Scrapbook Update» Marketing

Viral Marketing In Action

Nancy Nally — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:14:45 +0000

Viral marketing doesn’t hit the scrapbook industry very often. Provo Craft has accomplished it a few times with Cricut launches, specifically with their Gypsy product launch. But it’s truly a rare accomplishment for a scrapbook marketing campaign. In truth, few companies even attempt to create a truly viral promotion.

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.

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Retailers – Need Promotional Idea For The Holidays?

Nancy Nally — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:16:40 +0000

Any retailer who has ever asked me for advice about marketing their business or about what they should do at the CHA shows, has likely heard me rave about the genius of retail consultants and speakers Kizer & Bender. In their writing, seminars & consulting, Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender deliver advice to retailers that is very doable and makes sense for businesses of all sizes. And as a bonus, they never fail to do it in an entertaining way!

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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What Can We Learn from a Haul Video?

Nancy Nally — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:51:47 +0000

“Haul” videos are all the rage on video sites like YouTube. Shoppers record video evidence of their latest shopping “haul” and describe the bargains or treasures that they scored on their shopping mission. But if you take a closer look at these videos as marketers, can you learn something about shoppers and their habits, needs and wants from them?

To find out, let’s take a closer look at this recent scrapbooking haul video posted to YouTube by user detdaty0129:

So, what can we learn about shopper behavior from that 47 seconds? A surprising amount, actually.

Our haul shopper is pretty savvy. Not too many shoppers realize that some stores will take the competitor’s coupons (something I am personally always forgetting about when I get my Joann’s flyers in the mail).
This shopper chose to use her coupon on an item [Scotch ATG adhesive applicator, $29.99 at Scrapbook.com] that I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about, and was very excited about it. Adhesive isn’t usually a “sexy” product, but this particular adhesive gun seems to have really excited consumers.
The 70% off coupon was used to get a very practical item for a nominal price rather than seeing the discount as an opportunity to get a less usable luxury item at a massive savings. I’ll admit – I have a few expensive “ghost tools” that sit around my scrap room collecting dust that I was swayed into buying by a massive discount.
This coupon promotion by Jo-Ann Stores converted well into a sale – unfortunately it was a sale for their competitor! But it does show that coupons will bring out shoppers.
Coupon promotions like this are designed to get shoppers into the store in the hopes that they will buy more than just the coupon item. Although it isn’t mentioned in the video, a glance at the shopper’s receipt shows that it contains multiple line items, which means the promotion was probably successful in that respect.

This concept of using big sales to buy basic essentials at affordable prices was one that we saw retailers reporting as a trend last holiday season, when it seemed shoppers were gravitating more than usual towards holiday sales on basic clothing items. Since it appears that sentiment has stuck with consumers, it will be interesting to see how it affects the upcoming holiday season for retailers.

Remember the tease on the Behind The Scenes blog to get your video cameras ready? Well, here’s your first chance to use them on Scrapbook Update! Would you like your haul to be the featured in the next Scrapbook Update “haul” analysis? You can submit your own “haul” video to Scrapbook Update via our video submissions page after uploading it to YouTube or a similar service. We can’t wait to see what our readers come up with!

Have you seen the latest from Paper Crafts magazine?

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Position Available: Avery Dennison Product Manager

Nancy Nally — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:43:39 +0000

Product Manager: Full-time (Brea, CA)

This individual will be a marketing champion within Information Management & Identification for Specialty Labels and Cards. This individual will have product line management accountability for Specialty Labels and Cards, which includes fabric transfers, printable note cards, crafts & scrapbooking products and e-media products. Specific responsibilities include business reviews and developing strategies and marketing plans for this business in close collaboration with the BU senior management, sales, supply chain, and other functional areas. This person will own execution of agreed upon strategies and programs. This may include: new product development, product line extensions, product refinement, new distribution, cost reductions, concept development, market research, pricing, competitive and category analysis. This person will also be instrumental in identifying and developing the marketing elements to support these programs such as packaging, merchandising, consumer promotions, etc.

DRG Sponsoring Free Marketing Webinar Series

Nancy Nally — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:07:45 +0000

Craft publisher DRG is sponsoring a free six-part series of webinars on craft marketing. The series will be led by marketing consultant Dan Ambrose, founder of ambro.com. David Fales, also of ambro.com, and Jon Russwurm, DRG’s Internet/Catalog Marketing Director, will also take part.

DRG describes the purpose of the series as:

The Webinars, provided free to craft marketers, are designed to help business owners and advertising staff spend their marketing dollars more efficiently by better understanding how to measure, track and value a range of different Internet marketing tools. Marketers who are wondering where to start will benefit, along with those who have an established Internet marketing program.

The first of the series, Basic Internet Advertising for Craft Marketers, takes place on March 18th at 1pm EST. The topics for the entire series are:

March 18 — Basic Internet Advertising for Craft Marketers
April 1 — Internet Advertising Costs, Value and Measurement
April 15 — Search Advertising: How and When to Use SEM
April 29 — Building Your List and Gathering Leads
May 13 — Be Famous: Sponsorships and How to Use Them
May 27 — Online Word of Mouth: Social Media Marketing

Each seminar takes place at 1pm EST.

To get more information, or to register for the webinar series, click here. Space is limited.

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