Greetings again, been awhile, so how was your Black Friday Weekend madness? A lot happened here in Las Vegas, aside from the crazy lines, which form up earlier and earlier each and every year, we had an actual murder in our sister city Reno. Too bad to hear about all the chaos which is why I did online only this year, and was very happy with the results.
We did a 20% off store-wide sale on our site over at The Odd Portrait including such little gems as these Mermaid Skeleton Earrings and more. But it is not easy running a business this time of year, and let me share with you a little bit about what it takes to make all of this happen.
What I did learn from last year is to start earlier with the promotions and design. Not only do you have to get your web store setup to handle a discount and the traffic, but accompanying graphics and logos have to be made as well. Load up Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and a few others and either have at it or outsource your idea's depending on the time you have. You can not just use last years , and if you are not comfortable designing your own, it can take tons of time and hours of YouTube videos to learn how to get it just right.
The toughest aspect of it all is getting that message out there to as many people as possible. You can not just throw up a sale and expect everyone on the internet to know about it, so you have to go out and promote it. Much like passing out flyers in the good old days, you have to lay out the groundwork and hit the ground running. Hitting up every social media platform is only the beginning, and an entire day can go by before you realize only a handful of people might actually be seeing your post before it is lost in a sea of kittens, meme's, and political incorrectness.
It is very difficult to pay for ad's that you are not sure of if they work. It makes sense to spend $100 on marketing and ad's if that returns you a profit, but you have to target so many demographics, and keywords, that unless you have data built up over time, it does get discouraging if that money does not convert into sales.
Is my website slow? Are my products easy to order? Do customers even like this stuff? So many doubts can arise, and lead you astray in your mission, but as a business owner I can assure you this, stick to your vision and dream, and just keep improving upon it. Just because something does not work it does not mean to do a 180 and change your plan completely. This just leads to more failures, as it is in all of the little adjustments which make the change. Go with what you believe in and tweak it slightly until you get it right. And keep building up those followers and be loyal to your fan base.
Good luck and enjoy your holiday shopping
Love,
The Odd Portrait
