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CAMIC designs LLC - Entrepreneurial Marketing
Ballet Gift ShopMarketing Plan 2016 - 2017
I. Company History
II. Company Details
III. OpportunityIdentification IV. Customer Analysis
V. Survey Results
VI. ProductPerformance
VII. Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
VIII. FundraisingServices
IX. Marketing Strategies
X. Conclusion
XI. Works Cited
Table of Contents
Company History
6577 S. Clarkson StreetCentennial, CO 80121(303) [email protected]
CAMIC designs LLC is the parent company of the brand “Ballet Gift Shop”, which is the focus of this marketing plan document. The parent company, CAMIC designs LLC, is a design firm specializing in product and graphic design as well as packaging design. CAMIC designs was founded by partners Michael and Cheryl Caston in 2007. Since its founding, CAMIC designs LLC has brought numerous products to market under several house brand names to include “CAMIC designs”, “Ballet Gift Shop”, “Nutcracker-Gifts”, “Critter Gift Shop”, and “My Custom Gift Shop”, in addition to a host of products under independent client brand names. CAMIC designs LLC’s clientele include Fortune 500 companies, independent inventors, and various U.S. government agencies.
During the past eight years of business, CAMIC designs LLC has achieved incremental and steady growth as a company until this past year. In 2015, CAMIC designs saw a significant decline in business from one of its major house brands, Ballet Gift Shop.
Ballet Gift Shop is a brand that serves both the wholesale and retail markets in the dance gifts industry. The brand started with one product, a Christmas ornament, that was available in two different materials (wood or acrylic) and seven color variations (mahogany, poplar, red, blue, purple, pink, green, and blue) with 34 different designs for a total of 238 different color/design combinations. The brand has since grown to over 50 different products with over 200 different designs for a total of over 1,000 SKUS in a number of variations, product/design combinations, not to mention color options. In addition to this, a majority of the products are offered with the free option of adding custom text (up to 40 characters for most products). A majority of these products are designed and manufactured in-house, while other products are manufactured in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, and Massachusetts products. Ballet Gift Shop strives to have all products and the supplies that go into the products be 100% “Made in the USA”. This passion for US-made products originates from the owners and can be connected to the time period in which the business initially launched. The year 2007 marked the beginning of the recent recession and an re-emphasis in the manufacturing industry for “on-shoring”, which is the process of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. CAMIC designs joined this movement and has helped to perpetuate it by sourcing American-made supplies and products.
Mission Statement:
CAMIC designs LLC has a mission statement:
“Tomaketheworldabetterplaceandimprovelivesthroughthoughtful,highqualitydesign”.
CompanyGoalsandObjectives:
CAMIC designs LLC desires to enrich people’s lives through design. We achieve this by investing in projects that we believe to have a positive impact on this world and quality of life. We desire to continue to be a small and agile business, but to grow to a company that employs 5-10 full and part-time employees with gross sales between $1 and $2 million annually.
Business Philosophy:
CAMIC designs LLC believes in high quality products that are designed with empathy, delivered with compassion, and backed with responsible responsiveness.
CompanyStrengthsandCoreCompetencies:
The founders of CAMIC designs LLC have a combined 25 year history of experience in business, product and graphic design, engineering, website design, marketing, search engine optimization, manufacturing, distribution, and sales. Michael holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Spanish and a graduate degree in Industrial Design. He is currently enrolled in an MBA program focusing on entrepreneurship. Cheryl holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Design and Graphic Design and a graduate degree in Industrial Design. In specialty areas that CAMIC designs LLC does not have experience in, they have contracted out through the company’s large industry network. Currently, there are four contractors working for CAMIC designs LLC with skills in ideation, metal fabrication, medical equipment design, automotive design, customer service, distribution, 3d modeling and rendering.
Legalformofownership:
CAMIC designs is a Limited Liability Company, organized in 2007 as a 50/50 partnership between the founding members: Michael Caston and Cheryl Caston. An LLC was selected because of the lawsuit protection, tax benefits, deductible employee benefits, and perpetual duration afforded by the State of Colorado. Each of CAMIC designs’ house brands, Balletgiftshop, Crittergiftshop, Mycustomgiftshop, and Nutcracker-gifts, are protected under the CAMIC designs LLC umbrella.
