Keep Your Business Alive

Tuesday August 12, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

promote.JPGAugust 12, 2008–Issue 208

If your business is feeling the effects of the economic downturn, you are not alone. In a few years when the economy uprights itself and returns to good times, some businesses will still be alive. Will your business be one of them?  That all  depends on what steps you are taking today to keep your business afloat.

I recently received the following email from one of my subscribers who is concerned about this very issue. Perhaps you can relate to her situation and be helped by my response .

“I make beautiful baskets.  My good customers praise my work.
I have a cute little shop on a busy street.

I read articles on how to market and watch videos all the time. My question is how to get the cars  to stop. I am carrying tea in  my shop now and the other day I advertised for a week and had a tea tasting party for two hours. I had one customer. That was heartbreaking.

I put products out on nice tables and a  side walk sale and put sale signs every where.  They don’t stop.  I am busy for the holidays, but summer is hurting my business.

I need to take my baskets out  to the people. I have joined my local chamber and business women’s group.  They help a little, not much. We need more ideas on how to talk to corporate clients and how to sell our baskets.

My husband says that people have a WalMart mentality.  I love my business and I don’t want to lose it. “

This gift retailer is already doing many things right in her business: tea tasting party, sidewalk sales, advertising and participating in networking groups. I advise her to keep doing these things, but even more aggressively.

Make note of what other businesses are doing to stay afloat and use the techniques that can work for your business.

Lower prices, offer specials, tighten the budget.

Retailers probably resort to these strategies first. The popular sandwich chains, for example, began offering $5 options and the fast food stores stepped up their $1 menu.

I don’t advise you to lower prices of your custom gift basket designs, but you can consider offering more stand-alone gifts and even less expense alternatives such as balloon bouquets.

Don’t try to compete with WalMart, Costco or other big box stores. They can survive on a much lower profit margin, especially since their gift basket offerings are loss leaders.

Tightening the budget can be done by taking a hard look at your expenses and cutting what you no longer need.

My phone company, for example, charges a higher fee for voice mail on business lines than they do for residential lines. I decided to go back to an answer machine rather than pay for the voice mail service. With modern answer machines you can retrieve and manage messages remotely, so there’s no longer a need for the phone company’s overpriced voice mail.

Another area you may be able to cut is in buying supplies and inventory.  In the early days I stock shredded filler of all the major colors. Now I primarily use green, white, and tan filler.

Use local and nearby vendors to save time and money on shipping. If you need tips on finding vendors in your area, invest in my audio CD How to Find Products In and Around Your State.
 

Take your product to the street

Car dealers, pizza shops and other businesses in my area hire sign twirlers to stand on business corners in costumes and twirl signs pointing to the businesses location or announcing specials.

While this may not appeal to you, how about hiring someone to pass out a free balloon imprinted with your store name, website and phone number as they pass your store or on a busy pedestrian corner. Almost no one turns down a free balloon.

Capture contact information of visitors to your website.

Every visitor to your website won’t become a customer, but they could become part of your database. For this to happen, however, you must devise a way to get them to give you their names and email addresses, but also phone number would be great.
Website visitors love to sign up for free newsletters, free reports or a free list of tips.

Create one of these and using an autoresponder such as AWeber you can begin to build a list of potential customers.

After the visitor downloads the free item you’ve offered, you can now email special offers and promotions to them on a regular basis.

Follow up on current customers.

Stay in touch with your customers. Get the contact information of your customers to your retail store, as well as storing the information of your online customers. Then, send regular email or postcards announcing new products, events or specials.

Bath and Body Works is expert at this. Almost every week I get a mailing from them offering $10 off a $30 purchase, a free gift with purchase and sometimes a free gift without purchase. Then, after you buy something in the store you receive another coupon for money off a future purchase. All of their specials have expiration dates, thus encouraging you to act quickly.

Latch on to trends

Along with concerns about the economy, people are increasingly concerned about the environment. Let your customers know that you support this movement by offering products that are recyclable, organic and safe for our bodies and the environment.

What kind of items can you add to an environmentally friendly gift basket?
organic tea
Fair trade coffee
lip balm
essential oils
Tree in a Box
Baby Tree Gift Kit
Books on organic and vegetarian cooking 
Envirosax reusable shopping bags 
aromatherapy and organic bath products 

Read more about keeping green with your wedding gift baskets here.
For more ideas on keeping your business alive, read these articles.

