Business SMART:

Some Things Really Are Free
 

By: Dennis A. Conforto
Chairman & CEO of A-Z Media Group, Inc.

Have you ever noticed that when you pay nothing, you usually get nothing? Free is almost never free. There is always some catch at the end, and if something is truly free, it usually has no value.

Finally, there is something that is free, that has no catch and has real value. It can help you grow your business and can even be viewed as a profit center for your scrapbooking business.

There are hundreds of thousands of women who want to stay up on the latest ideas, tools and products related to scrapbooking. They love the idea of learning more about their new found craft. Yet as a retailer, it is hard to keep up with the latest trends, products and tools that are produced by the nearly 1,800 different scrapbooking manufacturers who are introducing new products all the time.

Of course, the best customers you can have are those that are educated consumers. The more they know the more they buy and the more they buy the better business can be for you. In fact, the more you can keep scrapbooking at the forefront of their minds, the better it is for your retail store.

One of the ways many scrapbooking retailers try to stay in contact with their very best consumers is through the creation of a store newsletter. The challenge with this is that newsletters are usually only produced once each month, or sometimes even less frequently. Naturally, the questions are, “How can you keep scrapbooking at the forefront of the consumers mind every week? How can you do it for free? How can help them be educated making them even more valuable to your stores revenue stream?”

Scrapbooking.com Magazine has created the perfect partnership program for retailers no matter where they are around the globe. It’s fast, simple and best of all, it’s free! By placing one of our free weekly e-newsletter special links on your store’s website or on your e-newsletter, you will be encouraging your consumers to keep up with the latest and greatest trends happening in the world of scrapbooking today.

Now the question is, “Why would a retail store owner want to promote a link from Scrapbooking.com Magazine within their own website or e-newsletter?” The reason is simple: our whole business model is to drive traffic to retail stores just like yours. Manufacturers invest in the web pages of our magazine to promote their brands which are found in retail stores. What you might not have noticed before is that each of our articles ends with a link asking the reader to find their nearest scrapbooking store.

Let me give you 10 reasons why placing our free link on your site and newsletter is good business for you, and why you want your customers to have access to our weekly newsletters.

1. Consumers are looking for new ideas all of the time. We have what they are looking for and our newsletter and magazine is free to them and to you.
2. Our newsletter promotes scrapbooking to your client base weekly. Reminding them about the category is critical to having greater mind share thus creating greater market share.
3. The newsletter gives your readers new ideas to consider along with instructions and supply lists for new projects. The more they consider doing something, the more likely they are to act on that consideration.
4. The more new ideas we can give them means the more they will shop; traffic to your store is key to your daily and weekly success.
5. The more they shop, the more they buy, and the more they buy the more you sell.
6. The more products you sell the higher your profits reach, and profits are the life force of your business. Selling is only the tool to reach the goal of being profitable.
7. Greater profits allow you to bring in more new products to your store. It also means you can invest more into growing your business and improving the look and feel of your store.
8. More new products keeps your store fresh and keeps your oldest customers coming back.
9. Our newsletters have a tell-a-friend feature that allows for viral marketing to ensure that even more prospective consumers are getting the message about scrapbooking within your marketplace.
10. Viral marketing of our newsletter within your marketplace allows us to create more newbies to refer even more business to your store.

While your primary job as a retailer is to sell product, our primary job is to help remind your customers weekly that you are there waiting to serve their needs. We remind them with projects that have step-by-step instructions. We share with them the great brands that are part of the industry and stories about those brands. Your customers can even print out a shopping list of what was needed to create a project, making it easier for you and them in shopping your store.

We even provide to the consumer a basic free store listing that lets them know your store name and that you are close by. It’s our version of the white pages of a telephone directory. If you want, you can upgrade that free store listing and for a fee add your store logo, store hours, a link to your website, a store map from Map Quest, and even a savings coupon.

Partner with us and allow us to help you grow the message of scrapbooking within your marketplace. We have the content about the product and you have the product. It’s really the perfect partnership. Those stores who are active in their relationship have seen the positive difference we have made in their business, and we can do the same for you.

We are here to grow your business and we have the perfect free marketing tool for you to link to. Visit http://scrapbooking.com/cgi-bin/Phase_2/static.pl?serial=1049, pick the image that you think will look best on your website, and allow us to help you grow your scrapbooking business. There is nothing quite like the perfect partnership, especially when it’s free. That is what being business SMART is all about.