There's nothing like a face-to-face meeting to generate new business, and nothing like a self-liquidating promotion to stretch your promotional dollars.
For many businesses, Web-based 'social networking' has all but replaced real 'face time' as a way of 'meeting' and persuading prospective customers. I too found myself believing that the power of the Internet is the be-all and end-all for business communications. Last weekend proved otherwise when Pam and I participated in the Vashon Strawberry Festival with a stand promoting our printing company, Vashon Island Imaging.
The Strawberry Festival stand turned out to be the best thing that we've ever done in terms of PR and promotion. Better than the Vashon Art Studio Tour... better than the thousand-plus dollars spent last year advertising in the local papers... better even than 6-months of high-exposure display time at a local bank and a 48X48-inch sign at Vashon Print & Design. Why? Simple. We were able to reach most of the community with a high-impact presentation.
Only community events like fairs and festivals offer a chance to meet everyone all at once. Other communications media and methods are not nearly as broad spectrum as community events. For example, not everyone reads the local papers, or uses the internet. All other advertising techniques reach only small segments of the total community... whereas the whole town turns out for a big event like Vashon's annual Strawberry Festival.
When you advertise using traditional media and methods your impact is limited to the size and position of your ad as well as the audience segment of the media. Signs are mostly ignored by people, so they are of little help really. And internet promotions are like the new direct mail... quickly deleted. In the end it's really about 'word-of-mouth' and as it turns out 'face time' beats Facebook without question because there is no substitute for personal contact.
From my earlier blogs you know that I am a big proponent of art shows. We participate in the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour every December and May because it is a great opportunity to do market research. We use the Tour to test our pricing, promote Vashon Island Imaging, and gauge customer reactions to my new illustrations. As it turns out the Strawberry Festival was an even better market research tool because it provided a broader audience. The Vashon Art Studio Tour and art shows in galleries only draw people already interested in art and who are more interested in originals than giclée prints. Shows in restaurants and other non-gallery locations tend to be ignored because people are focused on eating or shopping, not on art.
Since the whole town turns out at events like strawberry festivals and country fairs your work gets seen by the widest spectrum of people. What we discovered was that there was a huge segment of the Vashon Island community that didn't know we existed despite all those other promotional efforts... but there they were, at our stand learning all about our giclée and laser printing services.
Our entire stand was trimmed with giclée work... the signs, the pictures, even the raffle-ticket box. Pamela Swanson showed her new 'Shadow Boxes by Pam' which combine giclée and laser prints of her pictures with origami work.
We decided not to sell anything. Instead we made our stand into a display of what can be done with giclée. Brochures described our range of services and for those especially interested we had 'value coupons' which offered a 20% discount. The coupons featured 'my' likeness as a smiling President on the face on a $50 bill.
To discover who likes my illustrations I decided to have a good old-fashioned raffle. We sold chances for just $1.00 and sold more than a hundred tickets which covered the costs of the 20 X 30 prize giclée.
Glen Bishop (left), a psychic who is part of Vashon Intuitive Arts helped us out by reaching into the raffle box to choose the winner. (The VIA studio was right across the street from our stand and 20 of my illustrations were on display there, so it was a good tie-in.)
In the raffle, my latest piece entitled 'Evening Light' (left) was pitted against a known winner called 'Vashon Christmas Tree' (right). The Christmas tree piece had earlier sold out its first edition so it made a good foil for the new piece in this test. When as many people chose the illustration of Point Robinson Lighthouse (a Vashon Island landmark), my confidence in the new piece to sell well in the future was boosted.
As an interesting aside, the raffle once again proved that 'new media' art is only accepted by people under 45 years of age. People over 50 generally shun new media in favor of traditional media like oils, pastels and watercolors. That is why my own illustrations are aimed at 'kids'.
The raffle gave us a chance to do some post-event follow-up PR and publicity sending pictures of the drawing and an announcement of the winner to the local press. Plus, now we have the contact information for about 100 people that we know like those pictures... how great is that?
Speaking of costs, we did the whole thing on a shoestring budget of about $400. We built the stand from parts gotten at Home Depot... a canopy reinforced with a frame of 2X2's from which we hung the art and signs. The frame was connected with U-bolts. Pam and I got the thing up in less than 3 hours (including two trips to-and-from the studio hauling the stuff). It packed out even faster.
'Good, cheap, fast...choose any two' is how it usually goes but this promotional event was total win on all counts from the git-go. Next year we'll be back at the Vashon Strawberry Festival with a stand that's twice as big and a smile on our face that's twice as wide.
Facebook may reach millions, but I prefer face time with just a few.
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