Girlfriend Getaways are Hot Gift Basket Idea
Spark New Profits for Your Gift Basket Business
Sell Your Gift Baskets to the People Who Have Money
You Get an A+ for Cashing in on the Back to School Season

To best serve your the corporate market you have to find out their needs. The only way to learn this is get acquainted with the decision makers and gatekeepers and ask them or observe what drives their companies.

All small business and corporate clients want repeat and referral business. How can your gift basket business help them do that? If you can figure out how to help them do that, you can keep your business alive.

If you want to learn how to put these ideas into action in your particular gift basket business, get experienced help with my private consultation. My private clients are doing well because they get all their questions answered, they learn where to find products, how to conduct corporate presentations and they follow my guidance based on 17 years of experience in the gift basket industry.

If you’re ready to get the customized help you deserve, invest in private consultation, available by phone or in person now.

You’ve already tried struggling alone. Why do that any longer when you can invest in expert help? Get more details here now.



What Can We Learn from Apple Now?

Wednesday February 13, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

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February 12, 2008–Issue 183
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When Apple revealed its newest laptop, their commercial became another example of marketing genius. Watch it now and see if you can spot why it has appeal.

Did you figure out that this ad has appeal because of its simplicity, clever use of song that helps convey its message and its focus on a single benefit: thinness which implies lightweight, easy portability, easy storage and heightened customer satisfaction.

You probably don’t have the deep pockets that Apple has to produce such an ad.
But you do have a great product and service that meet the needs of your target audience. Zero in on the most significant and powerful benefit of your business and create an ad around it.
 
Your most significant benefit may be fast turnaround, highly customized designs, 24-hour ordering, or unique themes. Select a photo or image that portrays that benefit.
 
You might choose to create your ad on a postcard rather than in a costly TV commercial, but you get my point.  We can learn from a company like Apple how to capture attention with an uncluttered, single-focused campaign.

Get great marketing ideas especially suited to the gift basket business from the audio CD, 99 Sizzling Marketing Ideas to Make More Money–January through June.  Buy now and increase your cash flow tomorrow.
 
Related articles and blog posts
 –Sell-a-brations for Your Gift Basket Business
 –Promote Your Gift Basket Business or Else
 –Every Business Must Market
 –Market with Postcards
 –Marketing Works!
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Embrace Valentine Profits

Tuesday January 8, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

valentinebag1.gifIn modern times the celebration of Valentine’s Day has grown far beyond flowers, candy, cards and jewelry. Although Valentine expressions are still mainly personal, they are often exchanged in business settings as well.
 
If you expect to enjoy profits from Valentine’s Day sales you must start your marketing immediately. Send postcards or mailers to your general consumer and corporate clients offering Valentine’s gifts and gift baskets.

Need ideas for Valentine gift basket themes? Get Love It!, our directory of over 20 wholesale sources for Valentine gift and gourmet ideas plus 15 themes for your Valentine themes.

To learn how to make a Valentine design step by step, see A Lovely Design, a photo story.

Continue reading to learn more about the origin of Valentine’s Day,

Please help us make improvements to this newsletter by completing a very short survey. You will find it here. Thank you.
 
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Many of you have asked me to recommend a website hosting service.  I recommend my host, SiteGround web hosting for websites and blogs.
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Looking for easy gift basket ideas?  Discover what to put in popular themes at  http://www.easygiftbasketideas.com/ . Images and ideas for baby, holidays, celebrations, pamper, real estate and more. You’ll even learn to make diaper cakes from a short video.
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ARE YOU FRUSTRATED WITH YOUR INABILITY TO
ATTRACT MORE CUSTOMERS?
 
Are you struggling to attract new customers to your gift basket business? Do you have a great gift basket service but aren’t sure how to let prospects know about you? You can attract more new customers, sell more to existing customers, and bring back your customers more often. Learn how in the Marketing Bible. 
 
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Have you been asked to create low-cost gift baskets? Learn how to profitably serve this market in our new our free 7-part e-course, “Satisfy Customer Demands for Low-Cost Gifts.” Sign up now . Once you confirm, you’ll begin to receive lessons in your email box.