Welcome to the LA cope. Is this podcast a show all about helping you as a retailer brand or creative, understand the actual business side of running your business. I have a straightforward, practical advice about the nitty gritty of making money from your creative passion. We will be covering bite-size business and marketing lessons as well as interviews with experts and trailblazers in the fashion highways and design industries. My name is Melissa Robbins. I'm a business coach color loving non-coffee drinking Melburnian and let's get into it. Hello. Hello and welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 2Share with you today is something that I get asked about a lot, and it's something that I work on in my transform your wholesale group program that I run. And it's talking about wholesale, how to get your brand or your product in front of more retailers, more buyers, and get stocked in the best doors. So I want to share with you five ways to get eyes on your brand build brand awareness. And that does not include cold calling because I don't know how many, how many people love to do that, but it's definitely some of some people's worst nightmare. So let's get into it. Number one is increase your marketing spend. So for your direct to consumer retail store, if you increase the, um, advertising towards that, if you invest in your imagery, your photo shoots and your branding, then this will help retailers find you. So you'll get sales from your actual retail store by investing in your marketing. But you'll also get noticed by the buyers. What happens is that it removes the barriers if they make the decision themselves. So if they find you because they've seen you everywhere on social, or if they've seen other stores share you, then they're going to want to stop you in their store as well, because they want to have, you know, that great, um, brand that has a good, strong presence that has good sell through because they're promoting the other stocks as well. If you've got great packaging, then they know it's going to work well in store or work well in their store with what other mix-up got. So by investing in your marketing for your own retail store, this can lead to wholesale buyers coming to you. Instead of you having to go to them, it says by really being noticed by others and you're showcasing your product. Um, so that buyers get FOMO. They think I need to get this in before anyone else does. I don't want to miss out. I want to have the latest range. I want to have the newest thing. So by investing in your own marketing, it really can help. Um, you know, that return on investment comes not just from your own retail sales, but it also adds to wholesale sales as well. Number two, go to a trade show. So be it trade shows again that they remove barriers for buyers. So you need to invest the money into doing them so that you can get in front of buyers. Um, so that they're in a place they're in a place that when they're at a trade show, ready to buy, looking for products, they're actually out there with money to spend. So they should be viewed as an investment in your marketing as you know, brand awareness, as well as invested in your sales channels. Sometimes stores need to see lots of times. So to be able to make the decision to buy you or not. So they might not buy you the first time they see you at a show. It may take two, three times to, to do that. When I had my own, we had my own brand. So we had, moppet a children's wear brand. We showcased in New York a number of times, and we would have buyers from Barney's come up to us and say, I like your range. I like your look and style, but we need to see you in a few, you know, a few more times to know that your, where you're going is where the direction that we want to go as well. And also you want to see how you evolve and if you can stick around. So that is sometimes, um, not always said to people, but it's definitely what some people think. So by investing in trade shows, by putting yourself out there to showcase your brand and your range, then you know, you have those buyers come to you and they make the decision whether to stop and, um, you know, look at what you've got or if you attract enough attention that they actually want to come and buy and place orders on the date,
Speaker 3Right?
Speaker 2Send buyers a sample pack or a preview of your product. So maybe, um, you're not going to do this for every single store that you want to get into, but to target stores, if that's something that you, um, you know, want to showcase what you've got, then you can send that little packages. So it might be, it depends on what your product is. You may send out a sample of your product, or you may send out a physical catalog. Um, it may be a handwritten note or maybe a little gift. Um, what you need to do here is be very selective and be very targeted in who you approach. But if you think about this as an investment, um, as well, then it can certainly have great returns. It offers you the chance to stand out as well, because not everyone sends something physical. And then you can follow up with email to check that they've received it. Or if you are keen to make a phone call, then, um, at least it's sort of a warm call and it's not just, you know, the first time someone has been exposed to your brand. I had a few buyers, sorry, I had a few brands do this when I had my retail store. And that certainly gave me the opportunity to touch and feel the product really analyze and look at it. And then I could make a better decision when I was going, when I got the email or whether I wanted to get that product or category into store, or not, at least I had some idea about what it was. And it definitely influenced me more so than not having that physical product there. One of my clients, who's a stationary brand, did this as a little, uh, a little send out. I think she sent out maybe 50. I'm not quite sure I have to find out the numbers of that. But what she did was did a little sample pack up, um, showcase the range, a showcase, a catalog, and then sent that out and they had people call them straight away and say, yes, I didn't really want any more. But now after seeing the product in the flesh, I actually am keen to, to place an order. So it definitely can have a, um, a good conversion rate, but it just depends on what your product is and whether that's appropriate or not to send a sample one thing not to do. I had a few people do this and it did annoy me, uh, don't send sample to someone if it's valuable and then expect them to send it back. So I had a few brands do that to me, and I was just, I didn't have the energy or time, um, to actually go to those offers and post that back again because they sent it to me without me even asking for it. So just a little note that don't do that number for it, go to markets. So go to markets, sell