So you want to make some noise about your Finders Keepers market stall? You’ve come to the right place. Between our in-house marketing team and some of our superstar stallholders – you’ve got this. Welcome to Marketing 101.
Pre-event: building the hype
It’s all about building the hype pre-event! This is your time to inform and inspire your audience – start teasing! We’ve created a bunch of resources you’ll find in your toolbox below – cover all your bases and share our campaign artwork via your socials and on your website. We spoke to some of our stallholders on how they like to market pre-event – and most importantly what works!
What are some of the marketing activities you do pre-event that help you set-up the weekend to be a success?
Jericho Road Clothing: SOCIALS, SOCIALS, SOCIALS. We can never reiterate how important social media is for our business. Plus, it’s FREE! Apart from that, it’s just turns into crazy town at JRC HQ as we stocktake, pack and get organised for the markets.
Andrea from Babs Organic Skincare
“We love the banners and social media tiles you provide – so we post about upcoming markets on socials and send out a few emails in the lead up to our newsletter subscribers.“
Bridget Bodenham :Instagram is probably the main marketing activity I use, I show behind the scene videos and photos of work that has been made just for the market. Clear images of work that will be available is important and pots in use adds context.
Made590: Social Media! Don’t rely on customers already knowing about the market. Make sure you do sneak peeks, behind the scenes, exclusive market releases. Anything that will make sure customers have to come and visit you at the market. Make sure you hashtag the correct event as that will also lead to more followers who might not know about you yet. Market the event ahead of time so people have time to plan and make sure you mention at least weekly until the actual event. Everyone is time poor so the more reminders the better.
If you have an email list send out a ‘market newsletter’. If you have an events page on your website pop in the market there and on all your social media channels. Majority of customers like to see before they buy and if they know there is upcoming opportunity they will book it in.
YOUR MARKETING TOOL BOX
Let people know how to get to the market and what is the best way to travel in. Provide everything directly and in a concise way. If it sounds to hard people won’t come.
AW19 Social Media and Website Promo Materials
Find all of our official promo materials for AW19 here!
Here are our official event hashtags:
#thefinderskeepers
#sydneyfinderskeepers
#melbournefinderskeepers
#brisbanefinderskeepers
#findlovekeep
NEW! Finders Keepers Instagram Story Gifs are here!
We’re getting giffy with it. You can find a range of super cute animated gifs to promote your stall at the market by searching our gifs on Instagram stories. Simply search “the finders keepers” and they’ll all be there waiting!
Want to use our photos?
No problem! We ask that you credit the images as outlined below denoting the market taken and the photographers name:
BLOG: Finders Keepers Sydney AW18 [CITY], Image: Samee Lapham.
INSTAGRAM: @finders_keepers [CITY] Sydney AW18, Image [photographer]@samsette
FACEBOOK: @theFindersKeepers Image: [photographer]Samee Lapham
NB: If you wish to use Finders Keepers photographs for purposes beyond promoting your Finders Keepers market stall, please contact media@thefinderskeepers.com for licensing information.
During event: make it fun
It’s market time! This is the time to show off your hard work – both your products and your stall design. Your current customers are now ready for an experience when visiting you, and your new customers – well they are just footsteps away! Social Media is your best mate for three days but also your stall is your shop front so make sure you’re ready for a lot of talking. There’s so much to learn face to face about your brand and how people interact with it.
Could there be an offer you can make exclusive for three days? Time to make people feel special and spread your story.
Let’s find out what some of our stallholders think too though.
Do you do any ‘at event’ marketing and if so, how successful is that
Babs Organic Skincare: We’ve tried a few things, market specials and releasing new products at the market or just before which also helps get our regulars to come and visit. We also give out samples to those who purchase at the event to help get more of our product into their hands. It does have an impact with online orders.
Alischa from Bespoke Letterpress
“Don’t forget to use the event hashtags! They can drive a lot of traffic your way.”
Bespoke Letterpress: Using instagram stories is great! Showing the set up, building the hype, giving sneak peeks as to new products launching at the event, and teasing possible shoppers with these is a great way to market your attendance in a real and live way! Even adding snippets of your neighbour’s, other brands, the great food you had for lunch builds the “experience” and may just sway a shopper to leave the house and head on down to enjoy. Oh and also, we have a newsletter sign up form. We have tried digital ipad signups before, but found people just liked a pen and paper better! Although more work on our end to input these sign ups, it had a better conversion rate.
Bridget Bodenham: Always hand out business cards as it generally tempts online sales.
Jericho Road Clothing: We always offer a special deal at markets – whether it just be a sale rack or a spend & save, we find it to be very successful.
Post event: make them feel special
You did it! The marketing doesn’t stop there though. Don’t forget to make your visitors feel special with a thank you blast either via social media or to the email addresses you cleverly collected (*wink*) Here’s some more handy hints from our market masterminds.
What do you do post-event to drive more conversions to sales, or grow your customer base post event?
Bridget Bodenham: I generally do an Instagram post that shows what stock is still available, often people regret they didn’t buy and this does follow through with online sales. And for the collectors outside the market state they have the opportunity to buy.
Made590: Thank the event you were just at. Not only was it a lot of work for you to get there but imagine the workload for the organisers! It also shows that you are appreciative of their hard work AND all the customers who came to visit. Update your online directly afterwards. If you’re to buggered then make sure you let people know the date when there will be an online update. Make sure you don’t forget about all your customers who couldn’t visit you in person AND possibly customers who saw your creations but needed to have a think.
“A friendly reminder is also good directly after the market as it is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Don’t leave it to late, a week after is too late, people have forgotten what they did last weekend – make sure you strike while the iron is still hot.”
Christina from Made590
Babs Organic Skincare: Offering a discount or free shipping during the event helps us collect emails from customers. We email them after the event with said offer and this encourages feedback or an online purchase. We also see an influx of online orders from those who purchased at the market, around the 2-3 month mark post event as we know they would’ve run out of their product.
That’s a wrap!
There you have it, we hope you made some notes and got some ideas! The Finders Keepers is such a golden opportunity to experiment with marketing and have fun with your brand – plus there’s so many other creatives on your ship! Meet and mingle – collaborations are on the horizon!
Now for one last marketing push from us ( *high five*)
Spread the word! Share our Facebook event to help make Finders Keepers HUGE. GO ahead and add this to your own business page (need tips on how? head here)! You can also find all of our market promotional material, available for download here.