Company Details
ServingaMarketSegment:NutcrackerBalletFundraising
“No one offers affordable ornaments in designs for all characters of The Nutcracker Ballet. The children who play the characters in the first scene don’t have a way to remember their parts. Neither do the children who play half of the characters in the second act.” When Maxine, a volunteer in charge of fundraising for an amateur ballet company in South Carolina, expressed these concerns, an opportunity arose to design for a niche market that would include small-scale production. The year was 2007 and design students, Michael Caston and Cheryl Moehlenbrock (Caston), took on the challenge.
Amateur ballet companies are non-profit groups that provide performance opportunities for children from age eight through high school. They are often associated with a dance school, where the dancers learn various styles of dance and how to apply them in performance. The company, not the dance school, is the entity that puts on various productions throughout the year. The performances require funds for renting and staffing the theater, purchasing costumes, paying guest artists invited to perform with the group, and other various costs associated with putting on a performance. Theater rental fees and personnel fees are high – in the $10,000 to $100,000 range – depending on which services are needed and the length of time they are required. Ticket sales alone usually do not supply the necessary money needed to cover these costs (Point Shoes, 2006).
Some ballet companies try to offer scholarships to underprivileged students as a way to diversify their student body (Tuition, 2008). These students are among the more enthusiastic and dedicated dance students. Such scholarships might provide the costs of lessons, shoes, and other dance supplies. These costs can be quite high: a pair of pointe shoes alone can cost between $30 and $83 a pair depending on the brand and style of shoes. The dancer’s technique, frequency of dancing, and type of foot can cause a pair of pointe shoes to wear out in a time period as short as only two weeks (Point Shoes, 2006). Due to the cost of providing dance scholarships, ballet companies can usually only offer scholarships to a few students, sometimes none at all.
One way for ballet companies to obtain funding is to apply for government grants through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA Announces, 2007). This government-funded organization has been awarding an increasing amount of grant money to ballet companies and festivals each year for the five out of the past six years; however, when the economy suffers, the size of government grants to the arts, including ballet companies, decreases (Discount Dance Supply, 2007). Therefore, private funding and funds raised at performance boutiques, banquets, and sales of donated dance supplies are often crucial to the company’s existence and its capabilities.
A boutique is a very common fundraiser event. It is a temporary store set up during performances. Here, goods relating to the performance and/or the ballet company are sold to audience members and cast members as a way to memorialize the event. Such boutiques are capable of raising large sums of money for the ballet company, depending on the cost of the items to resell and the appeal that the items have to their audience. The audience that attends the performances is comprised of family and friends of the performers as well as dance students from other schools and members of the local community who appreciate the arts. These make up the customer base for the boutique to sell to.
Opportunity Identification
Maxine, volunteer
Boutiques will start searching for items to sell for the December Nutcracker performances as earlyas January (eleven months prior to the event). Many groups aim to acquire all of their boutiquegoods by the end of the summer prior to their Christmas season performance. They search forattractive items that are associated with the characters in The Nutcracker Ballet and/or with the Christmas season. They search for products that are inexpensive enough to be marked up for as much profit as possible. After-Christmas sales, clearance sales, and online Christmas stores are popular places to scout out, as well as craft stores selling inexpensive materials for making craft items to sell. A large variety of nutcrackers, candles, dolls, coloring books, Christmas ornaments, bags, pillows, autograph books, t-shirts, and hand-made items are among the typical goods sold at a Nutcracker Ballet boutique. The boutiques are usually organized and run by volunteers (mothers and fathers of the dancers in the company), some of whom are very serious about their roles and will search far and wide for the best items to sell. Volunteers may look for items in craft or home goods stores with nutcracker, angel, snow, or candy themes not directly related to The Nutcracker Ballet, and adapt them by painting, personalizing, or decorating them to sell as Nutcracker Ballet memorabilia.
