actionable marketing guide

My favorite scene was a father with two very young girls. He bought each of them a vanilla swirl custard cone dipped in chocolate. Holding each girl’s free hand tightly, he headed to a grassy area. He was unaware that the younger girl’s cone was dripping around the edge.

My dad would have stopped to show us how to lick an ice cream cone. He would have taken one of our cones and licked around the dripping bottom of the custard. Then he would have taken the other one and done the same. (Sorry mom! I know it was Mother’s Day.)

Beyond ice cream memories, I learned some lessons from which you may benefit.

Build your following. Like many other knitters I have my favorite vendors. I go to their tents or booths first to get the best choice of colors. Otherwise, I’m disappointed. The remaining selection is sparse.

At our B&B,The Columbia Inn at Peralynna, we met a pair of vendors who showed us their photographs for a wonderful book of their patterns. One of their patterns was already a top seller.

They chose to self publish over using a top knitting publisher who had a list of 20,000. When I pointed out that the list probably included lots of names that weren’t buyers, they were surprised. Yet it rang true for the inn owner.  She said her list was larger than her repeat customers.

Actionable Marketing Tip:

• Build your minimum viable audience. Don’t focus on the size of the list!  Monitor the number of buyers and repeat buyers, these are your core fans.

Visuals attract buyers. Successful vendors have knitted samples. They use popular patterns made with their yarn. Seeing the actual item creates purchase desire. Without seeing the finished item, potential buyers can’t visualize what they would do with the yarn.

Most notable is Miss Babs Yarns. She goes a step further. She assembles her dyed yarns in packages for popular patterns featured on Ravelry.

Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Give your audience a tangible understanding of your product. Miss Babs shows buyers how to transform her yarn into a finished product. This is essential for services and less obvious products.
• Remove the risk. Miss Babs removes the fear of poor color choice and overbuying by providing the right amount of yarn for the project.  BTW, this enables Miss Babs to charge a premium for her yarn.

Influencers sell. Knitters are the great enablers. Put them in a group and they’ve got more rationales for buying yarn they don’t need.

As an experienced knitter I have good idea how much yarn I need for sweaters and shawls. Yet vendors (and even my husband) can persuade me to buy an extra skein of luscious yarn so I have options later. 

Actionable Marketing Tip:

• Learn about your buyers’ influencers. They persuade your customers and reduce their objections.

As a marketer, take the time to examine your ordinary activities as if you were an outsider.

What do you see that you can learn from?

We don't have a new author interview this week so we're continuing our giveaway contest for Jim Sterne's, The Devil’s Data Dictionary, a fun look at marketing analytics and its practitioners.

Jim is the author of many marketing and web publishing books. Read my interview with Jim on the Actionable Marketing Guide. Next week, we'll randomly pick one new subscriber to receive a copy of The Devil’s Data Dictionary. We'll announce the winner in that week's newsletter.

Until next week,

Happy marketing,
Heidi

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

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