10 Ways to Make Last Minute Money
2009/12/16 11:41 AM
Let’s be real – we all want to make as much money as possible each year, yet as we get closer to shutting down for the holidays, we sometimes just get into “shut down” mode a little too quickly!
Let’s change that this year and take a vow together, to make the MOST of the last two weeks of every year and to think outside “outside the box” to make as much money as we can…..because we can!
Here are some ideas that we are using to generate more sales in both of my companies, Simply Sarah and Entreprenette. Jump on board and let’s end in a BIG way this year. Obviously, a lot of people are done with their shopping by now, and on their way out mentally as well. But every few orders add up to a larger sum at the end of the day……so let’s just piece it together.
1. We called Curves, a national Women’s gym and asked to do a holiday sale. They were thrilled and my assistant went yesterday for a few hours and cleaned up! The women there were excited to get their last minute gifts and work out at the same time. Park once, accomplish twice.
2. We took advantage of tomorrow being the last day to ship UPS ground and we put up a ONE-DAY only 50% off sale yesterday. We got 15 orders in the first 30 minutes……the rest of the day more trickled in. Again, ching ching.
3. We have been commenting a lot on fashion blogs for the past 3 months testing the waters to see what kind of traffic we could get from each site by tracking through google analytics. Luckily a blog we had commented on a few times wrote a review mentioning the Handy Hold All yesterday and we got about 6 orders. Not a huge response, but every penny counts!
4. I took out an ad on Facebook Monday to test it out and see if new fans convert to sales. We are getting new fans (which is always great) but I can’t figure out how to tell if they are converting……working on that part!!
5. Twitter, twitter twitter. Can I say that again??? If you missed last weeks awesome demo by Kerrianne Mellot go back and try out her suggestions of how to get more sales using twitter. I have gotten 2 paying clients for Entreprenette through twitter connections. I have also made some other great connections on Twitter for speaking engagements, as well as new friends etc.. all good stuff.
6. Affiliate programs. Get one going now!! It’s not too late to offer someone a year-end bonus for promoting you or selling your product.
7. Start a drop ship program. We have recently been promoting this again because it’s like making money in your sleep. Someone else sells your product and all you do is ship it. Let them do all the marketing while you do something else to bring in money!
8. Create a twitter storm. Write to your list and ask them to contribute to a blog post you are doing (today). Tell them you are writing a last minute holiday gift guide for the slackers out there who can’t find the “perfect” thing. Ask them to tell about the best “white elephant” gift they ever got – post all the responses in your blog and call it the last creative gift on earth…..or something like that. Email all the contributors and tell them the blog post is up and ask them to tweet it out…..they will because they can tell their friends and followers they are # so in so. NOTE: Be prepared to twitter a bunch of cool relevant things to attract all your new bees to the hive!
9. Create a last minute contest on your blog. Now that we are not allowed to post contests and giveaways on Facebook (ggrr)…..blogs and twitter seem like the places to do this now. Get your fans to leave comments on a blog post you wrote and twitter another one to be entered to win something….because everyone loves to win! Make them refer to your twitter name so you can see the mention.
10.Throw it all in the pan: Get your best customers on the phone and offer them a deal. Offer free shipping to one lucky person. Email your friends a great deal and ask them to send it to 5 friends for you. Ask friends to repost your deal on their FB pages. Post about your last minute deals on forums, meet up groups, networking groups and any on-line budget fashionista website you can find. Find mommy groups, lactation centers, or the YMCA and see if you can go sell your stuff there.
Ok, I am fresh out of ideas……give it all you have and bring home the bacon baby!
BONUS: If you don’t have a product, give yourself a gift and let’s get one going!
Tagged: Accessories, Blogging, business, Handy Hold All, Marketing, Sales, Social Media, Tips From The Entreprenette Handbook, Twitter, Website
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Kirsten says: I am learning a ton from your website.. thanks so much for the guidance. Have a great day! http://www.thewhitehurstcompany.com
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Building an email list can be tough, I totally agree. But an email list is just as important as social media in my opinion. Social media is fleeting. Your customer might not see your post flash by, the FB or Instagram algorithm changes all the time so you never really know if anyone is seeing your posts (as much as you hope at least), and unless they purchase, it’s hard to tell if it is driving traffic or not.
