Scrapbooking Business / Marketing Your Business

Marketing Your Business

Whichever area you choose to specialize in, it’s a good idea to have samples of what you can do close at hand. This means making your own scrapbooking creations and making them available to potential clients as examples of what you can do. Always keep a couple in your car. Networking and word of mouth is the best way to market this business.

Practically any event in a person’s life is material for a scrapbook—which is great news for those who have a scrapbooking home based business. One woman specializes in making scrapbooks for the kindergartners at the elementary school near her home. And there’s a man who has an extremely successful scrapbooking home business where he only does military scrapbooks for veterans.

If you’re already into making scrapbooks, then you know about all the exciting new products available for scrapbooking home businesses. Beautiful and fun papers are just the beginning. And the scrapbook covers are often works of art - which is the point. When you’re preserving someone’s memories through your scrapbooking home business, you’re an artist and should think of yourself as one.

There are many, many ways to go about marketing yourself and your new business. Most of all know who your target audience is and talk directly to them and their needs. If there is more than one target group, have a different set of materials to send to them. Basically, you’ll need to tailor your marketing materials according to what you’re trying to accomplish.

You want the person who sees your materials to say to themselves “That’s what I need!” Get to know each group you want to reach and speak to them. If you want to teach teens how to scrapbook, make your marketing materials teen-friendly. Use their language and terminology. Tell them what a fun time they’ll have making scrapbooks. Make it seem like they NEED to attend your sessions.

The same philosophy goes for your other target audiences. Speak to mothers, fathers, seniors, kids – the possibilities are endless. When you find the needs of a certain demographic, you need to make them WANT to buy your services.

Never assume you know your audience completely. Not all scrapbookers are alike - in fact, you might be surprised at the wide variety of people who enjoy our hobby! By letting your target markets know you took the time to get to know them, you're already halfway there.

Probably one of the best ways to get your name out in the business is to attend trade shows. Almost all local Chambers of Commerce holds some type of business expo. Spend the money to rent a booth and have samples of your work readily available.

Be sure you have plenty of business cards to hand out. Have a drawing to give away your services. Use the drawing slips to make a direct marketing list for future promotions. Be sure and have a place on the entry slip where entrants can indicate whether or not they want to receive future information from you.

A great way to promote your business is to compile a newsletter that you send out periodically to potential customers. To save on mailing costs, have people provide you with their e-mail address and take the time to send out your newsletter electronically.

Call your local newspaper and see if the reporter who covers local community news would be open to doing a story on your new business. Many times, they will be happy to do a story, but it has to be newsworthy. There's a fine line between advertising your business and offering the media valuable news and information. How do you generate excitement?

Let them know why you started your business in the first place. If you are one of the only scrapbook businesses in town (this is divided by areas of business - for example, there may be a store in town but you're the only custom scrapbook artist), let the media know why you decided to open. Were there no stores within a two hour radius? Did many people approach you to create scrapbooks for them?

Show that you are unique. Many people think that scrapbook enthusiasts are all basically the same - female, married with kids, of a certain faith, etc. This couldn't be further from the truth! There is a growing diversity among scrapbook enthusiasts, embracing many cultures, religions, genders, and ages. Write a press release spotlighting this fact.

Sponsor a day just for kids to teach them how to scrapbook. Make it feasible for them and limit the ages to 7 and older. Invite the local paper to cover the event.

The media love human interest stories – especially from local residents. Tell your story to them. Are you a stay-at-home mom who wanted to supplement the family income and have realized success? Perhaps you got laid off from your job and were looking for a way to occupy your time that would allow you to make money.

Try putting together a project for the community. Provide free classes for underprivileged youth or a church organization. Solicit sponsors and donations then give all the money to a charitable association. This will not only promote your business, but it will give you a great reputation within your local community.

Throw a customer appreciation party for your loyal clients and invite the media. Center the party around a theme – the 70’s, a luau, a Mexican fiesta, etc. Your customers will love this type of personal attention and the media will love the human interest aspect.

Your Website

As we’ve mentioned before, you MUST have a website to adequately promote your business. Get your own domain name – don’t use one of the free services that require you include their name in your web address.

It will be much easier for people to find you online if you have a unique dot com or dot net address. Let’s say your business name is Scraps R Us. You want potential customers to be able to type in www.scrapsrus.com rather than www.scrapsrus.geocities.com.

It’s easy to find places to register your domain name and get your own website. The first place to check is with your Internet service provider. Many companies offer this service to their customers for a small monthly fee that includes registering your name, giving you your web space, and providing e-mail addresses that go with your domain name.

A note here about e-mail address: DO NOT use a free e-mail provider like yahoo or hotmail. Most web-savvy people know that these are free services and it makes you look unprofessional.

