As a lifelong crafter, and as someone who has been scrapbooking since the time before rub-ons and Jolee’s Boutique (and when stamps and inks weren’t even a part of my local store), I am something of an old-timer when it comes to scrapbooking. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to use products, and have contact with manufacturers. I have come to be a loyal customer to some companies, and I will tell you that I also boycott some companies. Today I’d like to share what inspires my loyalty, what doesn’t, and what I hope to see in the future for customer relations in our industry.

Being good at customer service and inspiring loyalty isn’t hard – but it does take commitment. About two years ago I had an incident where I contacted a company (which will remain unnamed to protect the guilty) about some defective product that I wanted replaced. I received an email reply that said I wasn’t their customer because they sell only to retailers and not end consumers, so my issue was with the retailer that sold me the product. Outraged, I continued to contact the company until I reached a supervisor who promised to replace the product. They eventually sent me a box of product (that looked like it had been swept off the warehouse floor), but I never did get a replacement for my defective product.

Needless to say, I am no longer a consumer of that brand. Conventional wisdom is that unhappy customers are something like ten times more likely to talk about a brand than happy customers are – so doesn’t it make sense to inspire such bliss in your customers?

Is it truly hard to put a smile on and reply as if you care? Certainly not! As a former brand ambassador for a scrapbook company as well as a customer service representative for a bank, I’ve been through a lot of training and seminars, and read a lot on the subject. It’s simple: treat the customer as you’d like to be treated if the situation were reversed, and always do your best to make them happy and get the situation solved as simply as possible.

So what would inspire a consumer like me to repeatedly buy your products, talk about you, and support your company?

• If I have a problem, fix it and do so quickly.
• Never excuse a defective product or place blame elsewhere, just apologize and replace it.
• Answer your email in a reasonable (within 2 business days) time frame.
• Produce quality products that are useful to me as a crafter.
• Have a website that is easy to navigate and up-to-date.

The bottom line, of course, is that you have to make products I want to buy. How do I find out about you, as someone without a local store to shop in? Years ago local stores were everywhere and blogs were something most people knew nothing about. These days the opposite is true – and more than ever having an online presence is vital to a company’s success in the craft industry. The key is that it needs to be well done. The company’s website, even if it is simple, must be up-to-date and useful.  A blog should have someone in charge of scheduling and content should be posted at a regular interval (whether that is daily, three times a week, etc) that is fairly predictable so that I know how often to check in. Giveaways and exclusive first peeks at new products are always nice, but really I’m after content that is inspiring me to use your products. Tutorials, projects, and bringing in guest designers are all great ways to both show off your product and get me to come back and see you again.

If you do not have a large design team, or if you are hoping to get more of a presence online consider reaching out to crafters who are active and influential as appropriate – feel free to ask them test your products, blog about them, etc – but make sure it’s someone who would be truly interested and that the offer would be beneficial to both of you. For example, do not contact a card maker and ask them to try your new layout building system. Do your homework, and keep your initial email both to the point and friendly.

If a company is going to have a Facebook page and Twitter account (and they should), I expect that I can contact them in that way. If you do not want me connecting to you, don’t join social media. Here are some suggestions I have:

• Do not try to make me help you get followers. Let your following grow organically and stop the “we must hit ___ number and then we will___” insanity please. Appreciate the fans you do have instead of making me feel less important because I’m already a fan and you’re searching for new ones instead.
• If you’re using Twitter, post original content  - not just links to your facebook page.
• Reply when appropriate and join in conversations.
• Share peeks, behind the scenes glimpses, and other relevant info we couldn’t get elsewhere.
• Keep your consumers in mind, and share appropriate material. Political, religious, and other sensitive topics are bad choices to post about unless of course you’re a political or religious craft supply company!
• Keep it honest, interesting, and updated on a regular basis.

As I list out what I like (and dislike) in the online presence of a company (as well as customer service and quality of products in general) three companies stand out in my mind as excelling at all of the above. American Crafts, Pink Paislee, and Studio Calico have great blog content, enthusiastic and influential design teams that are active on-line, amazing service if you ever have need to call or email them, nice websites, and are truly all-around role models for how loyalty can be inspired in consumers like me.

There are a lot of other wonderful companies that I’ve had great experience with as well, and that I see getting into a more active role online, and that continue to put out products I love. I frequently email them to let them know I love what they’re doing and that I’m a fan. As a consumer, I find that it’s just as important to praise and support those who are doing great things as it is to complain about and boycott those companies who are doing badly. In fact – it’s more important! To use that dreaded catch phrase – in this economy, where we spend our dollars and who we support count for everything.

I encourage you to drop a note to your favorite craft company, and if you’re so inclined, please feel free to leave comments sharing your positive experiences with a company and/or who you are really loving these days.

