CRAFT: It's Friday, January 2

CRAFT: It's Friday, January 2

Addressing the holiday aftermath, Janet Francoeur at Carolina Creations reports:

We actually ended up in better financial shape today, as opposed to this day last year, even though our sales were off 5.5% for the year, our December sales were off only 1/2 of 1 %. A couple reasons for this:

We spent less on inventory, making smaller orders more often.

I chaired a committee of our downtown merchants to promote the entire season. We did some paid advertising but got a lot more free advertising because we promoted not only what we as merchants were doing but all the community groups were doing downtown, like tours, plays, etc. We had crowds of people downtown. It was a lot of hard work, countless hours, but it paid off.

I also have my own blog, where I write about what's going on in the store, our life and general topics, local politics, promoting local events, etc. Right now I have a series of 3 "why buy local" entries inspired by an article in last Sunday's USA Magazine. I've had people stop me in the grocery store and say "I read this or that on your blog." I started blogging last year after going to hear Amy Shaw of Greenjeans, Brooklyn, at the ACC show talk about the value of blogging. For many years I've heard people say "you need to have a blog." In my mind I said "I don't need 1 more thing to do." But when Amy explained what it could be and what it could do I decided to try it and I really like doing it.

Visit Carolina Creations at Janet's blog: carolinacreations.blogspot.com or at the website: carolinacreations.com

Lyman Speckheuer, Via Creativa Gallery, poses a question:

The shopping center we are in offers a great deal to the local  community as far as shopping, pampering and eating.  It is at a really  well-traveled intersection, but is difficult to actually see what is offered here from passing by.  There isn't much foot traffic though the center would be a great place to spend several hours instead of  just being frequented by targeted customers.  I would like to try  boosting our shopping center's branding by connecting with other store  owners here and developing an ad campaign/web site. We have had some support from the landlords in group advertising.  

Has anyone got any experience they would like to share with organizing this type of group?  

Contact Lyman at lyman.speckheuer@gmail.com or send your comments to susan@thegrandhand.com  to post in an upcoming edition of this weekly CRAFT message. Group promotions will also be addressed at the next T3: Third Tuesday Teleconference scheduled for January 20th at 10am EST. Check the website for details: craftonline.org

Preparing for the shows? CRAFT recommends - 

Jay Conrad Levinson's Trade Show Tidbits from the Guerrilla Marketing Weekly Intelligence newsletter, guerrillamarketingassociation.com

• Instead of a brochure, hand out a one-page fact sheet. 
• Do a pre-show promotion because 33% of people attending a show do so because of a promotion. 
• Design your booth for intimacy using small, round discussion tables. 
• Attire your people in bright, business casual clothing. 
• The most serious prospects emerge late in the day because they run out of time and rush around to the most intriguing displays.

Barbara Crowhurst on Display 101: Creating Strong Displays in the OneCoast newsletter at onecoast.com

Happy New Year! welcome 2009

Submitted by Susan Clayton,susan@thegrandhand.com