Now the big marketing and sales push comes as I try to find stockists and promote the website. To keep costs down the main way I'll be promoting the brand and the site is online using social networking and trying to get press from the many blogs that are out there.
The social networking side of things revolves around Facebook and Twitter; Myspace is pretty dead but I'll probably set up a page at some point as the more points of contact the better. I use a programme called Tweetdeck which allows you to send status updates to all your accounts from one place.
I have two twitter accounts for The Diggers, one Facebook page plus my personal Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Depending on what I'm informing people about determines which accounts I send the updates out to. It's important to keep it relevant and to not just sell, sell, sell.
One good way of doing this is to tell people about interesting things you've found online. This works well because all of these things I find go up on The Diggers blog so I link to the blog rather than where I found them. It's good to tweet/facebook regularly but in my opinion not too regularly. Something like 3-5 times a day max is a good amount to aim for.
Another thing you'll need to do is get followers; because there's no point in talking to no-one. This means you need to have your twitter and facebook page links everywhere you can; which reminds me I need to put them up on my facebook account. Always check your links; dead links look bad and aren't helpful for anyone.
One way to encourage people to follow you, or 'like' you on Facebook is to offer special deals to fans/followers. There are plenty of other ways so be creative!
In terms of blogs you need some kind of internet currency, whether this is news accompanied with pictures, a competition, or a free download it doesn't matter. Again it's important to keep it relevant as most blogs are quite specific in what they write about. So for a music blog you'd send them a free download, in this case The Diggers podcast, for a fashion blog a quick press release and some images etc etc
With regards to finding stockists the best way to find relevant shops is to look at the stockist page of brands similar to yours. Some brands don't list their stockists so if you're business is fashion based a good site to use is www.thelabelfinder.com. Look for brands similar to yours and it will list their stockists.
If possible ring the shops before sending anything to them in order to find out who their buyer is. Remember to sound professional and be polite. Once you've found out who their buyer is and have contact info for them either post or email your catalogue. Give them a week and then ring or email back. It's always best to ring; so if you have a contact number don't be shy!
I think that covers most of it but if you want to find out more just remember Google is your friend.
That's it from me, good bye.
First order ready to go.
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