Dear ,
This past weekend my husband and I rented a car and headed 4 hours south to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in West Friendship, Maryland.
Our trip was the perfect start to Small Business Week.
Although the trip focused on my passion for knitting and all things yarny, I love the sense of history in this Mid-Atlantic area near Baltimore and Washington, DC.
Driving over the hilly back-country roads, we passed place names and signs referencing the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
As a marketer, I appreciate the importance of names for people, places and things, especially your brand and company name!
I get an “Ann Handley” sense of joy” for the local streets names that evoke stories about their origin.
One of my favorites is “Folly Quarter Road” in Ellicott City. What happened here that resulted in this name? What story would you write?.
Names and history also influenced our choice of Sunday brunch. (Since food is key to a local experience, I research local foodie reviews.)
We ate at Ida B’s Table, a wonderful soul food restaurant in a converted warehouse in Baltimore. It’s named for Ida B. Wells, a freed slave turned journalist. She
documented the injustices she witnessed in the black community and the restaurant echoes her writing influences.
This Wells quote should resonate with you as a content marketer. Just substitute “content marketing” for “the press”.
“The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”
Having worked for local newspapers and other media, I love that Ida B’s is co-located and associated with The Real News Network (TRNN), a not-for-profit independent, fact-based journalism organization.
Even better, TRNN uses Ida B’s Table space to host live
content in the form of a public discussion on a press/journalism related topic.
Beyond names and locations, marketers must consider the growth of major online players like Amazon.
Living in a Manhattan apartment, I see stacks of boxes piled in my building’s entryway, and their collapsed remains stacked in the basement recycling area.
But I also pass empty storefronts in my neighborhood where small independent retailers can no longer compete.
What can your small and local businesses do to remain competitive?
Distinguish your offerings and/or provide special experiences your customers can’t get elsewhere.
This is why the marketer in me loves how the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival has evolved from a state fair focused on sheep and their care into a knitting and crocheting mecca. It attracts vendors and attendees from across the U.S.
Further, by observing these yarn vendors, you learn how to thrive in a post-Amazon marketplace.
Like any other hobby or passion, Sheep and Wool Festival attendees come prepared to spend money on special products.
Follow these 3 Actionable Small Business Tips to improve your marketing:
Small Business Tip #1: Show your audience how to use your products.
Unlike many content marketers, these small business yarn venders get this key type of content.
Since many knitters buy and use same yarn and color as the knitting pattern designer, dyers make their yarn specifically for popular designs to help customers who can’t imagine
how the final knitted piece will look.
For example, Kimber Baldwin of Fiber Optics, displayed a “Golden Autumn Shawl” using two different but coordinated skeins of yarn.
At Fiber Optics booth, I spoke with a fellow Ravelry member who was wearing the “Golden Autumn Shawl” which she made in the same colors as Kimber's sample. She was thrilled when another buyer asked to see if the colors looked good on her.
Ravelry, the social media site for knitters and crocheters, supports co-created content. Its members benefit from what other members share about how they made a specific product.
Here’s the Ravelry page for this “Golden Autumn Shawl” project:
Small Business Tip #2: Make special products to entice purchasers.
Lots of businesses and events create special and/or licensed product, especially sports teams!
At Sheep and Wool Festivals, there’s always a line to purchase t-shirts, hats and bags marking the annual event.
Additionally, many dyers create a special colorway (a set of colors mixed together in one skien) in honor of a festival in limited quantities. This creates an urgency to buy now.
Gale’s Arts goes the extra mile to make her festival offering stand out. Gale incorporates the name and date of the event into her yarn. Instead of hanks of yarn, Gale paints a design onto a blank white piece of knitted fabric. As you knit this piece of fabric, the design turns into
dyed yarn.
Here’s Gale’s special for the 2019 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival:
Small Business Tip #3: Tap into customer FOMO.
Here’s how yarn sellers cash in on knitter FOMO:
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Spotlight products that allow knitters to be part of the latest trends.
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Tap into the latest popular trends.
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Price products for different types of knitters.
Based on Ravelry’s top patterns, yarn vendors create versions of the top shawls and sweaters using their materials. For example, many vendors displayed their version of Andrea Mowrey’s Nightshift shawl. Here’s Dragonfly Fibers’s example.
Another way of distinguishing your product is to tap into other popular trends. For example, one vendor created and
named colorways related to popular content such Harry Potter.
Lastly get buyer attention with your pricing.
There’s always a crowd at every sale bin! Who can pass up a bargain?
Beyond getting rid of old and difficult-to-sell product, these smart vendors use packaging to increase revenues. Here are some of their tricks:
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Sell in bulk. Package all of the product needed to make an item. This increases the total sale.
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Modify packaging size. Even though prices continue to increase, many yarn vendors keep prices constant by selling slightly smaller amounts for the same price.
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Offer small amounts. Since small amount of special accent colors has become popular, yarn sellers create small size offerings. While the knitter saves money by not having to buy a full skien, the seller charges a disproportionately
higher price.
What do these examples all have in common?
They show that regardless of the size of your business, you need to consider all 4 of the Marketing Ps.
In terms of your marketing, what are you planning for this summer?
For me, Marketing AI is high on my list. That’s why I’m attending MAICON in Cleveland on July 16th to 18th. (Use my special discount code: COHEN100 to save $100 off the registration fee.)
Remember: if you don’t continue to keep your marketing skills sharp, you fall behind!
Heidi Cohen,
Actionable Marketing Guide
Happy Marketing,
Heidi
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