Dancers have different roles in The Nutcracker Ballet from year to year. Depending upon the size of the company, they may have multiple roles as well. This presents an opportunity to sell different character ornaments or gifts to the same people each year. There are generally 35 different characters in The Nutcracker Ballet. The list of characters varies from one ballet company to another. Some may have the “Candy Cane” character while others may have “Russian Trepak” as the same part. Still, others may not have the part at all or something completely different. For some more obscure characters, it may be difficult or even impossible to find gifts or memorabilia on the market.
Thorough market research reveals that there are not many gift items for all of the characters from The Nutcracker Ballet. The majority of products out there are based on the main four or five characters of the ballet. The children who play the lesser-known characters in the production would have nothing to remember their part by. In addition to there being few character representations on the market, the majority of the items are manufactured overseas, primarily in China, by people with little to no experience in ballet. The posture and positions of the dancers are rarely accurate to the discerning eye – the eye of the dance student or dance enthusiast (the customer and end-user).
One of our biggest competitors that specializes in Nutcracker Ballet merchandise is NutcrackerBalletGifts.com. They offer a wide variety of gift items based on The Nutcracker Ballet including plush dolls, snow globes, ornaments, t-shirts, socks and wooden nutcrackers. The items are made of resin, molded plastic, wood, fabric, and glass. Despite the variety of items, there is still a lack of representation of many of the lesser-known characters. The majority of the items are based on the few main characters in the story. Most, if not all of the items are manufactured overseas. Their prices are quite low and the quality of the products and accuracy of the dance positions reflect the low prices. These low quality products are being used, often reluctantly, by nonprofit dance companies in their fundraising efforts during Nutcracker Ballet performances.
Opportunity Identification
Performance ballet boutique
CriticalNeedsofTargetClientsandEndUsers
RETAIL
WHOLESALE
• PROFIT - low cost products that can be resold to generate profit• POPULAR - products need to have a high demand with audience members E.g. event mementos, impulse buys, small essentials, trendy. These products must appeal to a wide range of customers (dancers age 8-18, dance moms, dance enthusiasts, etc.)
• CUSTOMIZABLE - memorabilia to commemorate an event• SPECIFIC - representative of specific parts played in a performance• AESTHETICS - attractive and accurate in depiction of dance position• POPULAR - in style and appropriate for age groups• COLLECTIBLE - can build a collection from year to year
Clients: Retail vs. WholesaleRetail: 38%
Wholesale: 62%
WholesaleRetail
Profits:ChristmasOrnaments-WholesalevsRetail
Wholesale to Retail Stores: 1%
WholesaletoNon-Profits:52%Retail to Consumer: 34%
Wholesale to Consumer: 13%
Wholesale to Retail Stores Wholesale to Non-Profits Retail to Consumer
Wholesale to Consumer
# Sold: Christmas Ornaments - Wholesale vs Retail
Wholesale to Retail Stores Wholesale to Non-Profits Retail to Consumer
Wholesale to Consumer
Wholesale to Retail Stores: 1%
WholesaletoNon-Profits:71%
Retail to Consumer: 19%
Wholesale to Consumer: 8%
Customer Analysis
These graphs describe the breakdown of our customer base and sales channels. The majority of our customers (62%) are nonprofit dance companies (wholesale) that purchase our products for resale at performances to genererate funds. The remaining customers (38%) are dancers, parents of dancers, volunteers, and dance enthusiasts (retail).
Of the over 50 different product types that we sell, our Christmas ornaments are by far our most popular item making up 43% of our profits over the last three years. The graphs below illustrate the number of Christmas ornaments sold as well as profitability compared across sales channels, direct to consumer (retail sales) and to companies for resale (wholesale).