your brand at and product at markets. And I'm not talking just, you know, every market that's possible like your side, school market or anything like that. Go to boutique markets where your target market shops and probably where you buy your shop to your retail buyers. To when I was a buyer retail store, I would always go to the markets and I would find, you know, what things that were new, new startups, um, be their first stockers really had that chance to sort of have things that were different in my store that anyone else had. So there's so many in Australia that are amazing. Um, I'm not sure about other places, but for here, we've got the finders keepers markets, which can be, you know, such a huge reach, such a huge audience that you can reach big design market. Bowerbird um, if you do children's products, there's like one fine baby. There's so many different ones that really can give you the opportunity to get by a feedback. You can get retail sales, and you can also get in front of retail buyers because they often will go there to find new things and to see what else is going on in the, um, in the design world that they're in. Number five is collaborating and networking. Now these could be two different things, but I've sort of grouped them together. As I think it's important to work with other brands, share your product. You might lean on others or offer your products for photo shoots. Therefore they can, you know, then your product gets seen in their content. It also then gives you images to use for your content. You can run competitions with other brands, working with each other, to help build each other's audiences, or use it as audiences to build up your own. It also means more chance of your images being shared by others and then being seen by others. I would share all my clients while I do share all my clients, um, on my own Instagram. And that works with, you know, that I've worked with either one-on-one capacity or maybe I ha I've done it also when I have, um, when I would do the business couch, which is the free sessions, I run with life in style. So those people have come, you know, spent the time to come to those things, networking and meeting other people. Then I'm sharing their content and their image and their product out there. And I've had a number of retail buyers comment on those photos and say, love this, um, you know, and then contact them and actually stock that product in their store. So by networking, collaborating, um, getting out there, talking to other people, sharing competitions, giveaways, um, helping with content creation or using other brands products in your shoots that aren't competing, of course, um, then they will share those images too, that can really work as a way to get your product and brand in front of more eyes. You never quite know when something may resonate with a buyer. Um, they may see someone else has shared something else. Um, I may have seen, you know, your product featured in another photo shoot. You just don't quite know who's going to share it, and who's going to be seeing that as well. So, but you can't have your images shared or your, you know, your brand shared, if you haven't invested in number one, which is good imagery and photo shoots and you know, your branding as well. So that really makes a big difference and it really, um, has impacted and as a reason for people to share things too, because I love the look of it and feel of it and it resonates with them. So let's summarize, you know, the five ways to get in front of buyers. And if you're looking to wholesale and get more sockets, they are number one, invest in your imagery and marketing for your own direct to consumer website. So this gives you, you know, that obviously sales for your retail store, but also gives you eyes on your brand and gives you the potential to get in front of the retail stores that you want to have your product as well. Number two, invest in trade shows. So buyers are keen and ready to buy and looking to buy when they go to these trade shows. So investing those trade shows where your potential buyer goes is a really, um, can be really great return on investment. Number three, send out highly targeted sample packs. So view it as marketing spend and to generate those sales. So it's a really important aspect of, you know, getting your brand out there to more people to, to have those sort of touch points, where people come in contact with your brand number four, attend boutique markets and, and showcase your brand to get more eyes on you and increase that brand awareness. Again, number five is collaborate and network with others in the hope that they share your story and they share your imagery and they share your brand as well. I really hope this has helped and also know that if your product and brand has a unique selling point, you know, and your story is something different and unique, then it really is about making sure that you're, you get more eyes on your product and brand. And by doing this, then you can generate those incoming leads and sales and not have to chase them. So ideally that would be, you know, what you focus on so that the leads come to you and then you have to, um, do less of that cold calling that I mentioned at the very start. So if wholesale is something that you want to work on more, and you want to build that side of your business, then what I have available is a group program where we transform your wholesale. And that runs over a six week, four, four week session. And we have a follow-up after six weeks as well, just to really make sure that, you know, everyone is on the right page. Everyone's actually implemented all the things that we put into place. You've got that accountability as well. That is running again shortly. So it depends on when you listen to this, you can either join the program that's about to launch, or you can join the wait list, which is, um, cause we'll run it a number of times a year. And then also I have a free download on my website, which is how to wholesale. So you can sign up to that or find out more on the website as well. So that's the lot code.com that I use. And you can look on my home page there, it's got all the information you need, and I'll also link that in the show notes. So if you want wholesale to be a strong part of our business, that's where you need to go. I hope this has helped. And I hope that you have enjoyed the show.
Speaker 1I'll speak to you again, sir. Thank you so much for listening to the LACOE business podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes as they are released. And that'd be so, so grateful for a review on apple podcast. If you would like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump onto my website@thelockcode.com. Do they, you forward slash podcast have an amazing week. And I look forward to chatting to you again soon.