Looking for a few goodies to fill up your Valentine's Day display? Here are a few that will work great for the 14th...
Fun pinks & oranges warm up the dull winter months and the saying "The heart that gives, gathers" is a perfect motto to live by year round.
Classic quotes by John Lennon & Audrey Hebburn make timeless gifts. Fun photos of memories made together are also a great choice.
For those who have a love affair with their fury friends, these sweeties are hard to resist.
Instead of spending loads of money on traditional advertising, invest your time & energy into creating quarterly charity projects that give back to the community as well as get you in the news
1. Share Some Love
Put the call out to your customers & community to bring in 3 or more handmade Valentine cards to your store & in return give them a free gift with purchase as a thank you for participating in this project. Once all the cards are collected, visit nearby senior living homes & pass them out on Valentine's Day.
We received a handful of articles & mentions about our efforts in our local papers & even an appearance on Fox 2.
We ended up collecting over 1,000 cards & spent the Friday before Valentine's Day passing them out to nearby senior living communities.
We documented our stops on facebook & our blog so our card makers could see the smiles they helped bring to the seniors' faces.
This event was a grand success because it brought new people through our doors, gave our current customers another reason to come visit us during the cold months of January & February, got us all over the local news & made a bunch of seniors smile.
Helpful links: Press Release, Coloring Sheet, Heart Memory Magnet
2. Taking Care of Our Troops
In honor of Military Appreciation Month in May, put the call out to your customers & community to bring in 3 or more requested items for our troops to your store & in return give them a free gift with purchase as a thank you for participating in this project. Once all the items are collected, visit anysoldier.com & select different troops to send your care packages.
We shared stories & photos from the troops on our blog so our community could see who their goodies benefited.
This event was a success because it brought new people through our doors, gave our current customers an opportunity to make a difference, got us some mentions in our local papers & made a bunch of our service men & women smile.
Helpful Links: Press Release, Coloring Sheet
3. Equipping Kids For School
During the doldrums of August have your customers & community bring in 5 or more basic school supplies to your store & in return give them a free gift with purchase as a thank you for participating in this project. Once all the supplies are collected, partner with a local non-profit to distribute them to kids in need.
Our school supple drive was featured in a couple of our local papers and we also got on Fox news.
We ended up collecting enough supplies to FILL 14 backpacks for kids returning to the classrooms in September.
We documented our collections on our blog & facebook page so our customers & community that participated in our project could see how lots of little donations equals LOTS of stuffed back packs.
This event was a grand success because it brought new people through our doors, gave our current customers & their kids an opportunity to give back to their community, got us all over the local news & helped out kids get a great start to their school year.
Helpful Links: Press Release, Smencils
4. Holiday Open House Food Drive
Instead of just passing out cocoa & cookies at your Holiday Open House, ask your customers to bring in 3 or more non perishable food items to your store & in return give them a free ornament with purchase as a thank you for participating in this project. Afterwards, partner with a local food bank & drop off the donations.
We didn't even have time to send out a press release for this event & just marketed it through our enews, blog, facebook & in-store flyers.
We weighed & documented what we collected & thanked everyone who participated through our blog & enews.
This event was successful because it gave our current customers an easy opportunity to really get in the giving holiday mood plus it benefited many families who don't have the many luxuries we often take for granted.
These are just a few ideas on how your store can really shine in your town. And the best part is the benefits are tri-fold.
1. Your shop becomes branded as a place who cares about their community, gains new customers & gets in the news regularly.
2. Your customers get an easy opportunity to give back to the community & receive a small reward for their participation.
3. Your local charities benefit from your efforts.
As we do every year, we discontinued all of our slower sellers & replaced them with fresh designs.
And another nice change is our wonderful website. This new format allows you to copy or save any of our product images for your use on facebook pages or websites. Just click on the category photos to the right & promote away!
Here's a little preview of our latest additions...
LOTS of new everyday frames with pleasing color stories.
Over a dozen more memory magnets to choose from with many new styles catering towards babies & kiddos.
A brand new product we call happy hooks which you could use for keys or jewelry.
The furry friends section got a big makeover this year.
And a few fresh additions made their way into our kitchen section.
We took our three slowest selling ransom quote designs and replaced them with these great gift-able quotes...
All you need is love - John Lennon
Happiness is not perfected until it is shared - Jane Porter
May love & laughter light your days & warm your heart & home - Irish Blessing
See all quote collages HERE.
Catalogs are on their way to existing a.i. paper customers & you can also shop online at Wholesale crafts.com
If you need a 2011 catalog simply send us your business mailing address to studio@aipaper.com
You can also come visit us & see it all in person at the gift shows in Atlanta or New York.
Thank YOU for choosing to buy handmade & cheers to a prosperous 2011!
If you're looking for ways to make old items seem new again, try mixing up your current displays by taking a trip to your local flea market, Home Depot or Ikea store.