Performance ballet boutique
Customer Analysis#ofvisito
rs
month
Website Visitors April 2015 - April 2016
July 2015O ctober 2015 January 2016 April 2016
150150
300300
O
An analysis of customers reveals that a majority, 85%, of our customers are female with over 50% falling between the ages of 35 and 54. Ballet Gift Shop customers purchase our products almost exclusively through our online ecommerce store: BalletGiftShop.com. Since the majority of our customers are nonprofit dance companies who purchase our products wholesale to sell during Nutcracker Ballet performances, our sales are very seasonal with the majority of activity occuring between the months of October and December. There is a smaller peak of activity in April and May during Ballet Recital season. The sudden sharp peaks visible in the graph below demonstrate an increase in website visitors as a result of an email campaign.
Age
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-5 5-64 65+0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
4 5
Genderfemale male
14.7%
85.3%
Survey Results
A customer survey was conducted via the web. Of the respondents, 50% are parents of a dancer and 21% are volunteers for nonprofit dance companies. 22% work at either a dance studio or store. There can be a lot of crossover between these categories. For example, parents of dancers often volunteer at events, such as operating a ballet boutique during a performance; and sometimes parents will even play a part in their child’s performance.
A majority of our customers are affiliated, in some way, with a non-profit dance company and many are buying our products to resell for fundraising purposes or to give out as cast gifts from the dance company to the participants or even audience members.
Most of our customers (95%) are using at least one type of social media with Facebook being the most popular. Ballet Gift Shop has active social media accounts with Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler. Facebook is our most active with over 1,000 likes.
Our customers care about quality, value, and customization. 67% of sales are products that include customized text, color, and designs. Our products are most often purchased by parents of dancers in non-profit amateur ballet companies as gifts to commemorate dance performances and other dance-related memories.
Whoareourcustomers?
Dancer:7%
ParentofDancer:50%DanceStoreStaff:11%
Volunteer: 21%
DanceStudioStaff:11%
Dancer Parent of Dancer Dance Store Staff
VolunteerDance Studio Staff
Whichsocialnetworkingsitesdoyouusefrequently?
TwitterGoogle Plus
Tumbler
None
Facebook Twitter Google Plus Pinterest
TumblerInstagramNone
Survey Results
Our customers are primarily finding us through a web search. Common search terms that we rank well on include:
• nutcracker ballet fundraisers• ballet fundraisers• ballet fundraising• nutcracker ballet gifts• nutcracker ballet gifts wholesale• nutcracker gifts wholesale• dance gifts wholesale• ballet gifts wholesale• nutcracker ballet boutique• dancer gifts
Almost 25% of our customers are learning about our company through their family and friends and/or through product samples. Each year, we send a customized ornament sample to each ballet company in the U.S. that performs the Nutcracker Ballet. Our list is constantly being updated to ensure relevancy.
When asked how likely our customers would be to recommend us to a friend or colleague, results show a high number of Promoters. With a score of “64”, we are above the national average of “55” for “specialty stores” (NPS Benchmarks, n.d.)
64NPS
0
50-50
-100 100
How likely is it that you would recommend Ballet Gift Shop
to a friend or colleague?
Howdidyouhearaboutus?
Friend/Family: 11%
ProductSample:11%
InternetSearch:65%
ReferralWebsite: 5%
Magazine: 5%
Ballet Studio: 3%
Friend/Family Product Sample Internet Search
Referral WebsiteMagazine Ballet Studio
ProfitbyProduct:2013-2015(averaged)
Ornaments: 43%
Books: 5%
Magnets: 4%Buttons: 8%
Nutcrackers:8%
BouquetTags: 4.5%
Other: 27.5%
Ornaments Books Magnets Buttons
NutcrackersBouquet Tags Other
Product Performance
ProductQuantitySold:2013-2015
3409
5451
3619
2066
10841306
706482
333578
7
06706 1455
130013061306
442
5395395394824828
64 230 139
159159595955995959
Ornaments Books Magnets Buttons
NutcrackersBouquet Tags Autograph Books
2013 2014 20150
2000
4000
6000
As previously discussed, Christmas ornaments make up the majority of both the number of products sold as well as the total profits for the brand. With over 50 different products, Christmas ornaments make up a substantial portion of the business and are in high demand. These graphs represent a few of the higher volume products we sell.
Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
Qualityvs.Price: We’d like to increase our products’ level of quality over time while lowering our production costs. The perceived level of quality improvement may allow us to charge higher prices than our competition.
“As-Is”Positioning: + Made in USA using high quality materials puts us above our competition on level of quality - High labor costs - Slow manufacturing process, older model laser engraver
“To-Be”Positioning + Faster manufacturing + Use Just in Time Inventory to lower material costs + Optimize file setup processes to reduce high labor costs (implementing Obrary configurator) - Slow manufacturing process, older model laser engraver
LowQuality HighQuality
LowPrice
HighPrice
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha DesignsNutcracker Ballet Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance SupplyBallerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe PressZazzle
Etsy
The Ballet Gift Shop brand was born in 2007 and since then has slowly built up a following of brand-loyal customers who have connected with the values behind the brand name. The Ballet Gift Shop brand represents high-quality, made in the USA products that are as true as possible to a dancer’s line, form, and expression. Ballet Gift Shop strives to provide the highest quality individualized customer service, even when it will not directly lead to a sale.
CustomerServicevs.CustomerLoyalty: Over the past 9 years, we have developed a small but loyal customer base. We do our best to offer friendly and prompt customer service. Of course, we’ve had our share of “one purchase” customers. We’d like to engage with our audience more online, in person, and by phone to try to increase customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing.
“As-Is”Positioning + Provide friendly and prompt customer service + Background in dance gives customers confidence and helps them feel connected to us + Include 10% off coupon and QR code to customer satisfaction survey in every package - Phone greeting can be confusing because it is a shared number with our other 4 brands and webstores - Long lead-times during Oct-Dec busy season
“To-Be”Positioning + Continue to improve lead-times as much as possible with automation, stock, and Just in Time inventory + Follow up with customers by phone to ask about needs for upcoming fundraising events + Follow up automatically by email asking for feedback about their customer experience - Have custom phone message that “routes” the call to the correct mailbox... (not cost effective currently)
Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
Good CustomerService
LowCustomer Loyalty
HighCustomer Loyalty
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs Nutcracker Ballet Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance Supply
Ballerina GiftsBoys Dance Too
Cafe PressZazzle
Etsy
PoorCustomerService
Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
LowuseofSocialMedia
HighuseofSocialMedia
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs Nutcracker BalletGifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount DanceSupply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe PressZazzle
Etsy
LowQualityeCommercesite
HighQualityeCommercesite
WebPresencevs.SocialMediaUse: The trend seems to be that an easy-to-use, automated e-commerce site is also more active on social media since e-commerce platforms often have built-in social media features. We are in the process of improving our online shopping experience and increasing our social media presence. A well-designed and easy to use website builds brand credibility as people expect good design and ease of use today.
“As-Is”Positioning + Just opened a new shopify e-commerce store: more automated and easier for business owner and customer to use + Knowledge of website coding gives us the ability to customize our website to meet our needs + Design experience helps us maintain a well-designed website and other marketing collateral to communicate our value for high-quality products - Engage somewhat with customers on 4 social media platforms - could be more regular and content driven, instead of only being e-commerce driven
“To-Be”Positioning + Schedule automated posts to social media once a week/month to save time but still keep an eye on current events and conversations so we don’t appear to be robotic + Develop plan of topics to discuss, holidays to highlight, and conversations to engage in for the next 12 months - this will guide design of ads, postcards, social media posts, homepage slideshow images, email campaigns, etc.
Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
RetailWholesale
HighPrice
LowPrice
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs
Nutcracker Ballet Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount DanceSupply
Ballerina GiftsBoys Dance Too
Cafe PressZazzle
Etsy
CustomerBasevs.Price: The majority of our customers receive bulk/wholesale discounts for either fundraising or large group gift purposes.
