You can’t be all things to all people…
Things are really busy at the moment: I’m trying to juggle three jobs, including my business, so I’m finding myself struggling to fit everything in and am absolutely exhausted. It’s meant a few things like the fashion show I was talking about in my last blog have slipped, although I hope to get to them soon.
One thing I have been doing recently is a bit of advertising in local little magazines, to try and target my local market in the run up to the prom season. The amount of people who’ve seen the adverts has been amazing; I’ve been out and about and mentioned the business to people who’ve then remembered seeing my adverts. It’s really raised awareness and I have got some bookings as a direct result so that’s good. It’s difficult sometimes to judge how effective it’s been, because I’m so specialist, if no one has an occasion to go to when they see the advert, they’re not going to call. I hope that seeing the advert will mean they’ll remember me when they do though.
Word of mouth in advertising the business is proving as effective as ever; someone comes and then tells her sister, who tells her friend and so on. It’s really a very good way to help build your business.
I’ve slowed down a bit in the dress buying recently. Early on I was quite stressed about trying to make sure I had the perfect dress for everyone who walks through the door, and have bought dress after dress to try and do that. I’ve realised since though that you just can’t practically do that. Even if you spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, people are so diverse and the events they go to are so different, you’re never going to please everyone. And I do pretty well, there’s only one person who’s ever gone away empty handed, and she wanted a dress to get married in in 6 months time. It’s a little bit sod’s law, as I’ll have a run of people sized 16 who I have a limited number of dresses for, so I invest some time and money in sourcing dresses that size, only to then have a run of people sized 8-10 who want to see what’s new in my collection!
Anyway we’ll see what the next few weeks bring and whether the advertising pays off any more…I’ll keep you updated!