Here is a quick snapshot of our a.i. paper design display at our retail store in Metro Detroit. It all starts with a couple of $15 saw horses from Ikea and an old door. Then we pile on a couple chairs, ladder-like display and top it off with some hanging windows.
Then we showcase our wares by grouping them together in similar color themes.
It all makes for an interesting display that's easy to change and keep looking fresh.
Throughout the year, we like to offer fun sales or low cost giveaways that encourage our customers to stop by & save. In addition to bringing more people through your doors, these small discounts & little giveaways sometimes lead to slightly larger sales since there is a guaranteed savings on non-clearance items.
We've been offering this fun sale on Sweetest Day (a Mid-Western area holiday in October) for the past few years and it's always a hit. We buy a bunch of carnations which are fairly cheap & hardy, then tag them with slips of paper that have 10, 20 or 30% marked on them. We put them in a big vase on the counter and when our customers check out, they pick one & get the discount listed along with a pretty posy to take home.
For our discount ratios we use: 60% get a 10% discount, 30% get a 20% discount and 10% get a 30% discount. You can make your own slips or print ours HERE. We wrap the slip around the stem and staple tightly.
This event would also work for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.
This discount concept can be applied in various ways depending on the season. When back-to-school season rolls around, tag fun colored pencils or the ever popular smencils.
Or for the holidays, candy canes work great.
And who doesn't like to crack open an Easter egg to find a surprise? All these fun activities help engage your customers plus they get to save some cash. A wonderful way to make their shopping experience memorable.
I haven't met anyone who doesn't like to score free goodies. For our give-aways we like to select products that are consumable so when the customer uses & likes it, they want to come back for more. Think bath & body items, candles, food, stationery & so on. We then set a purchase value based on the cost of the product.
For this promotion we created a coupon that read, "Receive a free shower steamer with any purchase over $10"
Our goal was to create buzz about these new shower steamers so we kept the purchase value low which in turn created a lot of extra traffic our stores during the week the coupon was valid.
You could also host a give-away like this on a Saturday, but then I would up the required purchase value to encourage higher sales than average.
This quirky event only takes buying some stamps & maybe offering a 10% discount on cards. So for every card your customer buys, they'll get a free stamp.
We have lots of 'just because' cards & this helps remind people to write to those they love... or stock up on birthday cards for the next couple of months.
You really could have this event anytime, but it might also be nice to tie it into National Greeting Card Month in April.
Another silly event that makes your customers smile at the check-out. We call this day "Summer Gambling" and have them roll 3 dice when they're ready to check out. We add up the dots and that's their discount.
If you have kid related products, this is a great way to get them to stop by after school is out. We offer up a roll of giant sized smarties to any child K-5 who shows us their report card during the month of June.
We don't require a purchase, but often the child convinces the parent to buy them a little something;) Regardless, it spreads goodwill and brings feet inside your store.
Each quarter we like to send our most valued customers a little something special in the mail. It's our way of showing appreciation for their business and also a fun reminder to stop by again sometime soon.
Here's what landed in their mail box in 2009...
We created handmade wooden Valentine postcards thanking them for a great 2008. And when they brought the postcard back before February 14th, we gave them a package of cookies we recently started carrying at the store.
Our customers loved getting a cool piece of 'art' in their mailbox and it also gave us the opportunity to get them hooked on a new line of cookies we offer.
We purchased colorful foam flip flops from the dollar store and hot glued card stock to the sole and transformed them into very memorable postcards. Since flip flop season was right around the corner, we asked them to bring in the flip flop in exchange for a free hand painted glass nail file with any purchase during the month of May.
We heard lots of fun stories about finding these in their mailbox and one of our customers even used this idea for a summer party she was hosting.
Since we were celebrating nine years in business, we used fun birthday candles as a postcard to let them know if they showed us their candle postcard anytime during the month of September they would receive 20% off their purchase.
They really enjoyed this special treatment since normally we only offer our 20% off everything birthday sale on one Saturday in September.
For the month of December we created a personal thank you card that included a pair of kaleidoscope glasses that make Christmas tree lights sparkle extra bright. We also included a sheet that said: We believe in making days brighter, not only for our firefly fans, but also for others in our community near and far. We invite you to help us in our efforts by shopping with us this December and we’ll donate 20% of your purchase to a charity. Then we listed 4 charities they could choose to support with their purchase.
They appreciated the chance to be charitable while still shopping at their favorite shop and this also enabled us to give back to our community.
1. Forward to Friends: Instead of hoping your customers will tell their friends and family about your store, offer them a tempting reward that's worthy to talk about. Each month we do a blog post and email blast featuring a themed give-away package valued around $60. Our customers can enter to win the package by sharing the blog post on their Facebook page or forwarding the email to their friends (each forward counts as an entry).
Some of the benefits include: one very happy winner (that will probably tell more friends), an opportunity to showcase some popular products and having your customers spread the word about your great store to their friends and family.
