Bigger Isn’t Always Better
2015/07/16 6:00 AM
I know a lot of people’s dream is to see their products in big box stores like Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco, Target, Walmart and QVC……but the truth is, while you might enjoy gigantic orders from these behemoths, they can turn on a dime, throw you out with the trash, and cripple a company overnight if they are your biggest customer. I have seen it happen to friends of mine…. and it’s not pretty. It’s a lot of tears, and often bankruptcy.
Yes, I sold my products to big stores like Bloomingdales, Sak’s 5th Ave, Neiman Marcus and others……but these orders were always icing on the cake for me as far as the money part went. You bet I loved the prestige they brought, and the doors they opened for me, but I was always careful to keep my eye on the small stores that really paid my bills.
So speaking of small stores, you know, boutiques, gift shops, apothecary’s, and the mom and pop type shops? Well this was how I made millions….seriously! Once we started to get into a few stores, we leveraged that to get into even more and soon we were in 100 stores. Then once I got my New York sales reps, they got us into 300 more stores…..then we kept searching for more more and more stores and soon we had over 1200 accounts and were never selling to less than 800 stores per season.
These boutique-type stores brought in $1M a year and I knew my bills per paid…..
See the difference is that the small stores usually have one buyer (or owner) and it’s much easier to call them, and actually get them on the phone, and, they can make an instant decision. They don’t have 3 levels of management above them, they don’t have plan-a-gram meetings, they don’t have to buy 9 month ahead, and they don’t need approval to place an order. All you need to do is get them to see that the MUST have your products, and the sale is simple.
So while you dream about the big-box stores, continue to build your small store list and push those offers so that you can have consistent sales that you can can count on month after month…….believe me, you’ll sleep better at night.
Learn more of my secrets here……its free!
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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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