• Kevin Natapow

 

Doing events in your store can be a great way to connect with the community that supports you in a unique way. It has the potential to attract customers from a different demographic then you typically attract by how your structure your events. One strategy that we used was to host monthly fundraisers in the shop on the 3rd Saturday of every month. It was for 3 hours (typically) and we usually picked a theme- e.g. March was an event celebrating International Women’s Day, April was Earth Day, May was Mother’s Day, etc. We would have either an artisan group, local NPO, or allied organization represented and we would donate a portion of proceeds from the day if it was not a specific product or group or 100% of proceeds if it was for a specific product or group. Another example, to give perspective, was the soup tasting event we did every November. We would host the Women’s Bean Project and folks from the organization would come up to our shop, have crock pots full of warm tasty soups, corn bread, cookies, etc and any sale of a WBP product that day 100% of the profits was donated directly to them. Another fun one we did back in the day was when Whole Foods first starting carrying FT flowers, we did a wholesale deal with them and got buckets of FT roses and gave them out to all the moms as they shopped. People were walking all over town with beautiful long stem FT roses and big smiles on their faces- they remembered us that day!

 

We would do our own promotion of the event via our newsletter, social media, in store event cards, reminding customers about the event and by posting it on free community calendars hosted by local magazines, newspapers and business associations like the chamber and our downtown development association. Then the organization that was the beneficiary did their own promotion to their community and supporters and their people would come out to support the organization by shopping with us. Maybe it was their first time in the shop, etc but now they know about it, maybe they joined the membership program, etc and you gained a new customer. You are also giving back to the community that supports you and everyone loves when a local biz gives back.

 

Doing off-site events is another possibility but can also be a lot of work for minimal return. If you are doing events in your area you may pick up some customers that have not been in the shop but my experience is that a 10×10 booth does very little impress people and convince them to come into your shop at a later date, plus you have the expense of the show, booth, staff time, etc… It is not to say they cannot be effective, they surely can, but be very judicious about the ones you choose to do as they can be huge time sucks, cost a lot of money, and exhaust your staff/volunteers.

 

Another strategy is to do some branding/marketing work with a local company. We worked with a local company in Boulder to do a video of the shop that was expensive at the time to make but the returns were incredible. They did a lot of cross promotion on their site and via social media and we were able to use the video as a great tool to give people a taste of the shop, the products, and mission without them ever even coming in. You can check out the video we did here to get a sense of the quality and feel for what we did: https://vimeo.com/28975411

 

  1. Nice Kevin!

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

It was money well spent and we used it for years and I think it is still in use by the new owners, even though it has our ugly mugs in it.

 

  1. So, you used this one your website, in social media and on the producer’s video. Anyplace else? Would you promote it repeatedly on Socia media?

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

We used it all the time on SM. Anytime we could plant it into something we did as it really gave people a sense of what we were all about and some of the things they may find in there. Our downtown biz groups promoted it, etc.

 

  1. Kevin, when you say 100% of profits/proceeds, how to you figure that?

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

retail minus cost. We would run a report at the end of the day, see how many we sold, and subtract the cost. the difference was what we donated to the org. Kind of like donating product…

 

  1. So you didn’t account for credit card fees or supplies (merchandise bags, tissue) or any % of OH?

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

Nope- it was the easiest way to have a great fundraiser, gain new customers, and make everyone happy. It was a way for us to spend marketing/ad dollars on something we felt had a more powerful impact

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

We also sometime booked it as a marketing expense depending on the size of the “donation”

 

  1. interesting; i know TTV gives 10% of profits and thats what i’ve been doing but it never amounts to much so I end up pitching in more.

 

 

  • Kevin Natapow

 

Sometimes we did a percentage of profits and sometimes we did the proceeds, but always be clear. I cant stand when people say they are donating a portion of profits to something. Be honest about what you are doing- big or small.