“As-Is”Positioning - Tried raising prices, but sales have leveled off or decreased so we may have found the pricing threshold for our market. - The bulk of our customers are wholesale who end up competing with our own retail website, but they have the advantage of immediacy to leverage at the dance performance boutiques which a webstore could never have - Have our wholesale pricing posted publicly
“To-Be”Positioning + More profit is made from retail customers, so we should try to focus more of our efforts on this group +/- Higher prices = more profit in theory, but we risk estranging customers who don’t perceive the same value that the price communicates + Make wholesale pricing private so retail customers cannot view on our website. - Making wholesale pricing private, means implementing an application process to gain access to the pricing. This “obstacle” could be a “roadblock” to some wholesalers making the order process more difficult or impossible
Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
ManyPersonalized Items
LowPrice HighPrice
Kurt Adler
Covet DanceDasha Designs
Nutcracker Ballet Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance SupplyBallerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe PressZazzle
Etsy
FewPersonalized Items
PersonalizedItemsvs.Price: Personalization is the main reason we include Zazzle, Cafe Press, and Etsy on our list of competitors. We are the only company exclusively in the dance gifts arena that offers on-demand personalization of so many high-quality items at low-minimum quantity requirements.
“As-Is”Positioning + 67% of the total products sold are customized at no apparent added cost to the customer - Customization can require longer set-up times which ultimately leads to higher costs and subsequent product prices.
“To-Be”Positioning + Reduce customization costs with automated set-up software (Obrary configurator) + “Preview” capabilities on our website will allow us to offer a better customer experience similar to Zazzle and Cafe Press.
Fundraising Services
There are a few companies that provide fundraising services in addition to selling products for fundraising. One of our main competitors, Nutcracker Ballet Gifts sets up a boutique table at their local company’s nutcracker performances. They have also written a blog article on their website with tips on how to set up and run a similar boutique.
For the last five years, BalletGiftShop has been slowly expanding into the services sector of fundraising via two main channels: fundraising tips and fundraising kits. We have been writing copy for our blog offering tips for fundraising in order to engage customers and gain new customers. Our blog posts show up very well with search engines. Within the blog posts, we tactfully promote our own products. For ballet fundraising, we have the most comprehensive collection of fundraising tips available free to the public. Our fundraising kits are available free of charge in print format. These fundraising
kits are used by nonprofits to collect preorders from their constituents in order to be approved for higher discount rates with minimal risk (since individual orders are prepaid and collectively submitted as a single order). But, the traditional “pen and paper method” of having fundraiser sellers and a chairperson keep track of every customer’s details can be insecure and has a high margin for error. If fundraising were to be available and conducted online directly with the BalletGiftShop.com shopping cart software, this would result in a drastic reduction of errors while keeping customers’ information secure.
Research of other online fundraising companies has uncovered two primary online fundraising trends: affiliatetracking and individual fundraisingwebsites. With the first, affiliate tracking, a fundraiser or advertiser is given a unique link or URL to distribute to their supporters. When these supporters use the unique link to purchase products or refer sales, the website tracks activity via cookies or other means to maintain a record of sales that were referred by that particular fundraising group. The fundraising leader would also be provided with a password-protected dashboard in which he/she could keep track of any referred sales, maintaining transparency for all parties involved in the service and keeping the parent company accountable. An example of a company that operates this type of interface with fundraising parties is Mabel’s Labels. Shoppers can select their school/organization from a drop-down list. When they shop, they know that their sale is being tracked and a portion of the proceeds (20%) is going directly to the organization that they would like to patronize.
Nutcracker Ballet Gifts Fundraising Boutique
Mabel’sLabelsaffiliateprograminterface.
Fundraising Services
CAMIC designs created an affiliate program with one of our other brands, CritterGiftShop, in which we have partnered with over 100 animal rescues across the U.S. But with no accessible dashboard for participating organizations to gain access to their “numbers” and with minimal marketing efforts on our part, the affiliate program has not gained much popularity in the past seven years since it has been launched.
