How to Market Your Gift Baskets in the Summer
Traveling by car, plane, and train for personal or business reasons lets you market your gift basket business in more ways than you can imagine.
Last year I shared ideas on marketing gift baskets while driving. How many of you turned that information into an action plan?
In the past I’ve heard about problems with the magnetic signs that adhere to car doors, the type that’s placed just below the driver’s side window.
If you’re wary of buying such signs, you can purchase the plastic type, about 10 inches long and 3 inches high, that attaches to the inside of your rear windshield. I’ve traveled with that type of sign, placing it in rental cars.
You can also market while flying. Business card distribution occurs when you start a conversation with people in your immediate area.
There’s also luggage marketing. If your luggage is inspected, a few prominently-placed business cards may encourage inspectors to keep one. The worst that can happen is that the inspectors don’t take a card.
In the days when I traveled by air with sweets and snacks in my luggage to conduct gift basket classes (I still conduct them, but not with food in tow), my bags were always inspected, and cards were taken.
How do you plan to market your gift basket business this summer?
Why Pre-Made Marketing Plans Don’t Work
One of the questions I’m frequently asked by designers worldwide is, “How do I market my gift baskets?”
It’s the same question I was asked by a gift retailer in 1990 at the Washington Gift Show. We exchanged information about our businesses, and she asked me to reveal my marketing plan.
I became defensive but realized that my plan couldn’t help her because our businesses were in two different places catering to distinctly-separate customers.
This fact is also true for you and other gift basket designers, whether they are local competitors or outside of your region.
No one else’s marketing plan will work for you. The plan that’s perfect and correct for your business is created by you from experience and dictated by the people most likely to buy your gift baskets.
Marketing plans, tips, and ideas available in books and on the Internet provide insights on how to craft your planning, but none of it is usable as is no matter how much you want it to be.
When you started your business, how long did it take to realize that marketing plans created by others had to be customized to your specifications?
Three Ways to Increase Corporate Interest in Your Gift Baskets
Summer months are no time to slow down efforts to gain corporate orders.
Although some executives will be on vacation, not everyone is going away. That gives you numerous opportunities to get their attention now for sales later this year.
Here are three ways to get started.
1. Summer networking events. Look for food-related gatherings such as business over breakfast and lunch to meet people in charge of human resources and marketing departments.
2. Leftover merchandise. My golf inventory wasn’t moving as fast as I hoped, so I created several golf baskets and distributed them to executives who were current customers. It worked to get more sales during the holidays.
3. Referrals, referrals, referrals. Ask for names and telephone numbers of customers’ associates who will benefit from gift basket giving.
It’s okay to take vacations and soak up the sun, but remember, you’re also in business, and increasing your corporate client list fits in with summer fun.
What’s your most-memorable way of gaining a corporate customer during the summer?
Three Ways to Heat Up Summer Gift Basket Sales
During a daily fitness walk around my town I see lots of ideas that may fit into your summer marketing plans.
Some of the ideas you may not have considered, while others may be as interesting as the shoe in this post, which is a unique marketing tool on its own. Here’s what I saw during the walk.
Any of these marketing opportunities will work to sell your gift baskets as long as you understand the target market that reads, sees, and visits these locations.
That’s just three ideas to build your business, and 200+ more marketing opportunities are available on the CDs 99 Sizzling Marketing Ideas to Make More Money, January-June, and 99 MORE Sizzling Marketing Ideas to Make More Money, July-December. You’ll find information about the two CDs through this link.
What’s your plan to market your gift basket business this summer?
How Will You Sell Leftover Mother’s Day Products?
Items you purchased to add to Mother’s Day gift baskets that, for whatever reason, don’t get sold by Sunday are most likely items to place in gift baskets for other occasions.
If you follow the “don’t buy items with special occasion words written on it” rule, your inventory can be repurposed.
One year, when 12 of my tea cup and saucer gifts didn’t sell, I called some male clients directly after Mother’s Day to learn if they had overlooked sending gift baskets to female family members, and because they had, all the tea cups and saucers were sold that week.
My hope is that your Mother’s Day sales eclipse last year’s. While you sell, also make plans for post-Mom’s Day orders. The month’s not over yet.
What’s your creative method for repurposing special occasion gifts and baskets?
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