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Salt Lake City-based Overstock.com, an often overlooked player in the crafts retail market, landed in the number 10 spot on the list by posting 23.8% growth from 2009 to 2010. Stores attributes this to the growing portfolio of markets that company has expanded into, including travel (by selling discount hotel rooms). A ranking penalty incurred by the company from Google over accusations it manipulated Google results by embedding links in school websites in return for promised discounts has left Stores skeptical that Overstock can repeat those year-to-year growth results, however.

Both home shopping networks made the list. HSN ranked highest, coming in at number 44 with 9% year-over-year growth. Known for its promotion of lines like Cricut, Anna Griffin and Martha Stewart Crafts with custom created bundles during its on-air craft specials, HSN is definitely a force in the new model of retailing and their growth reflects that. Although nearly twice the size of HSN in total sales, home shopping network QVC was further down the list at number 85 due to experiencing a smaller (but still impressive) amount of year to year sales growth (5%).

Near the bottom of the Stores list we find two craft chain stores. First up is Jo-Ann Stores. That chain placed in 95th on the chart with 4.4% sales growth, on $2.079 billion in retail sales from 751 stores. The other craft chain on the list, Hobby Lobby, came in at number 96, also showing 4.4% sales growth in the surveyed period. Privately-held Hobby Lobby’s sales were reported as $2.093 billion, surpassing Jo-Ann Stores, and with only 497 store locations. Hobby Lobby’s growth numbers were undoubtedly helped by opening of new locations – it experienced store growth in the covered period of 5.7%, while Jo-Ann Stores only expanded their locations by 0.7%.

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It is tempting, as society is taken over by technology, to think that everything can be replaced and even made better by technology. That is not always the case. To learn why that is not the case with a trade show, you have to first consider: What is a trade show?

A trade show is not a shopping mall.

A trade show is not a place for buyers to run through with list in hand, checking off items and getting in and out as fast as possible like a frantic last-minute holiday shopper with presents still to wrap and dinner to cook.

There are many different ways for crafts industry buyers to view and order products: reps, distributors, buying groups, vendor websites. A trade show (in any format) simply isn’t necessary just to facilitate actual commerce transactions like it was 20 years ago. The limited perception of trade-show-as-shopping-mall sets everyone involved up for failure, because it then colors the choices that the participants (both vendors and buyers) make on-site about how to spend their time and how to spend their resources. Ultimately, the tight focus on buying and selling – which all involve recognize can be completed other ways – leaves everyone afterwards feeling unfulfilled and wondering what the point of the event was.

So if the point of a trade show is not buying and selling, what is it?

A trade show is about people, about relationships, about sharing the knowledge that is inside all of the attendees’ heads, and about building on all of that together as a group.

The real value of a trade show is in the conversation struck up with a fellow attendee that leads to learning something unexpected that helps your business, or even leads to a relationship that creates a new business. The value of a trade show is in confidential one-on-one conversations (not ones that are broadcast over the internet and even recorded). The value of a trade show is in the booth you only notice because it has attracted a crowd, or the lunch line chat that sends you somewhere you’d never have made time to go. The value of a trade show is in sitting in a class and turning to the person next to you to see what they are doing when you miss something, or being able to get a helpful prompt from a teacher’s assistant. It’s being able to get a quick replacement for a piece of paper that you mess up using, or for a defective class kit item, so that it doesn’t derail your whole class experience.

I could, literally, go on and on about the value in an on-site trade show. It’s there for the taking…if you reach for it. If you ask the questions, look hard at the samples (and notice details), attend the seminars and demos, and notice the people around you and engage them, you create the value and get out of the show experience what you put into it. The value of a trade show is in…presence. It is spontaneity, interaction, and physically touching items. The value of a trade show is in the unexpected, the unplanned.

And despite my statements about them not being shopping malls, the internet hasn’t made trade shows completely redundant for purchasing craft products. Anyone who has ever shopped online knows that color display on a computer is very inaccurate. Seeing a product in person is the only real way to know its true color, and lots of other details like paper weight and texture don’t convey well online either. Just watching a demo of a tool is very different from having the demonstrator hand it you and say “try it!”. Getting touchy-feely with product definitely has its advantages.

Believe it or not, I learned this value of in-person events in an ironic place that you might least expect: the tech world. While it might seem that the technology industry, where people are quick to adopt and become heavy users of new technologies, would be first to abandon the concept of  ”old school” in-person events, I found the exact opposite to be true. That industry downright treasures the handshake, understanding the value of sitting down over a cup of coffee to bat ideas around or share information, or of a group discussion in a seminar room.