The second common online fundraising method that several e-commerce stores use is the generation of individual fundraising websites with unique URLs for each nonprofit fundraising entity to direct their customers to. This differs from affiliate tracking in that a full e-commerce website is designed and implemented for the tracking of orders and income generated. Also included is a fundraiser dashboard to aid in keeping track of sales. Sales made at product “parties” or during face-to-face interactions can even be entered in. Yankee Candle and That’s my Pan! are both large home goods manufacturers that run fundraising websites in this manner. Yankee Candle also provides separate login credentials for individual sellers from each fundraising group. That’s my Pan! also allows shoppers to choose if the products purchased will be shipped direct to the customer or together with other customers’ orders for local pick up.
CritterGiftShop’saffiliateprograminterface.
If a company has the money to invest, setting up separate websites can be a turnkey solution for making the fundraising experience feel personalized and helps the fundraising client to feel as if they are receiving more attention than if they were only using affiliate tracking. However, the infrastructure needed to maintain potentially hundreds of separate websites is not within our means at this time. Affiliate tracking is a more reasonable plan of action for the time being until we have reached a larger level of sales and growth.
That’s My Pan! offers individual fundraising webstoresYankee Candle has a user-friendly dashboard
Strategiestocontinuein2016-2017:
1.DirectMail: For the past nine years, Ballet Gift Shop has targeted primary customers through a direct mail campaign. We maintain a spreadsheet of close to 500 nonprofit dance companies who perform the Nutcracker Ballet every year. Each one of these companies receives a promotional package which consists of:
• a Newsletter• a Postcard with discount coupon code• a Product sample (Nutcracker ornament with custom text of the company’s name)• an occasional new product sample we want to introduce and push sales
These direct mail packages cost $4.73 for material and labor and $2.60 for shipping and handling for a total cost of $7.33 per mailing. The average success rate of this campaign over the years has been between 8 and 12 percent, which is two to three times the national average for direct mail campaigns (Beasley, 2013). Along with e-newsletters, seasonal promotions, and “product spotlights” in industry-specific magazines (e.g. Dance Retailer, Dance Teacher, Dance), direct mail has been one of the primary and most successful means of staying connected with our customers and getting our products in the hands of the decision makers representing our most largest clients.
Our goal for 2016-2017 is to continue to see an increase of 5% in our response rate from our potential client base through direct mail (promotional product samples). We hope to achieve this, in part, by removing entities from our list who have not purchased in the past five years. We will continue to market to these non-responsive entities through more affordable means, such as, e-newsletters and e-coupons.
2. Website rebuild: We are in the process of moving our website to a new ecommerce platform that has advanced functionality in comparison to our old estore. For instance, our previous website was hand-built from scratch using html coding. Updating the 1,000 plus pages has always been extremely time consuming. With the new website, updates will trickle down through the page hierarchy almost automatically. Other features of the new website include better search engine optimization for organic keyword searches, automated reporting and tracking of leads, better crossover with MailChip (emarketing) software and other third party services we use, and customization previews to enhance the shopping experience. We are especially excited about the customization previews which is something that has been on our “wish list” since we launched our first website back in 2007. Not only is this convenient for customers (they can choose a font and preview the text on the product before they purchase), but it will save our company a lot of time and money in the setting up of custom text files to send to our laser engraver. We used to have to do this manually for each order. Moving forward, these files will be configured automatically and prepackaged ready for the laser engraver. The cost for this service is $.015 per configuration, but the savings are $.40 per configuration through a reduction in labor time.
The website rebuild is well under way and should be completed within the next month. When the bugs are worked out, we hope to have a 50% increase in web site visits, resulting in an overall increase of 25% in conversions within the first year. The additional capabilities such as tracking leads that result in sales will help us better fine tune our marketing efforts moving forward.
Marketing Strategies
Marketing Strategies
New strategies to implement in 2016-2017:
1.IncreaseFacebookAdvertising:Demonstrated earlier, the most popular social media website that our customers are engaged with is Facebook. We have invested in Facebook’s ads intermittently over the past year, but tracking sales has been challenging and we have not been aware of our actual return on investment Within the past few months, we have transitioned to a more advanced e-commerce platform (Shopify) and now have the capabilities to pull reports on our referred sales. Moving forward, we will implement a Facebook ad campaign with an initial budget of $200 a month. We would like to see 3-5 wholesale orders generated per month (averaged over the busy season) from this investment. If successful, the monetary investment will be adjusted on a quarterly basis.
