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Blog: Small Business Resources

FestivalNet

Adapting Your Inventory and Marketing for Different Seasons

posted March 21, 2024   category » Small Business Resources
Adapting Your Inventory and Marketing for Different Seasons

In the ever-changing retail and e-commerce landscape, adapting your inventory and marketing for different seasons is essential for staying ahead, even at festivals and craft shows! Each season brings its unique set of demands. So, you need to understand how to adjust your inventory levels and marketing strategies accordingly, as it can significantly impact your bottom line. This guide provides practical tips and insights on optimizing your approach throughout the year, ensuring that you’re always ready to meet your customers' seasonal needs.

E-commerce Shipping Solutions: Tools and Services for Efficient Order Fulfillment

posted January 10, 2024   category » Small Business Resources
E-commerce Shipping Solutions: Tools and Services for Efficient Order Fulfillment

Efficient shipping is the backbone of successful e-commerce. Whether engaging in large-scale e-commerce or juggling festival stalls and online sales, smooth order fulfillment is crucial. Thankfully, as technology advances in strides, you don’t have to face this challenging front alone. E-commerce shipping solutions stand ready to help you by streamlining the shipping process and ensuring timely deliveries and happy customers. These solutions optimize every step, from managing inventory to choosing the right carriers. Therefore, understanding the significance of these solutions can revolutionize how goods move from your shop or studio to your customer's doorstep. So, let's explore them and unlock the potential for seamless operations and satisfied customers.

Answering your Small Business Insurance Questions

posted June 29, 2023   category » Small Business Resources
Answering your Small Business Insurance Questions

As a small business owner, you’re no stranger to opportunity...and you're no stranger to risk! Starting and running a small business requires no small amount of bravery.  No matter how fearless you are, there’s a limit to how much risk you can take on.  Small business insurance, while it may seem like an extra or even unnecessary cost, is a valuable shield against the real risks you take on!

 

Excellent Product Photography for Online Success

posted February 24, 2023   category » Small Business Resources
Excellent Product Photography for Online Success

E-commerce success can depend on many factors, but one aspect that is often overlooked is product photography. High-quality product photos can not only make your products more visually appealing, but they can also help potential customers understand and trust your brand. In this post, we'll go over some tips for product photography that can help you succeed in the world of e-commerce.

Use Social Media to Grow Your Fan Base

posted January 6, 2023   category » Small Business Resources
Use Social Media to Grow Your Fan Base

As an artist or creator, it's essential to have a robust online presence in today's digital age. Social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok provide an excellent way to connect with your fans, share your content, and build your audience. In this blog post, we'll explore strategies for using social media to advance your fan base and take your career to the next level.



Tips for Your Online Shop this New Year

posted January 2, 2023   category » Small Business Resources
Tips for Your Online Shop this New Year

Happy New Year! Shopping in real life is still much more popular than shopping online. As of 2022, according to Statista, 14.5% of total retail sales were e-commerce, while the rest were from brick-and-mortar retail stores.  This should not deter you from tapping in to the online selling world.  Niche shops, hard to find crafts, and unique artwork often do very well online!

Whether you have an online shop in the FestivalNet marketplace or your own e-commerce site, here are a few good ideas! 


Write Good Product Descriptions for Selling Online

posted September 29, 2022   category » Small Business Resources
Write Good Product Descriptions for Selling Online

As more and more people turn to buying products online instead of in stores, eCommerce sites are booming with business and companies selling products online have gained a definitive edge. In order for your products to sell well, however, you have to do more than simply offer them online. Regardless of your industry, clients will have a sea of choices to wade through when making their online purchases. Excellent product descriptions will make your company's products stand out. These five tips will show you how to write product descriptions that will bring about the client conversion you want and grow your products' popularity and credibility.

Craft Shows: Tips on Supplies

posted June 16, 2022   category » Small Business Resources
Craft Shows: Tips on Supplies

Supplies Are What Make a Craft

Unless you are making something where you can use regular household items, or that doesn't need anything but the buyer to complete the sale, then supplies are going to be a major part of your crafts.

Finding a Supplier

Finding a supplier that isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg, and still has good quality might be a challenge at first. But it is better to pay more for good quality than it is to buy bargain materials and have your customers be disappointed when the overall quality of your craft is poor.