That’s not to say that the tech industry is a trade show dinosaur. Instead, they’ve adapted their events to the new modern era. Their few “old school” style trade shows with aisles of booth displays aren’t put on for buyers as much as for marketing to press, to create word-of-mouth marketing, and to provide education to the industry’s top echelon of participants. In many instances the products on display are prototypes that aren’t even going to be on sale in the near future. (For a comparison in the crafts industry, reference what Craftwell did by exhibiting at several CHA shows before the release of the e-craft machine). The majority of the tech industry’s events are conference-style, focusing on seminars and speeches and roundtable discussions. The focus is on ideas and making connections, not on commerce.

One of my favorite tech events, Photoshop World, is a kind of hybrid of the old and new formats. Staged to educate professional photographers and designers about Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom products and help improve their photography skills, the event includes both a vendor floor and a heavy concentration on classroom sessions. However – unlike most such traditional events – the classroom sessions and the vendor floor do not take place at the same time. The classroom sessions take place in the morning and evening, and the vendor floor is open in the afternoon. This way, vendors can attend the sessions themselves, and do not have to compete with the sessions for the attention of the attendees. I’ve found it greatly enhances my event experience to not feel pulled in multiple directions – do I attend this session, or see more of the vendor floor?

Trade-show-as-shopping-mall was the 20th century way of doing business. We all need to start taking on the 21st century perspective on doing business at shows, an emphasis on people. The Craft & Hobby Association has begun to make that shift in its format and offerings this year with the introduction of the conference format, but ultimately, the change in philosophy has to take root in the psyche of the show attendees for it to be successful. We all have to decide what it is that we want out of the experience. Are we willing to settle for a shopping mall? Or do we want the chance to learn, to create opportunity, and work to take our businesses to the next level? Do we want the opportunity to really do business? Or do we want to sit on our couches and shop over the internet?

One last thing…if you think you aren’t interested in “doing business”, that you are content to stay quietly at home and do your shopping and watch a few seminars online, there is something that you need to remember. It is innovation and new ideas and change and cooperation – people – that keep an industry developing and healthy. If everyone stays home, none of those things happen, leading to stagnation and decline in the industry. If people do come together and build something, and you weren’t part of the building of it, you will soon be left behind.

Simply put: Getting a group of people from an industry together in one place to discuss and do business cannot be replaced by a series of video broadcasts. Face-to-face meetings are critical not only to the development of individual businesses, but to the health of the industry as a whole.

Thinking in this new way about trade shows requires stepping outside our comfort zones for most of us. It requires undoing years or even decades of lessons about what a trade show is and how a successful one works. We have to stop thinking about trade shows in terms of dollars of product bought and sold. We have to start judging them in terms of things like the cementing of customer relationships, advancing marketing goals, professional education, and building networks. We need to stop thinking in terms of the quantity of the attendees and focus on the quality of the attendees and the quality of our interactions with them.

Take responsibility for your business’s future and your industry’s future. Don’t do the usual. Challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone and make your trade show experience something that is productive for you and your business.

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But if you’d like to see a perfect example of viral marketing done right, you need to see the holiday music video just put out by Scrapbook.com called “It’s Always Sunny In Here”. The only way to describe it is to say think about a combination of Glee and Mad Men in theme…It’s been the toast of Twitter the past few days – the true stamp of a campaign gone viral.

What makes the video the perfect viral marketing piece? First, it is downright fun! You can’t help but smile watching it. You want to watch it over and over, and tell your friends to watch it because you know they will smile too. You absolutely do not feel like you are watching an ad – which then leaves you with a positive feel about the company. This video is not only great marketing for Scrapbook.com – they’ve added in some subtle specific product mentions, so they’ve provided some marketing for their vendor partners too.

This sort of marketing is drastically under-utilized in the scrapbook industry (both the video and the viral aspect of it). More businesses should consider trying projects like this…the return on investment can be very high.

Disclosure

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The critical holiday sales season is right on top of us, and retailers must take advantage of it to be successful. As usual, Kizer & Bender are here to help, with their new e-book “Jingle Bells Christmas Sells: Events, Promotions & Tips for the Holiday Season“, available on their website for $24.95. Co-authored with their Australian counterpart, Debra Templar, the book is designed to give retailers all the tools and information that they need to maximize their holiday sales and have a successful holiday retail season.

Why is a successful holiday season so important to retail businesses? According to Kizer & Bender, the holiday season quarter accounts for 36% of a retail business’s sales, and represents the highest level of profitability for those businesses. Get the holidays wrong and your whole year is wrong. Do you know the origin of the term “black friday”? It’s called that because the sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving were usually when most retailers finally became profitable for the year.

The holiday season is a critical time for retailers. Don’t turn down the chance to get wonderful marketing advice from seasoned experts like Kizer & Bender and Debra Templar when you can most use it.

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