marketing

[jldorrington]

so on sunday me and brittany decided wth lets do a u-sell (ok we decided before that but did it on sunday) u-sell is a big outdoor flea market. so we pack the truck and are there at 6 am stayed until 2 only made $83 after booth fee. a big ol waste of time if you ask me but... we did learn something.

some guy who works in marketing stopped by our table took a business card and started a conversation with me complimented out products and our displays (now i'm tryin to remember this convo to the best of my ability considering it was lik 10 degrees at this point and in order to talk i had to take my scarf off my face) he gave us some advice on what not to do and gave us some ideas.

1. don't waste time advertsing in newspapers. you get a percentage of who sees your ads with a newspaper 40,000 people read the newspapermaybe half a percent will read your ad, about 10% of the will actually look at your stuff and then only a percentage of that will actually buy

2. Take a pic of your display with little to no backround junk. take that picture to a drugstore where most will print photos for about 20 cents. print out 100 4x6 photos of your display pop a sticker with your info on the back and mail them out to 100 people thats about 50 with postage for each postcard. if your mailing them to peoples houses they are gonna read it its in their house and there's a chance they will show it to someone else. if you mail it to an office you've got even better chances because there is the original secretary that gets the mail she'll see it show it to other secretaries.

3. sex suprisingly doesn't sell as well as people think.. Sports are the number one seller, followed by religion, then followed by sex.

there was more but my brain is still trying to thaw out

[joym]

Thanks for the info - if your brain thaws out and you think of more, please let us know.

[logcabinmomma]

Hmm, if you did the pics in the mail, you could scent it with one of your better scents too...

-Kristi

[Late Night]

Thanks for passing along your info! I can see where a 'postcard' would be good. The person has to look at it. Even if they don't want it, they still have to look at it to see what it is. :highfive:

[Nodtveidt]

Sex sells, but it has to be in the right environment to sell. People are generally too bashful in public to admit that they like sex-based products, even gag gifts. Religious stuff always sells, and sports...hell yeah. The postcard idea is a good one. If you can swing it costwise, radio advertising is the best in a densely-populated area, especially during the workday. But he was definately right about newspapers...they're generally ineffective since people generally train themselves to look away from advertising, so it doesn't matter how catchy your ad is, it will likely be overlooked anyways.

And uhh...avoid flea markets like the plague. We learned that lesson the hard way too, stuck it out for two months like the stubborn fools we are. People go to flea markets expecting to walk away with cheap junk for pennies on the dollar. And it's become especially bad nowadays with what we call the "Walmart Mentality"...people expect something for next to nothing, and when it comes down to what most of us do, it just doesn't work that way...