coupon deal

My store has an eclectic collection of thrift items, handmade products and art. I would like to drive more local traffic to come in and shop as well as encourage visitors up for the day to seek out my shop. A few ideas:

- A coupon that advertises 3 articles of clothing (including jeans) for $12 (regularly $5 each).
- A coupon that offers a free lotion with any purchase over $50.

The first I would advertise locally in our little town paper to encourage students and adults to come in and shop.

The second may be a good deal to put on groupon.

The lotion is a huge hit and I sell out constantly. I think using it to encourage sales of other items may be beneficial.

Other Social Media Tools

What four additional online marketing tools do you believe could be important to the growth of your business? 

How could you integrate them into your current strategy?

If you choose to create a new account in GooglePlus, create a location on a Google map, let us know.

I like the idea of using google + and what they are trying to accomplish (more real life style of sharing) but it just doesn't seem to be a catchy tool. Maybe I need to use it more to experience what it has to offer. I used to use google reader and am generally a fan of google tools, so I suppose I should give it a go!

I think that LinkedIn could be a powerful tool for my business. I make products and think that I would be successful selling at parties or in bulk. Real Estate agents and other positions that frequently gift their clients could become a solid target market for me. They would be shopping FOR my primary target market (health conscious women with disposable income). If I were to use LinkedIn to network with existing connections and advertise to develop new ones, I may expand my business in a more 'back door' fashion.

Since I live in a tourist based town, groupon or living social could be beneficial. I believe that when people are traveling to a destination they may seek bargains or deals beforehand. This is somewhat costly for my small shop, but I may consider it in the future.

Out of the above three ideas I think that LinkedIn would be the most promising. I would develop packages and gift bags in bulk to market to those who need a quick and simple gift idea. Additionally I could advertise body and health parties in which I educate customers about the benefits of natural products.

free promotions with social media

Social media has numerous possibilities for free business promotion. I really enjoy the fact that media responds to what customers truly want. By promoting things they enjoy, I gain an audience. If I do things they don't enjoy, then no audience! Offering free products, relevant information and entertainment are all ways to promote my business. The two scheduled posts below are a great example of offering information or a product that is interesting and will gain response. 

   

I love the memes that travel around the internet on facebook. I think that would be a great way to send people back to my business page. Since my goal is to add joy to people's daily lives, I would create images that are inspirational and joyful. Or, I can simply share ones already created. By asking a question I can hope to engage the audience. Though I find that people don't answer the questions very frequently and I feel stupid when I post them. :-)

Follow up: What happened?

I posted a free giveaway on facebook. My last one was very successful. In 12 hours not a single person followed through with my request to leave a comment. I'm a little surprised! I paid to boost the post after a few hours and still nothing. 

I like the idea of a design that is unobtrusive, honest and aesthetic. I have the idea in my head that being transparent and open and coming from my heart in marketing will drive my business. I began what I do with the idea that too many products are made from bad ingredients and the producers lie and cover this up. So if I were to use banner ads they would be based on these ideas of truth and beauty.

I am really shying away from advertising right now and relying on word of mouth. I truly want and can afford for customers to come to me willingly as opposed to being in their face. I sometimes use Facebook to boost a post. I am finding that my posts are less and less visible due to the new way that FB is organizing. I know they want me to pay for more advertising, but I personally am turned off when I see people's 'sponsored ad' pop up in my screen. I find the $5 to boost an important post is a satisfactory budget. 

Curious about advertising my page and developing likes, I may use the page promotion tool as seen below. I do like that advertising my page on facebook is a relatively simple process and doesn't require graphic design or using anything but what I already have created.

Another tool on facebook is boosting a post specific to a demographic. I can even choose to engage people who are not seeing my page currently. This is appealing because I really don't want to bug people with extra advertising that are already engaged.

comments

devon pinto
craig stevens
shelby gomez

Newsletter

I think I would enjoy sending a detailed newsletter once a month. This would give me time to build up some quality content so that customers would really get something enjoyable in their inbox. Ideally they would look for the newsletter every month! 

I would want to include ...

recipes for body products
an ingredient of the month
a special offer
an article that covers some topic about caring for your skin and body
gift ideas (using my products of course!)


All of these would appeal to a market that is interested in caring for their skin and body. People are so amazed by what I do and truly it isn't very difficult. What I am selling is an accumulation of very simple knowledge. I think that people could easily learn and connect to these things. I don't fear that educating people would diminish my business (they're all making their own lotion), but make them more enthusiastic. Including a gift idea would be a good way to target men who need to buy gifts for women!

Blog Categories

For my body and home business, I envision having a few categories of categories: inspirational/brand building and educational. (I've realized I need to separate the two businesses - art and body products - and market each one individually even though they will be tied by a few things)

Brand building would include:

Inspiration
Motivation
Daily +joy
Product of the Week
The Artistic Process (discussing art I'm working on, why and how)

Educational:
Tutorials
Projects in Progress
Beauty Breakdown (why I choose certain ingredients, what they do for your skin, etc.)


It really helps to thing about categories before starting a blog. I have begun so many blogs. By doing this first, I would really be narrowing the focus of what I'm writing about.

By narrowing the focus, I can appeal to people who are searching for specific things on the internet. The more I can direct their traffic to my website, the more publicity I will develop. There are places all over the country that I would like to visit if I ever get there. I found them simply through tutorials, looking up needed information, etc. Points of contact = sales!

I started this class thinking that having a blog could be a big waste of time and I wouldn't be able to maintain it. However, with scheduling and HARO, I think I could actually maintain it. hmmmm...

Being Personal in a Blog

In my business I can be very personal in a blog post. The people who follow me are engaged because they're rooting for me, they love what I'm doing and they're excited. To share my failures, ideas and success makes the followers very happy. However, I do end it there. I wouldn't blog about my religion, relationship ups and downs, or other things that may alienate people. I think it is appropriate to give my products a face and a personality, but I am quite certain that expressing my support or disgust for a specific politician would be too isolating. I want all people to buy lotion, not just those who agree with my point of view.

In my business I see that all blog posts are an opportunity to add personality. What makes the difference between my tutorial and the 1000's of others? Probably my goofiness. If I were a major corporation I would probably tone that down. However, I think people buying into a brand are more likely to buy into something they relate to!

- Sonja