When I started my handbag line, the internet was just getting started, and people were just beginning to get online for the first time and the biggest thing since sliced bread was www.match.com.
Note the www…… everyone used that back then so you’d KNOW it was a website. LOL.
And to get on the website, even just to learn more about it, you needed an email address to get past their “paywall”. The Paywall was a pop up of sorts that asked for your name and email in order to “grant” you access to see what was behind the curtain. They built a list of millions in a few short weeks and that was more valuable than anyone just “knowing” about their company because they could market to them incessentanly.
Daily. And I mean sometimes multiple times a day. I’d never seen anything like this.
They were the first company that I knew of who “collected” emails, then turned around and marketed to you to get you to sign up for their services. And they were relentless……
I’m not saying you need to send emails daily, or emails multiple times a day, but if you don’t email your list at least weekly, they will forget about you and end up buying something similar chez someone else who is sending them emails.
So Why are Pop ups so important? Pop ups are a way to collect emails via your own “Paywall” and continue to market to potentially interested customers. If they take the time to sign up (first baby step) then they are showing you that they are on the first step of the staircase and want to keep walking up. It’s your job to keep enticing them to the top! AKA buy something.
Step 1: Sign up with a content management system like Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Klayvio or whichever one you like best. I like Active Campaign and have been using it for over 10 years. Some people choose to use the forms that come with these programs and I have too in various situations, but I also recommend Privy if you use Shopify, and Ninja Pops if you use Wordpress. They can easily be installed and connected to these CMS systems.
Step 2: The first and easiest way to collect emails is to have a homepage pop up with an offer for a % off the first order. That is a way to ‘collect” emails and give something in return. It’s the first step in building rapport with your potential customers. It’s like saying, let’s be friends, I’ll give you something you want, and you give me something I want, your email.
Step 3: Make sure you have an automation set up in the CMS system. This is an automated email series that will be sent to anyone who gives you their email address on your pop up. I call it the Hello Series. The idea of this series is to again, build rapport, and tell the customer a bit about you and your company over a 2 week period. This series has nothing to do with your regular email marketing emails. This is a sole and separate email series to build rapport so just set it and forget it. Yes customers will probably get some of these on the same days as other marketing emails but just don’t worry about it.
This is how it works:
a: The first email to go out immediately is the one with the coupon code they just signed up for. Add something about your brand and photos of your products linking to your website.
b: The second one goes out the next day and asks them if they had a chance to use the coupon yet, and then tells them to whitelist your email so they don’t miss your promotions and special offers for people on your list. Always have images of products that link to your website.
c: The third email goes 4 days later and in this one I like to tell a story about how I got started with the business. Add images and links here too.
d: The fourth email shares something cool about your business. Could be some nice stores you are in, a press placement, a celebrity who has your stuff or perhaps posted about it on Instagram. It can also be a tutorial about how to use your products, or a blog post you wrote on a topic they’d be interested in. Share something that will make them feel happy for you, and encourage them to hang with you.
e: The fifth and final email in this sequence encourages them to follow you on social media. I like to entice them with “doing” something in exchange for a gift. Could be something like “post your photo using or wearing our product, and be entered in our monthly drawing for a free X”.
Step 4: Now that you have collected more emails with a pop up, your ongoing marketing efforts will start to pay off faster. As the list continues to build, you’ll have more people to market to, invite to events you do, and share your good news with. Hopefully they will become loyal customers, share your site with friends, and continue to be an active part of your social media channels. Keep sending emails weekly ( at least) to your list so keep them active and engaged. I’m sure you’ll see a big difference.
If you want ideas to help you fill in the blanks about the above, drop me a comment below and I’ll be happy to help out.
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