2.CapitalizeonOrganicSearchRankings:Our organic search traffic had been artificially inflated before Google’s updates to their algorithm (Panda 2011, Penguin 2012, and Hummingbird 2013). This was achieved through the employment of several SEO companies. After the updates, our search rankings have plummeted. As is appropriate, now Google rewards higher search rankings for relevant content and updated content. For the 2016-2017 season, our goal is to post new content to our social media channels 5 times per week and to post new fundraising advice to our blog once per month. We would like to see increased engagement with our customers, and a move up the search rankings by 25%, overall, for 20 prespecified keywords.
3.IncreaseRetailStoreCustomers:It has been an untested theory of ours since BalletGiftShop launched in 2007 that we might not be attracting brick-and-mortar retail store customers because we have our wholesale pricing posting on our website for all to see. We decided to post pricing to capture as many sales as possible to include wholesale purchases, retail purchases, and retail purchases with quantity discounts encouraging larger sales. While gift items are not a primary focus for brick-and-mortar dance retail stores, we believe we can increase our percentage of sales to these customers from it’s current standing of 1% to 5% within the next fiscal year. To do this, we plan to “hide” wholesale pricing and launch a sub-website for wholesale customers. This will involve developing an application process to guard access to the new wholesale website. The challenge will be making this application process as intuitive and easy as possible for our existing and new wholesale customers.
4.IncreaseFundraisingServices:Since the majority of our customers (62%) are purchasing our products for the purpose of fundraising, we want to focus our attention on helping our customers achieve their fundraising goals by providing a platform in which they can facilitate and maximize fundraising. Before doing this, we must first find out exactly what our customers’ needs are by interviewing them by phone and in person. Over the next couple months, we are working to set up a handful of meetings with local customers and phone interviews with regional customers to ask a number of questions about how we can better serve them with our products and services. We anticipate that our customers will be in support of increased fundraising services to include:
The costs of setting up a wholesale-only website and affiliate sales tracking are relatively low with the next ecommerce platform that we have migrated to within the past month. If our customers are in support of this new functionality, we hope to have the new website and sales tracking in place before the end of the summer and the beginning of our busy season (October through December). Once in place, our goal would be to increase wholesale business by 25% percent in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
• Wholesale-only website dedicated to serve nonprofits• Affiliate fundraising program with: - automatic sales tracking capabilities - a password-protected dashboard for customers• Planning sessions via phone with a fundraising expert at Ballet Gift Shop• Follow-up calls after orders have been received to ensure quality and offer additional tips
Conclusion
It is important, especially in a niche market, to be in touch with your customers and their unique needs. “Niche marketing is all about nurturing a base of true believers” (Donnelly, 2016). If you can do this, you will have loyal customers who are excited about your product and will direct new customers to you through positive word of mouth. Having exceptional service plays a big role in achieving this. Jake Jabs said at a recent event on the Auraria campus in Denver, Colorado while addressing a crowd of students, educators, and entrepreneurs, “provide the best service and people will recommend you to others”. The first step in providing good service is to be intimately connected to your customers. In the coming months, Ballet Gift Shop plans to reconnect with its customers on a personal basis by visiting them at their physical locations and spending more time on the phone listening to them describe their needs in order to gain new insights into providing quality products and services to meet their needs.
We hope to achieve a more inclusive product-market fit through the expansion of our fundraising services to ultimately establish a more comprehensive, supportive, and robust framework to better assist our fundraising customers in their fundraising goals. The more successful our customers are, the more successful we will be. It really is a team effort!
• Wholesale-only website dedicated to serve nonprofits• Affiliate fundraising program with: - automatic sales tracking capabilities - a password-protected dashboard for customers• Planning sessions via phone with a fundraising expert at Ballet Gift Shop• Follow-up calls after orders have been received to ensure quality and offer additional tips
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