10 Do's and Dont's of Buying a Business

posted December 28, 2021   category » Small Business Resources
10 Do's and Dont's of Buying a Business

New Year brings new ventures! If you are considering a new business in 2022, check out article with great suggestions and tips.


From finding the right business or franchise to buy, to finally accepting the keys to the front door - buying a business can be an extremely frustrating exercise. It is important that you plan and implement each and every step in sequence and avoid the many caverns on the road to completing the deal.

The following 10 points should always be in the back of your mind.

1. Do not buy or invest in a business that you do not understand or are not familiar with. This does not mean that you have to know every detail of the management and operation of that specific business. Hopefully, you will receive specific training from the current owner. What it does mean is that you should, at the very least understand the primary principles of the business.

5 Tips for Promoting Your Visual Arts and Crafts Booth on Social Media

posted July 2, 2021   category » Small Business Resources
5 Tips for Promoting Your Visual Arts and Crafts Booth on Social Media

Social media marketing is a great way to get the word out about your craft business. Social media can also help to alert long-time followers and new prospects about your attendance at a festival or event. If you’re a craft business owner who has set up a craft or visual arts booth at an event, social media can help drive traffic to your booth so you can meet new potential customers and increase brand awareness. If you’d like to promote your visual arts and crafts booth on social media, here are five tips to help.

9 Things You Should Know About Publicity

posted May 20, 2021   category » Small Business Resources
9 Things You Should Know About Publicity

You have your vision and you're eager to make that first move in the world of PR. But before I jump into what you're here for, the nine critical things you should now about PR, we need to be sure that your ready to begin such a relationship with the media. It's not a matter of feeling ready, it's a matter of being ready.

 

Before you even begin thinking about PR, you need to have what I refer to as your social media house in order. This is your foundation. It is vital for your PR success that you have a presence sufficiently fleshed out on the internet from your website to your blog to your Twitter page. You won't get the results you want from your PR campaign if you don't have a strong internet presence.

 

The Ultimate Collection of Email Marketing Tips: Turn those subscribers into fans

posted March 24, 2021   category » Small Business Resources
The Ultimate Collection of Email Marketing Tips: Turn those subscribers into fans

Are you ready to give up on email marketing?

We hear you. If you’re like most of us, you probably feel like you’ve tried everything to no avail.

You’ve tried sending out emails every other day. Once a week. Once a month. You’ve tried crafting content that’s humorous, informative, and relatable. You’ve tried long messages and brief ones.


Business Efficiency

posted May 22, 2019   category » Small Business Resources

Be Business-Efficient
Sandy Hammer for Catersource

The key to freeing up more time is simply to get through your to-do list faster. Easier said than done, right? Stay with me, though, and we’ll look at some of the biggest efficiency hindrances, as well as best practices for overcoming them and finding more time in your day.

image via William Iven

Emails

Ah, the dreaded inbox. While necessary for communication with colleagues, clients, and prospects, it can easily become a black hole that sucks up hours of time. Soon enough, it’s time to go home and you’re wondering where the day went. Sound familiar? Well, it’s time to take your inbox back!

I like to look over all of my emails that I received overnight, first thing in the morning. At this time, I respond to emails to the best of my abilities and work to tackle the emails which have pending answers. I make it a point to answer my emails daily, but I also allow specific time periods for it. This allows me to fully focus on the task at hand throughout the workday.


Read more!

How Efficiency Can Improve Your Life and Art

posted October 19, 2017   category » Small Business Resources

John P. Weiss for faso.com

The majority of artists I know have day jobs. They set their alarms, brew their coffee, tighten their neckties, perfect their makeup, grab their computer bags and hit the morning commute.


Their days are filled with meetings, quotas, emails, phone calls, texts, travel, office politics, deadlines, promotions, acquisitions, shift work, and the many other quotidian rhythms of commerce and professional life.


Some days bring professional recognition, raises, bonuses and personal satisfaction. Other days bring let downs, frustration, depression and a sense of endless entrapment.

Add into the mix all the commitments and responsibilities of family life. Getting the kids to school, sports practice and assuring homework gets done. Maybe a quick workout, walk the dogs, enjoy a glass of wine with your spouse and then it's off to bed. Before you know it, the alarm clock shakes you out of a blessed slumber and you're back on the career treadmill.