These free service mailboxes are relatively small and can fill up quite quickly. This could cause customers to have their e-mails to you bounced back to them with a note that the mailbox is full. Again, it makes you look unprofessional.

You can also find plenty of places online to register a domain name and get your web space. I did a Google search for “register domain names” and found plenty of places that provide services for a small amount of money per month. Many of these sites also offer web site builder that give you tools to design your web site and get it up and running.

If you’re good with software programs, two of the most commonly used programs used in designing websites are Front Page from Microsoft and Dream Weaver. Both of these programs are relatively easy to use and they allow you to get really creative with graphics and fonts.

When you start advertising your web site, make sure it is up and completely running. If it isn’t ready yet and customers receive an “Under Construction” message, the chances of them re-visiting your site later are lower. Why take the chance? Don’t advertise your web site until you are fully ready to accommodate visitors.

E-Zines

As part of your website, you may want to publish an e-zine for an added feature. This is an ideal way to showcase your business. By sharing your knowledge and expertise, you build credibility as an expert, while spreading the word about your services and products.

Not sure how to start? It’s easier than you might think. Start out by sharing general information about you and why you started your business. Give a short biography about your background, how long you’ve been scrapping and what your credentials are. This will lend to your professional image and people will take you seriously as a scrapbooking expert.

Tell success stories about customers you’ve helped in solving a problem. Then use that as a springboard into more general advice tips. IF you show potential customers that you are creative in solving problems, they’re more likely to take you seriously. Plus, by giving general advice, they’ll appreciate that you know what you’re talking about.

Think of questions your past clients have asked you about scrapbooking and publish these as an “Ask The Expert” section. You can use one or two of these questions in each issue and answer with a short article addressing the problem. If you compile a list of 8 questions and use 2 per month, you’ve already got some great content to start with. If you publish monthly, that’s 4 months of content right there!

You can write a review and summary of a recent article published in a trade magazine. This is a great way to expound on ideas that are already out there and add to any suggestions that article presents. Plus, you could prod people towards subscribing to the magazine that the article is in – we’re pretty sure the magazine would be happy to have a new subscriber!

Try to do interviews with experts in the field. You can conduct this interview completely through e-mail. Look through your trade magazines or find other business owners. Send them 3-5 short questions through e-mail and then edit their answers. Be sure to give their business a short plug in your e-zine. This will make them more eager to participate – everyone loves free advertising!

Invite readers to send in their own questions or profiles along with any advice they may have and feature them as a loyal reader. They’ll love to see their name “in print” and it could get the ball rolling for others to do the same.

If you’re really in a crunch for content info for your e-zine, you can borrow an article for reprint. There are many available online that are free to use, but you must use the entire article and include the author’s information.

One note about using other people’s articles, you shouldn’t do this very often. If your e-zine’s main objective is to get you more clients and customers, you should not feature other writers’ articles more than once in a blue moon. Showcasing other professionals on a regular basis undermines the idea of establishing YOU as the expert in your readers’ minds.

Blogs

As part of your website, you will also want to include a blog section. Although we’re relatively sure you know what a blog is, for clarification, it’s a place where you can write down thoughts, musings, suggestions, give advice – practically anything you can think of.

A blog is another form of communication with your customer base. A blog allows you to keep visitors informed of new arrivals, shipment delays, and pre-orders. It also allows you to share your enthusiasm for the hobby, and what products you’re excited to play with.

Best of all, it allows for two-way communication – you can present information, and visitors can leave comments, so you can get a sense of what they’re thinking and what they want. The comments feature of a blog also allows you to solicit feedback – ask what products customers want you to stock, offer choices of this product line or another. You can encourage participation by asking a question of the week, or offering product challenges, or holding a contest for the name of your newsletter. All of this can be done with a blog.

Press Releases

Many media outlets will publish or air press releases for free if you submit them to you. They have control over when and where to put the release, but it’s great filler for them and excellent advertising for you!

How do you write a great press release?

First, to establish an audience, give statistics about scrapbooking as a hobby. Many people might not realize how popular the hobby has become and even how it can help THEM specifically.

Mention a current trend that is saturating the industry. Make this something that is “hot” right now like using unconventional items on your pages. This not only broadens your audience, but it establishes timeliness and generates interest in your article.

Use quotes from experts. You want to project the image of being a professional and using quotes will show that you are a credible source of information.

Suggest ways to incorporate scrapbooking into home décor. Scrapbooking techniques can be used to make picture collages to hang on the wall or personalize home décor in general. Scrapbooking doesn’t have to be exclusively displayed in an album – you can place beautiful pages all around your home for all to see!

Finally, describe your company and you as well as give information about services that you offer. You may want to include a picture of some of your work to provide a visual to go along with the copy.

Include your phone number, e-mail address, and web site address. Then send it off to your local paper or a trade magazine and wait.

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