HD Boutique – Part Two

By now, you’ve seen the Garay Artisans HD Boutique booth.? While that took a lot of teamwork, there were some marketing efforts behind the scenes also centered around our Alice’s Journey Through the Looking Glass theme.

When we do trade shows, we make a point to target special design firms that we’d like to have visit our booth.? But, how to do that?? I mean, designers are literally bombarded daily with all manner of trades, including the competition.? Why should they be concerned with our company?? The way we try to stand out is to send invites.? But not just any invites — no, no.? We can’t leave well enough alone!

The packages we sent were small white rabbits with invitations nestled within the box.? They were either hand-delivered or carefully shipped.? The purpose of the white rabbit?? Well, to follow it to our booth, of course!? We made beautiful antique mirror coasters as Thank You! gifts to the designers who were kind enough to come by and introduce themselves after receiving our invite.? Here’s the pics of the whole shebang:

So, here’s the process. 1) Identify the firms you’d like to work with — ten or so should be good.?? 2) Send them a Very Special Invite to a presentation or a trade show you are exhibiting at.? 3) At the conference, have a special gift for them as a Thank You! for taking the time to come see you.? 4) Follow up with them — chances are that if you spend a good amount of time putting together a beautiful presentation, you will spend a good amount of time putting together a beautiful space for their client.

While at the show, we had to give away business cards.? We did do our usual attachment of finish samples, but we also added a tiny bottle with a “Drink Me” tag attached.? (It made everyone giggle.)? The Drink Me tag had a raffle number printed on it — at the end of the show, we put up two numbers on our website’s home page and these two individuals won two handmade framed antique mirrors.? So, all those who took away business cards were really enticed to visit our company website to see if they won.? That’s what I call a Win-Win.? Here’s the pic:

By the way, we bought those cute little bottles from Maria Dellos at Maria’s Art Creations.? I have to mention her because she was so helpful and went above and beyond to help find us the perfect tiny bottles — please visit her cute site.? BIG thanks also go to Karen Donnelly (our website guru) for her immense creativity and guidance, Skype calls at 3 am and immeasurable help in putting it all together.? Hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas!? We’ll talk soon…