Lesson Info
3. Where To Start With Your Mailing List
Lessons
Introduction to Workshop
05:21 2Hear First Hand From a Retailer w/ Julie O'Brien
26:22 3Where To Start With Your Mailing List
05:55 4How to Capture And Organize Your Contacts
09:53 5Mailing List Resources
06:18 6How to Reach Retailers
06:33 7When to Reach Retailers
12:58 8Make it Easy For a Buyer to Buy
08:23Lesson Info
Where To Start With Your Mailing List
Your mailing list is hands down going to be your largest project within your marketing strategy so I want you to plan to dedicate a lot of time to it it's going to require a lot of research I'll explain more in a few minutes but this this quote from one of my alarms alley flipping from e france's paper she you know she said the mailing list is one of the huge inescapable projects that takes forever to d'oh but is invaluable once you do it and I could not agree more with this so I want you to really like set aside time for this but I also want you to recognize that your mailing list is constantly going to be a work in progress it's always going to be evolving is always going to be changing and it's always something you're going to be working on however when you first start this mailing list that's when it feels like this mountain you have to climb and so we're going to start off talking about where do you start? How do you how do you find these rights stores to put on this mailing list ...
on dh? Frankly it boils down to lots of hard work and lots of research just like julie mentioned that she's is all these different outlets to try to find all of you and connect with all of you to purchase your product you have to do the same to reach her and other similar stores so where do you start? You're going to do a lot of online research as I mentioned you're going to look at store websites you want to start following different retail shops on social media their instagram feeds in particular are a great way to get a look until what types of products they're selling what the aesthetic of the shop is you know usually the posting pictures of what the interior looks like and you can really start to see whether or not your products would be a good fit there you're going to do online research for different types of stores to somebody had asked earlier I think it was in well anyhow somebody asked earlier about different types of stores so if you sell stationery good, you also want to be looking at bookstores and frankly car washes and some of these other places that are selling those types of products that just because you're in a specific product category doesn't mean you're only looking shops that sell that item you know you want to think outside the box and really expand that list to include these different avenues where are similar brands carried? So if places that carrie your competitors lines like take a look and see where they sell, you know one thing you could do is look at another brands website and they usually have their list of retailers on their website it's a good starting point but I want to make a caveat here that you never ever ever want to just scrape that list and add it to your own mailing list you need to do your homework and and decide if the stores that are listed on somebody else's site are still good for you but at least it gives you a launching point to then start your research does that make sense ok so again finding the right that you really need to think about who here target market is and I know those two words are thrown around quite a bit in business who is your target market and again keep in mind that your wholesale customer are retail stores as julie mentioned their motivations right now are buying things that will make them money that will sell in their stores that they know they'll have a good return on so do you sell mugs and the stores that you're researching our only selling apparel that's not a good fit right your products appeal to certain geographic area keep that in mind and start researching those stores does the aesthetic of the store again look at social media, their website all these different things does that seem like a fit to you and then what types of customers shop at your store julie knew exactly who are customer is she is the term ladies at lunch which we can all kind of get a sense of what that means, but you know she has a very clear demographic of people that shop in her store your products don't fit that demographic she's not the right fit so I want to ask all of you I want you to get your wheels turning and start thinking about it who was your idea? Take ideal type of retailer? What type of stores are you looking at and who's there and customer? So I wanted to ask those of you in the audience to chime in with this because some of you have experience working with these retailers and finding out you're a good fit for for me personally, my my cards that help designs are heavily patterned they're kind of preppy I see a lot of traction from stores on the east coast they're really drawn to my cards, so you know, I've been spending more time looking at stores in that geographic region or looking for sales reps in that degree of graphic region that can help me there. What about any of you? Do you want to share who your ideal client would be heavy honed in on it? Kara, thank you for being a vote here I tend to see a lot of traction from stores that are also focused on interior design okay, great, so like any any store that just has a lot of home accessories on dh, then my cards air are doing, you know, well on sort of the in the urban areas, west coast, new york, kind of some more areas with a young professionals. Okay, but yeah, I've also seen just online traction from market places that are selling, entered designed and accessories that they may not sell very many cards, but I've created relationships with them, and so it's been interesting to see the response and as a result, that's how I've kind of figured out who my market advances, but I didn't really know it's. A lot of trying here, right, like it takes timeto learn who this market is. So it was kind of unfair of me to, like, drop this ball on me right now, but what it does, it takes some time to figure it out. You'll start to see trends as you start selling more and more via wholesale channels that, like, okay, the's, types of stores air, really calling a lot, so you know, but you always want to be honing in on that. Who is my target market from a wholesale perspective, and how can I reach them?
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with RSVP
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Tracy Clarke
Before watching this class, I had been trying to compose emails to reach out to some retailers. I'm glad I held off and watched this first. It was so great to hear the inside scoop on how retailers want to be approached, seeing a sample letter and learning the etiquette on following up after the initial reach out. Now I feel confident about taking my business into this next stage.
Samantha Venator
This was such an awesome course, I watched the whole thing in one sitting. Katie answered all the questions I had and even answered some I didn't know I had when I started the course. It's super affordable and definitely worth the money. Plus the little workbook you get sums everything up nicely.
Katy Casey
This class was amazing and Katie shares so many great insights and actionable, specific tips. It was great to also get to hear directly from a retailer as well!