Oct
1
You have plenty of gift baskets to show customers on your Web site, but how will you get them there?
Customers often want to see a brochure. This print material can be expensive, but it’s a vital marketing component, and online resources as well as local printers will help you to reduce the expense so that it’s considered an investment.
See brochure samples on this page.
Jan
21
How to Plant Seeds that Grow Your Sales
Filed Under Marketing Materials, Sales-Increasing Strategies | Leave a Comment
According to media reports, January is the month to resolve to work smarter, achieve goals, and end bad habits.
It’s a media focus that assaults us every year because it’s their agenda. How about your agenda? Have you devised your business strategy, the methods and the tools that will drive your 2009 success?
Gift basket sales will grow when you plant seeds on a daily basis. This is true in any economy. Opportunities to sell and market materialize as you take advantage of the contacts around you and in your database.
There’s no magic formula for achieving success. It takes persistence along with consistent determination to move forward every day.
Of course, there will be unforeseen circumstances that cause setbacks and missteps. But that’s a small part of the picture.
Stay focused on the parts you can control, and your resolutions will come true.
The CD, 99 Sizzling Marketing Ideas to Make More Money, January to June, acts as a business partner, providing you with time-tested and relevant information used by successful designers every day. Learn more about this popular CD here.
Read more New Year success tips:
Postcards – a favorite low-cost marketing vehicle that’s big on business building.
Turning Giveaways into Sales Tools – how holiday products may bring you profits now.
Selling on Consignment – is this the year to expand sales through other retailers?
Dec
24
Why Gift Baskets and Emotion Work Together
Filed Under Customers, Marketing Materials | Leave a Comment
A person who comes to the door to receive your carefully-made gift basket never pouts. You’ll always see a smile on her face, even if the occasion is not joyous.
It proves, without a doubt, that gift baskets and emotion are permanently connected, and this angle is critically important when planning your themes and marketing.
If you’re planning on an avalanche of sales in 2009, finish the following tasks before the New Year’s ball drops in New York’s Times Square.
1. List the phrases you remember hearing from customers or recipients when they see the gift basket for the first time or express satisfaction by phone when re-ordering.
These phrases provide clues on how to position your marketing messages.
2. Decide which customer sentences about your wonderful presentation, service, or delivery will be added to each page of your Web site. Then add it as quickly as possible.
Comments and feedback turn fence sitters into buyers.
3. Plan a series of literature, sent by Email and traditional mail, that keeps your name and product visible every month.
When customers frequently see your name, they finally get the connection and order from you every time an occasion calls for gifts and baskets.
Here are three investments that will put you on track.
101 Ways to Market Gift Baskets, book or Ebook
99 Marketing Ideas to Make More Money CD, January-June. You’ll save $15 when ordering the July-December CD with the first one.
Low-Cost Secrets for Landing Corporate Accounts CD
Every order that arrives in my office before December 31 will include a special gift worth a minimum $30 from our inventory.
The type of emotion you feel each time you receive an order is the same feeling customers enjoy every time you ring their doorbell. Commit to marketing today so that both you and customers smile all year long.
Aug
17
Business Relationships, How to Blog, Wrapping Up Ribbon
Filed Under Customers, Marketing Materials, Ribbon and Bows | Leave a Comment
HOW TO BUILD BUSINESS
Designers are beginning to write large holiday orders despite gloom and doom forecasts. What’s their secret? Wednesday’s newsletter centers on relationships that they build with clients all year long to ensure high-volume sales at year’s end and how you can do the same.
BLOGGING FOR DOLLARS
Is it time for you to create an online customer relationship with a blog? Some designers have one now, and others are just starting. Here are three reasons why gift basket makers blog and how this weekly project may benefit your sales.
READY TO RECEIVE RIBBON?
Fall and holiday ribbon you ordered at trade shows will be shipped to your office in the coming weeks. Is there room in your workspace to organize it? Read this blog article and learn what type of equipment designers install so that ribbon is right at their fingertips.
Jul
9
Your Web site is beautiful, filled with photographs of the best designs in town. However, there will always be a group of prospects who want to see more than your site. They want a catalog or flyer to remind them of your gift baskets.
Many of us resist the temptation to invest in full color brochures because the expense is too high for the low return. But the problem still exists. You want to have some type of print literature, aside from your business card, to distribute. What are the options?
1. Postcards make great sales tools. They’re easy to maintain for distribution, encouraging sales with a gorgeous design on one side and message on the other. Online printing companies make adding a digital photo to a postcard easy and affordable.
2. Flyers are a close second option, but they’re not as easy to make as postcards. Many designers use their own publishing software to arrange digital photos in a collage format. The flyers are either printed singly when needed or in quantity through an outside printer.
Remember to take photographs of completed designs before they’re shipped or hand delivered. This ensures that you have a bounty of pictures to choose from to create print literature that convinces prospects to become clients.
Learn more about pictures on the photography page, and see these flyer and catalog examples.
May
4
Trade Show Exhibits, Shoe Marketing, Business Cards
Filed Under Marketing Materials, Sales-Increasing Strategies, TRADE SHOWS | Leave a Comment
HOW TO SHOW OFF AT THE SHOW
My first exhibit at a business trade show was nerveracking. Another exhibitor had gift baskets piled high in her booth, but once I explained to executives the differences between her gift baskets and the services attached to mine, the orders arrived in no time. Wednesday’s newsletter gets you ready for trade show exhibits, explaining in three steps what it takes to go from show to sell.
STEP THIS WAY
I explained how I use infant and toddler shoes as marketing tools, and one savvy designer questioned me about what the client does with the shoe when the contents are gone. Here’s a link to the original article, comment, and my suggestion. What’s your thought about this?
HIGH CARD WINS
Are your business cards the traditional one-sided type, printed on both sides, or designed in a trifold format? Here’s the lowdown about today’s cards and reasons why you might create two or more styles to present to different clients.
Technorati Tags: gift baskets business, how to exhibit at trade shows, business cards
Apr
30
Ready to Try a Trade Show?
Filed Under Marketing Materials, TRADE SHOWS | 2 Comments
Today’s mail just arrived. It includes an invitation to show your gift baskets at an upcoming regional business show and promises to be visited by local firms, from temp agency reps to landscapers.
This may be a great opportunity to show your gift baskets to hundreds of potential corporate clients. Will you exhibit? Here’s what to consider before signing up.
1. Get the facts. Ask the show producers about last year’s attendance numbers. Also request last year’s show directory so you can call random exhibitors for their feedback on the past event.
2. Choose your marketing materials. Flyers, catalog sheets, and a giveaway drawing that lets you collect business cards for post-event contact are the norm. If you have no literature to distribute, don’t exhibit at this show.
Do you recall the brochure samples I shared with you?
Brochure Flyer
Trifold Brochure
Standard Catalog
Four Page Catalog
3. Create your database. Your post-show strategy includes entering prospects’ names and addresses into a database (or hiring an outsourcing company to complete the project), and calling as many of them as possible to sell them on your baskets for general appreciation and upcoming occasions.
Trade show exhibiting connects you with prospects whom you normally have no access to, and it’s a fantastic way to increase your sales throughout the year.
Learn more on how to create a simple Web site contact page for prospects to ask questions before ordering.
Technorati Tags: gift baskets business, how to exhibit at trade shows, marketing materials, catalogs and flyers
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