Memory Marketing : How to Successfully Promote and Publicize Your Scrapbooking Business [Paperback]

Sue DiFranco (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0967613868 | ISBN-13: 978-0967613864 | Publication Date: February 2001

Memory Marketing: How to Successfully Promote and Publicize Your Scrapbooking Business is the first marketing book geared exclusively to scrapbooking business owners. It is a comprehensive, 224-page book that tells scrapbooking entrepreneurs exactly what marketing steps they need to take in order to guarantee more (and more satisfied) customers and increased profits. Exclusive interviews with many succesful scrapbooking business owners are included, with each person sharing his or her own secrets of marketing success. All areas of marketing are covered: media publicity, advertising, news releases, trade shows, direct promotion, an entire section devoted to online marketing, and much more. This book also has both general and business-specific tips, so whether you are a retail storeowner, Internet storeowner, consultant, teacher, product designer, author, event organizer, or anything in between, we've got you covered. A complete Appendix including resources, a sample news release, and Index, rounds out the book.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sue DiFranco has been a published author, encompassing print, TV, and web, for more than ten years. An English major, her work has appeared in both newspapers and magazines. She expanded into the world of television writing for several years, and has been writing columns, features, and scripts for entertainment Web sites since 1998. Secrets of Scrapbooking Success: Making Money, Making Memories, her first book, was inspired by the women and men entrepreneurs she had met while pursuing her scrapbooking passion. Her second book, Memory Marketing: How to Successfully Promote and Publicize Your Scrapbooking Business, is a companion guide to Secrets..., and includes all of the marketing strategies she learned first hand when launching her company, Fun Facts Publishing, in 1999. She is currently working on more business and career guides, as well as frequently updating the company's official Web site.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One Why Marketing is Vital

You know you have a great business or service. Not only have others told you, but it’s also something you just know, and you take pride in it. Your product, store, or service is the best out there. So why aren’t you turning a profit?

Or maybe you’re just beginning to toy with the idea of beginning your own scrapbooking business. Maybe there’s a book you really want to write, or a special class you know you’d be great at teaching. Maybe it’s even a retail store you’re considering launching. Thinking about starting a business is daunting enough without having to contemplate how to market it as well.

Marketing, in all its publicizing and promotional glory, is a tough beast to master. It’s a little overwhelming because there’s so much to learn, and then you have to apply that knowledge. It takes time—lots of it. It takes money—usually lots of that, too. But, as is said about pregnancy and getting a flu shot, the pain will be worth it.

Marketing basically means making people aware of your product, business, or service, getting them to purchase, and keeping them coming back for more. Because if people aren’t aware you exist, they won’t come to you. Therefore, you need to use as many tools as you can to make them aware of your presence. You can use media publicity, advertising, and non-media marketing. Then, once they are your customers, you still need to use marketing tools to keep them as customers. All will take time and effort. But all, as we’ve said before, will be worth it.

One of the great things about marketing, especially for scrapbooking entrepreneurs, is the creative challenge. Unlike struggling with your accounts balance (now there’s some fun!), you can really put your creativity to work and brainstorm unique and inventive ways to get more customers (and thus, get more money, so you can continue doing what you love). After all, isn’t practicing creativity what got you hooked on memory books in the first place? Consider it a challenge—perhaps the most intense page-making contest you’ve ever entered.

The truth is, scrapbooking businesses of all types are popping up everywhere. You need to stay one step above the competition at all times, whether you’re a storeowner, teacher, or author. And if you’ve launched a teaching or consulting business or opened a store in an area where there is no competition, marketing is still essential, because people need to be educated on the subject of scrapbooking and why they should buy from you.

And that’s not to mention the larger corporations and chain stores who have discovered what a cash cow scrapbooking can be. How can you stay afloat when a huge Michaels just opened across the street? How can you peddle your paper punches designed out of your home when a huge corporation is pumping them out by the millions?

You need to employ methods of marketing that will not only garner you customers, but also keep those customers coming back. Small businesses can flourish, despite the Big Guys. And if you really do provide the best in your industry, people will realize it and return again and again. But remember, they need to know you’re there in the first place.

Read on to discover how to properly research both your competition and your customers, and how to write a proper marketing plan. These will be your first steps to kickstart marketing your scrapbooking career!

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Fun Facts Pub (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967613868
• ISBN-13: 978-0967613864
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,368,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)