they're part of that but the issue with them is how do they deal with customers who possibly might be ready to leave their product? I'm sorry leave on their product isn't ready yet how do you deal with maybe not getting an angry mob yeah I hope that they were there wouldn't be an angry mob at the craft show but with that I might I might try to look into my process a little bit more and see if there are certain there's I can go a little bit further ahead of time on what they want to get that would be the number one thing thing that I would think and then um there's something else I was gonna say you could you could offer shipping and you could do at the post office they have like if it's jewelry it's really small you know they have those standard bought state there standard sized boxes that air yeah like anywhere in the country five bucks you know so something like that would would probably work out pretty well three day three day five twenty five yeah way says on it leases on it you know honestly sometimes like it street fairs at the north beach festival last year it was a lot of people there like out drinking all day and they didn't want to carry around their purchases I was like oh I'll just ship it to your house later and I spent the next day just shipping it was all in san francisco most well yeah so cheap and they were like okay well by two then if you're going to ship him yeah and we really worked out well I don't think that works for everyone but no, but for something like a street fair, a festival where people are drinking actually went to the renaissance for the first time this year and I thought it was going to have a really bad time because I'm not into like that renaissance fair stuff, but I had a great time and I bought some ceramics there, but I bought them right when I walked in the person at and she had a sign up in her booth that said, leave your purchase here and pick it up at the end of the day that just got me right, then I was like, looking the scream sound like, perfect, I don't care for his other ceramics here like these are the ones I want to buy because I'm not carrying this stuff around while I'm watching like fairies dance around and having tea with the queen and stuff um, I feel like I feel like some some of us are really good at social media and some of us aren't, you know, it's definitely something that I have had that I've had to stretch my social media muscle and work it out. So here are some sample sample tweets or post for you guys, I just kept him very, very short, but here's something I would say it's been so awesome meeting online customers in person at the hashtag patchwork show or at deer handmade life you know whatever the tag is and whatever the hashtag is for the show today post a customer picture of a customer of course you're going to ask them you know can I post this picture of you hugging my pillow and looking adorable and then you know, shouting out about your fellow maker so many inspiring makers here like at kelso doesn't dance and at you know I love her hanging plants here it isthe you know if you make jewelry and you can see your ideal customer liking this other thing this hanging plant that's awesome you know that's under me even shout out about you or talking about the food you ate people of food you know especially like food truck, food, food they can't get food that looks good so yeah before is by mentioning something else like a food place or using the hashtag patchwork show other people are looking at that hashtag as well and like oh I'll go check her booth people have said, oh yeah I found out you're here because I was at this person's booth they're you know just yeah it really is worth it worth it to do this stuff take it from a reform social media hater so I really am understanding the importance of of this and you know like I said last night I spent the night before last night I spent a bit of time coming up with my instagram post you don't photographing and then re photographing it and then, uh, phil, you know, filtering in editing and all of that stuff on then, you know, always make sure hash tagging the show always make sure that you're giving props to the show and to your fellow vendors and then promoting future shows. This is like such a waste of time if you don't promote your future shows while you're at your show, right? It's like it's not going to stop somebody from buying something if they're not going to buy it that day, they weren't going to buy it that day anyway, you know they will they're going to buy it the next week or they won't buy it at all. So I always have postcards that's, a great place when we talked about that customers waiting in line time. So you've got your postcards for your other shows there I've seen before, and I love this idea where somebody will have, you know, a little if they're doing a lot of shows that you have a lot of shows coming up, they'll have a printed out postcard, and then it will say, take a picture of me and you can even put, you know, your take a picture of me in your hashtag or whatever um yeah oh and in the bags to putting those in your bags like the postcards for the next show's in your bags. So what are some incentives that you have offered or you would offer for people to join your social media audience or sign up for your newsletter? So I talked about I talked about some job basically I talked about some general things right? So like a discounted this that I want to hear about like some specific stuff or if you have like another general thing that I didn't mention so this is not something I do but it's probably something I should do that that great with my newsletter but like after an event and you add the people to your newsletter to just send out, you know, welcome to the new follow our new subscribers and then offer them maybe free shipping on their online purchase or something like they're ten percent off their first online purchase. I love free shipping since we're mostly talk about crashes, we don't talk about shipping, but I love that or like we'll do a percentage off and that that welcome is like one of those thank you thinks that we're talking about you know, we were talking about that you go to a craft show and you sign up for this newsletter and then four months pass he's a sends me a newsletter who the heck is lisa right that's me though you get these people that are going going to a lot of things and stuff so I like that initial even if you're only going to send your newsletter out for six months you get that initial one within a week. Hey, and lisa just it's can you know it's fine. Hey, I'm lisa you know it was so nice meeting you at blankety blank show so well, you signed up for my newsletter just let you know I send out two to three newsletters a year every four to six months or whatever your frequency is, um here's a discount code free shipping for the next you know, week or month or whatever it is or percentage off sonia from online says she has the contest so that her customers gonna want a piece of her jewelry if they like her facebook page and share with their friends. And yeah, I used tio I used to do this before social media for my for my newsletter thing. So everybody the signed up for my newsletter that day at the show I would enter them into a thing and they would get one hundred dollar gift certificate one of one person we get one hundred dollar gift certificate to get a lot of sign ups that way um the other thing that I like to do is something branded so like a little branded gift thing so I think I talked about like the mirrors the other day like you know you have a button maker buttons little things like that that somebody is going to wear sticker a magnet it'd magnets for a long time because people are always having people over at their house you know? So I'm a branded gift mbw says they do twenty percent off of their first online order mmm mmm mmm mmm um one been one big girl shares that they offer a free calendar printed and magnetic with the image on it so it's a magnetic magnetic calendar love it everybody else excited about that? Yeah magnetic calendar with their logo and information I'm sure it has their website on there too yeah, if they were smart enough to think of that um so here we're let's see if we did we'll see if we got all of mine so I had the branded gift which we talked about the grab bag which is another thing this is great if you do like if you do anything kids wise you have your crab bag where you have a bunch of different branded gifts and they're assuming you have magnets you have like a little mary have a button and then they grab in and then maybe some of those things or discount codes you know, like it's like easter egg theme this one's a twenty percent off thing this things this on the online discount code we brought up from super excited the contests we've brought up and then the selfie photo booth. So you remember unicorn crafts photo booth so that person is grabbing the proper taking their selfie, posting it doing your hashtag and then that person is and everybody that does that that day is entered to win or that week, so pull anything else also? I mean, okay, yeah, questions coming. I just noticed that the the silver paper that they use for lotto tickets to scratch off down is now available for printers. So if you wanted to do a scratch off thing just kind of an interactive thing, I think you can easily get access to that paper and print like a coupon with a discount underneath or yeah, I love that you can. You can do that with paint too. So I know that there's a there's a. Of course I love about, well, professionally printed things, so but you can and probably is quicker to, but you can take paint and paint over and do it that way. If you just google you know how to make your own scratch off, you'll be able to find it pretty easily.