2. Give It Away: Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on traditional advertising, find opportunities to include valuable coupons or gift cards in goody bags. Many chambers, downtown development associations and charity functions are always looking for contributors to gift bags. We donate $5 gift cards (no strings attached) and package them in a sturdy, eye-catching sleeve that features some of our popular products and contact info.
Some of the benefits include: it gives them a worthwhile reason to check out your store, the gift card/coupon doesn't cost you anything until it delivers you a customer, plus it spreads good will.
3. Reward Local Business: Instead of relying on customers driving into town to come see you, tap into the wealth of people who work within minutes of your store everyday. We developed a Downtown Discount Card for local employees that's good for 12% off all purchases, all the time. We packaged it with a postcard that features some of our popular products and visited all the businesses within walking distance of our store including, hair salons, restaurants, coffee shops, other specialty shops, dentists, doctors, lawyers, banks, real estate offices and even the post office, city hall, library and funeral home. And if the person we talked to at a business hadn't been to our store, we also gave them a $5 gift card as an invite to come visit us.
Some of the benefits include: develops an awareness of your business district offerings, encourages business to business support and creates loyalty.
We hope some of our ideas inspired you to think differently about advertising. And once you've conquered the feat of getting new customers in your door, be sure to learn how to get them connected so they keep coming back for more.
1. Collecting Contacts: Instead of asking our customers if they'd like to be on our mailing list, we created a monthly drawing for a store gift card. We called it our free $63 shopping spree because it was memorable and rhymed. With every sale, we let them know they can sign up and reward our staff each month if they get over 60% participation. The monthly winners are always delighted and we end up collecting a lot of contacts.
2. Sending Handwritten Thank You Postcards: Instead of only sending promotional material to our customers, we also make it a regular practice to send personal notes. During the slower times at the store, we have our staff randomly pick addresses out of the raffle jar and send them nice postcards thanking them for choosing to shop with us. Our customers often comment what a pleasant surprise it was to find a nice note amid all the bills & junk mail in their mailbox.
3. The VIP Treatment: Instead of lumping all our customers into one list, we also have a special list of our loyal customers. Every quarter we send them something unusual in the mail. For instance, this year we created handmade wooden Valentine postcards thanking them for a great 2008. And when they brought the postcard back before February 14th, we gave them a package of cookies we recently started carrying at the store. The VIP's loved getting a cool piece of 'art' in their mailbox and it also gave us the opportunity to get them hooked on a new line of cookies we offer.
We also send them birthday cards with a little treat inside (like a herbal tea bath bag) and remind them they get 20% if they shop with us on their birthday.
4. Make Your Emails Interesting: Instead of sending an email just about your sales or special promotions, add other interesting information that your customers may enjoy or want to forward on to their friends. Some of our features include:
New Products: When I write an order at a trade show, I always ask if I can take a photo of the goods. Then I share some of my finds and our customers get excited when they see what's coming to the store soon.
Staff Favorites: Each month we ask our staff what they love in the store and why. Then we take a photo of them with the item. We've found our customers like to see what our sales gals like and it also connects our customers with our staff.
Feature an Artist or Product Line:Put a spot light on a particular product group for a month. Share the artist's story or explain more about a certain product line. And to entice sales, offer 15% off the featured item(s) for that month. This creates an awareness of the unique goods you offer.
Share Other Interests: Talk about the music you're listening to in your store, the book you can't put down or a recipe that is a big hit. And if you can tie them into products available at your store... even better. Ask for your staff's input as well - once again creating that customer/staff relationship.
Share the Love: Put together a grouping of popular products and offer a goody give-away on a regular basis. We just promoted a Valentine themed one and asked our customers to tell us what theylove. The response was amazing and their replies uplifting. This gets your customers involved and creates good will.
5. Staying Social on the Web: Instead if hoping your customers will remember to come visit you in their free time, lure them in by giving them glimpses of what's happening at your store. You can encourage your customersto subscribe to your blog or become a fan or friend on face-book in your email newsletters. This keeps your place of business in the forefront of their mind and creates customer loyalty. The two main ways we do this are through Blogging and Face-book (both free!)
Some ideas you can share with your customers via a blog or face-book page can include: new products, artist features, music reviews, crafty ideas, seasonal recipes, highlight how you're giving back to the community, show your staff having fun, product give aways, create a photo album of special events you've hosted, showcase other stores in your area, post any press you receive, promote yourself for local 'best of contests', do a day-in-the-life story about you, create a photo album of images around your store, share tips on how to pick out the perfect gift for (dad, mom, grad, bridal couple etc...) - and the list could go on because it's totally up to you. To see what some other shops are blogging about check out delightful blogs.com.
We hope a few of our ideas inspired you to create some new customer connections. We've found it truly is all the the little things that make a BIG difference in life and retail.
Want to see our marketing in action? Sign up for our emails at catching fireflies & Yellow Door Art Market.
