Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

I got the following comment from Heather in the UK on yesterday’s post, Lotsa Choices = Less Sales. Think it’s worth highlighting in a separate post, as it speaks to one of the big challenges we bloggers face - delivering value to readers versus writing for fun, to impress each other and to gain Technorati popularity. (And, as much as I love gazing at my own navel, it’s dark in there.)

I own a tiny business

I offer very little choice – I can’t compete with any of the large chain type stores in terms of choice or price point.

I do go the extra yard in customer service – but I read these marketing blogs and I always seem to miss the point somehow – how does this marketing angle help me?

Just curious.
Heather

Here’s my response:

Heather,

Thanks for your comment and question. You just hit on one of my pet peeves – I think bloggers (on marketing or anything else) run the danger of writing for each other (and technorati popularity) instead of writing something that can help others who are looking for – say – marketing ideas.

“tiny” and “limited” can also mean exclusive, rare, to be treasured.

In looking at your blog – it appears you’re already doing a number of things right – the boutique, the personal blog to build a relationship with customers (past, present and future) and careful, caring selection of products.

A couple of down and dirty tactical points, using what I can glean from and about your blog:

1. You should mention the product/idea right up front in your posts and highlight them so I see them easily and link them to the shopping cart from the blog post, so I could immediately buy it, right then, right there, while I’m reading how wonderful it is.

You could be a global microbiz (as talked/ranted about over at gapingvoid).

2. The idea of having perfumes in smaller sizes could entice more people to spend more and faster – while improving your selection, while still keeping it “rare” and “special” without increasing amount of inventory space.

I’d also suggest you call it something other than the soap blog. I love the UK, London, boutique shopping, etc. – and “The soap blog” doesn’t get across your difference (or the range of your products). You’ve got some great differentiation sellling points in “About” and so on.

Good luck!

So, gentle readers, keep us bloggers honest and on target - let us know if/when/how/where you can use what we post. And ask questions!