Somewhere in the above narrative, waiting like a forgotten child at the bus stop, is your artwork. Remember that? Before school, marriage, career, mortgage and life took over?


Read more!

10 Prioritization Tips for Promoters

posted January 26, 2017   category » Small Business Resources

10 Prioritization Tips for Promoters

Stephen Kim of bizzabo.com

  

When in planning mode, event managers have a million and one things to worry about. Time management and prioritization are not just skills, they become a lifestyle. Even the most seasoned event planners can stand to add a few more things to their toolbox. Here are 10 prioritization tips to help you keep calm under pressure and execute on an incredible event.

 

1) Establish your overarching goal and vision

 

Before the planning even begins, clearly articulate why you're even having this event in the first place. Then set concrete goals that align with that vision. Doing so will make decisions down the road much easier because you'll be sure that they align with your overarching goal.

 

"It's easy to get distracted the thousands of details that come with event planning. But if you establish clear goals from the beginning, the rest of the planning becomes much easier."

 

-Rachel, Customer Success Manager at Bizzabo.

 

 

2) Outline the day

 

To keep focused on the overarching goals, it's important to make every day count. Make sure to start your day with a clear schedule of what needs get done and by what time. This daily ritual will help you stay focused on checking off the tasks that contribute to your main event goals.

 

3) Make deadlines, not to-do lists

 

The danger of to-do lists is that once the tasks start piling up, your list becomes endless and more difficult to prioritize. That's why it's essential to immediately set deadlines once tasks start coming in. Having a logical, chronological progression of objectives will help you better visualize the needs for your event.

 

"Everyone needs deadlines. Even beavers."
-Walt Disney

 

4) Know the difference between urgent vs important

 

It's easy for a task to feel important because of a creeping deadline, but make sure that the sense of urgency is not distorting the actual importance of the task. Certain tasks add immediate value and others just make you feel busy. The clearer the line is between urgent and important, the smoother your event planning will be.

 

"What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important."

 

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

5) Use tools that help you focus

 

Good prioritization isn't only about ranking your tasks. Sometimes it comes down to good old fashioned hard work and focus. To help you focus on one task at a time, there are a number of productivity tools available. For instance, Marinara Timer helps you stay focused for 25 minutes at a time, in what is known as the pomodoro technique. The app Self-Control creates a blacklist of websites that remain locked for a set period of time. Tools like these will definitely help you stay focused on the task at hand.

 

Read more here!

The Basics of Promoting

posted January 14, 2015   category » Small Business Resources

The Basics of Promoting


  Properly marketing your event is the most important step to filling those seats, and getting your event off the ground. Let these tips help you get started with your promotional tactics:

 

Promoting events

 

  • Create a Contest: Offer your attendees a chance to win something by attending your event. You can easily start this competition online, and announce the winners with a ceremony at your event.
  • Cross-Market: The more audiences you can reach, the better. Find someone that has an event or business that is related to yours, but not in direct competition, and cross-promote between the two organizations. This is a relationship you can both benefit from.

 

 

Read more here!

 

Carve Out Time for Online Networking

posted December 19, 2013   category » Small Business Resources


 

It happened again! I talk to a group of artists about using social media like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I tell them that this is part of a marketing program and that, yes, it will take time. I warn them not to get sidetracked using social media and forget to go into the studio–that the studio is always the priority. Still, they grumble, whine, and make excuses. (I had spies at the lunch table after my talk!)

 

ALL worthwhile marketing takes time. You would love for me to hand you the name of an agent that will sweep you off your feet and whisk you off into the stars, wouldn’t you? You’d prefer that you can just buy a bunch of ads or send out a single mailing and have all of your dreams come true. Yeah, that would be nice all right. But what planet are you living on?

 

This is Earth. April 2009. We’re bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages each day. You have to learn to build meaningful relationships that will propel your career forward. You must keep your name in front of people you’re in contact with. Networking online is one of the cheapest, easiest, and most effective ways to do that.

 

In order to avoid being overwhelmed by all of the social media opportunities available, you might be best served by carving out time for them. This isn’t something you do in a block of time one day a week. Instead, you need to do a little bit every day. I suggest starting with 15-30 minutes a day for logging in to sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. That’s enough to create and maintain a presence.

 

Read more!