I want you to imagine that you went to lunch at a new restaurant today. And when you got home, someone in your family asked you how the restaurant was.
Maybe you answered, great food but really slow service, or- food was good but a little pricey, or- loved the whole experience, I’m definitely going back.
Do you see how by describing your experience to someone else, you are essential in branding that restaurant? That’s the (fill in the blank) restaurant.
As humans, we tend to brand everything. Restaurants, people, businesses, everything.
Your Etsy store is getting branded by people too. The trick is to offer an experience that will give them no choice but to brand you positively.
A Couple Examples to Get Your Wheels Turning:
Solesbee Shirts:
When I was in high school, I had a friend named Sam Solesbee. Sam’s family owned an auto mechanic shop. Almost every day, Sam came to school wearing these really brightly colored t-shirts that said ‘Solesbee Auto Craft’ on them. Anytime anyone would comment on his shirt (which was all the time) Sam would ask them if they wanted and shirt and what color.
Before long, Solesbee shirts became the cool shirt to be wearing at not only our high school but all the high schools in our community. To this day, anytime I go back to my hometown, I see people wearing Solesbee Autocraft shirts.
What a great way to brand your company and what a great talking trigger for those who don’t even know your company personally.
Double Tree Hotels:
Another great example of a company that took this concept to heart, is DoubleTree Hotels. Someone in a board room somewhere decided that they were going to welcome their guests with homemade chocolate chip cookies. Not only that, but they warm them up while they’re checking you in, so you walk into their hotel with a warm chocolate chip cookie. Can you think of a better welcome?
Upon adopting this practice, DoubleTree in referrals when up 35%! Can you believe that? There were no strings attached to the cookie, people just felt more welcome by the gesture and were more likely to refer their family and friends to the hotel.
the four 'r's to a talking point:
A Talking Point Should Have the Four ‘R’s- and keep in mind that these things should be outside of the product itself that people have already paid for.
Remarkable:
Whatever you decide, it should be something that feels unexpected or special.
Reasonable:
It should be something that is realistic, for example, if you were a service business that offered the first 15 cleans free, it’s not reasonable and it would make clients suspicious of whether it was true or not.
Relevant:
You want to make sure it is on-brand with your shop and your products. In our example above, getting a cookie when you check into a hotel makes a lot of sense as a ‘welcome gesture’
Repeatable:
You should be able to continue to offer it as you scale and grow (something that may not be repeatable or sustainable is a handwritten note to every customer)
What We Did:
In our shop, we started putting raffle tickets into our packages. We would keep one of the tickets, and we would pull a ticket from that week’s purchases every Friday. It was a great way to get followers on our Instagram account without just straight out asking for people to follow us, and it was a way to get people excited about our product.
Start thinking about what you could do to really make your store stand out in this way!
Are you ready to talk your shop to the next level? Are you sick of wondering why other people are getting sales and you aren't? Let us take a deep dive into your shop and see what's really going on, then give you a PLAN for moving forward.
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