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Your #1 Resource For: Starting a Successful Scrapbooking Business Growing Your Existing Scrapbook Business Insider Information on the $3 Billion+ Scrapbook Industry |
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By Karin Sella
Sloan, Let-Me-Tell-You
Gifts are Good Business Popularity of gift albums is increasing. In the Craftrends and Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooking in America 2004 report, 39% of scrapbookers indicated that they make gift albums, as compared to a quarter of scrapbookers in 2001. Before they put on their party hats and reach for the mini hotdogs customers need to find not only gifts, but also gift cards, bags and tags. Customers who buy gifts become salespeople. When customers make gifts for their friends and family they are marketing your products and potentially introducing new customers. Picture what happens at a bridal shower as the bride opens her gifts. All the guests sit around her oohing and aahing as she offers a demonstration of your products! Gifts translate to repeat sales. Chances are the customer attending one bridal or baby shower this month, is attending several more this year. Friends tend to experience milestone events at the same time. Recently I had two girls buy three of my Let-Me-Tell-You Bride-to-Be books at the same time. Both friends were getting married, as was a third friend and they felt it wasn’t right to make a book for one themselves without having one for her! How to encourage gift makingDesignate an area in your store for gift displays. During the month leading up to each holiday, display relevant product with examples of finished albums, pages, cards, tags and other creative gifts. Keep a wedding, baby and birthday gift display year round, and focus on these gifting occasions during non-holiday months. Make it easy. The trick with gifts is that people generally have a deadline, imposing time constraints. They also worry more about the esthetics and whether the product will look nice enough to be given as a gift. Offer classes, step-by-step instructions and pre-made kits that reduce time and stress. Make it communal. Encouraging your customers to include other friends and family in the album-making process will help them create a more special gift, while also serving to widen your customer base even further. I received an email this month from a mother who had been asked to collaborate on a Bride-to-Be book at a shower. The mother, having discovered easy gift scrapbooking through Bride-to-Be, now wanted to buy one for her own daughter’s wedding. There’s a gift reason for every season: Practically every month presents another gift-giving holiday. In the non-holiday months, customers still need birthday, wedding, anniversary and baby gifts. Here’s a suggestion for highlighting a different gift-giving occasion every month.
January: Birthdays December: Christmas / Hannukah / Kwanzaa
About the Author: Let-Me-Tell-You, 1st place winner of New York University’s distinguished Business Plan Competition, creates celebration products that make it fun to plan for, celebrate and remember life’s milestone events. Published by EK Success, Let-Me-Tell-You Bride-to-Be is the first fill-in-the-blank scrapbook gift set that guides friends and family to complete topics of humor, wishes and advice in a keepsake gift for a bride. It’s the perfect present or interactive activity at a bridal shower. Learn more about Let-Me-Tell-You and find festive and free party resources at www.let-me-tell-you.com
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