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Free Tips for Fabulous Success at Fall Shows

Free Tips for Fabulous Success at Fall Shows

The Fall season is here! The busiest season for sellers in all ways and especially at craft shows and other events. Shannon Ferraby, author of Success Unwrapped, spills the tea in her book and our blog series. She'll guide you, A-Z, through the world of event success, boosting sales, snagging loyal customers, and unwrapping your business's potential. 

Up next is B.  B is for...Bags.

Imagine you are at a busy, fall festival. Customers are flocking around your booth and you're doing your best to provide great service to them all. When someone is ready to check out, you’re anxious to finish up and move on to the next buying customer. You don’t have time to stand there and stuff their bag with things, even if the information might be useful. However, it’s not enough to hand them their products and send them away with a quick word of thanks. You won’t truly find success, long term, if you just show up the day of the event and hope for the best. You should be planning and preparing before the show. Practice your display, collect your needed supplies and label all marketing materials with your contact information. Work hard after the show by following up with every shopper as well as anyone else who provided you with their details.
For speedy check out, have your bags pre-stuffed before the show begins with items you know will be valuable to help those one time shoppers turn into lifetime customers. You can always bring extra bags and items to stuff in them in case you underestimated the number you would need, or for times things are slow. Stuffing more bags will keep your time at the show productively busy. But what will you put in those bags?

Here are some ideas of what to put in your shopper bags:

  • a business card
  • a thank you note for their purchase
  • consider a sweet little treat to bring a smile when they find it
  • warranty, guarantee and exchange information
  • any specials you are offering soon
  • a list of upcoming shows you will be attending
  • any instructions they might need to use your product
  • how to join your VIP customer group on Facebook 
  • an invitation to post a photo using what they just purchased and tag your business page, to be entered into a contest.
  • how to find and follow you on your social media pages.
  • something they are likely to keep with your website on it. What would you keep? A pen? A sticky note pad? A magnet? A cute sticker?

Every single piece of marketing material you place in the bag needs to be labeled with your website, phone number, email and social media addresses. Consider that shoppers have different preferences for communicating. Perhaps you love texting and contemplated only putting your number to text as your contact information. Don’t do it! Provide every means to contact you and allow them to reach out in the way that best suits them. Don’t put contact information on just your business card, for example, and assume since it is there the rest do not need it. They may only keep one thing out of everything you put in the bag. If it’s not the business card, they will not be able to contact you. Considering 88% of business cards are thrown away within the first week, that is even more reason to label everything; the business card alone will not suffice. 

Wouldn’t you love to add, not just sales at your events, but repeat orders online to your Fall selling season? Get creative, add value and get pre-stuffing those bags! -Shannon Ferraby, Success Unwrapped