Creating a Winning Marketing Plan for Your Baby Casting & Keepsake Business

How to Develop a Marketing Plan for your Baby Casting & Keepsake Business 

After the excitement and inspiration of attending your Life Casting Training Course or Keepsake Jewellery Course, to learn how to cast babies hands and feet or to make Fingerprint Jewellery and Handprint Jewellery, the number one priority should be to work on developing your Business Plan, Brand Strategy and Marketing Plan for your Keepsake Business.  I teach all aspects of this, in full detail on my Business Planning and Brand Strategy Courses.  However, if you've not yet signed up for that, here's a quick summary of some of the things that you will need to consider:

• Analyze your Target Market - establish who your target market is and how you plan to reach it.  What are their needs and desires in relation to your products? How can you meet these needs?
• Conduct Market Research - analyse Competitors, Customers, Demographics etc.
• Determine your Products and Services -  what are your strengths and weaknesses? what are your unique selling points?  How do you differentiate yourself? How can you capitalise upon your stengths?
• Draft a 12 month Marketing Plan – consisting of both on and offline marketing activities to promote your business for the year ahead, incorporating a seasonal action plan.
• Create your Branding Strategy - this will involve developing your Brand Idenity and implementation strategy, including; Logo Design, Website, Marketing Materials, Signage, Shop, Van, Clothing, Stationery and Packaging etc.
• Develop your Marketing Mix - implement the 4 x p's of Marketing, i.e Product, Price, Place, Promotion.
• Business Networking – complie a list of Business Networking Groups, Craft Fairs, Maternity Wards, Baby Charities, Ante-natal & Post Natal Groups, Mum and Toddler Groups etc, depending upon your target market.
• Recipricol Marketing – forge reciprocal marketing links with other local businesses, who do not compete with you, but who share the same target market and who you could jointly work with to promote each others busineses. i..e if you are selling Pet Keepsakes, get in touch with local  Dog Groomers, Vets, Dog Walkers, Pet Crematoriums etc. If you are selling Baby Keepsake Products, seek to establish relationships with, Baby Clothes Boutiques, Baby Equipment Suppliers, Nurseries, Day Care's, Baby Yoga, Baby Sensory, Music with Mummy type local businesses.
• Build your Email List - remember to capture data as this is essential for growing your business and generating sales.
• Stick to your Marketing Plan - consistency is key. Ensure you have pre-planned marketing activites, events, advertising, promotions and offers constantly targeted towards your ideal customers.
• Regularly Measure Results -keep control of your budgets and remember to check the success of your marketing campaigns. Constantly review, refine and improve.

If you have never run a business before, or not been involved in marketing, much of this may seem overwhelming to you, but don't worry!  I teach all of this in my Business Planning and Brand Strategy Masterclasses.  Access these now and you'll be a Business Strategist and Marketing Pro in no time! :-) 

Seasonal Event Marketing

One of the common mistakes that I see many Keepsake Busines Owners making, is that they don't pre-plan their marketing activities.  They have no marketing plan and are operating reactively rather than proactively.  If you want to maximise your sales and earning potential, you need to plan ahead.  In most business sectors, but particularly the Baby Keepsake Sector, you will notice that there are certain sales periods which have a peak and trough, which if not carefuly managed, can result in creating a famine or feast in your business at particular times of the year.

To avoid this, it's important that you maximize sales opportunities leading up to seasonal events, where you are likely to achieve a peak in sales, whilst devising innovative marketing and promotional plans to boost sales during the quieter months.  In particular, make sure that you plan ahead, in plenty of time for the seasons outlined below, taking into account, your production lead times.  For example, with Baby Casting and Clay Impresions, you may have a 4-5 week lead time between taking the casting and delivering the finished product to your customer.  For Fingerprint Jewellery and Artwork Jewellery, for example, your lead time may be two weeks.  Therefore, there is little point beginning your marketing activites for Mothers Day or Christmas, two weeks beforehand, as this would not provide you with sufficient time to generate awareness, interest and sales, let alone give you the required amount of time to complete production.  Marketing for each promotional period should therefore, begin several months in advance.  So, be sure to include a seasonal marketing plan into your overall 12 month Business and Marketing plan.

Here are some of the main seasons and events that you will need to plan for and promote:

• Mother’s Day
• Father’s Day
• Valentines
• Birthdays
• Christmas
• Christenings
• Weddings
• Baby Showers
• Halloween
• Easter
• Summer
• Autumn
• Winter 

Seasonal  Marketing Tip: Build a bank of seasonal promotional content on a secret board on Pinterest, which you can make public leading upto a specific season or sales period.  If you are unsure how to use Pinterest to grow your audience and drive traffic to your business, come over and join the Victress Entrepreneurs Waitlist, where I'll be regularly launching new business and marketing courses.
 

Target Group Marketing

One of the fastest ways to create awareness about your new business, is to target places that your target market hangs out in 'groups', both on and offline.  To get started, write down a list of all of the people who you believe will be interested in your products and services.  Then decide the best way to ‘reach’ or communicate with them. First of all, think about who your idea customer is and then think about where they gather in groups. So, for instance, if your target market are mums of new babies or young children, you may want to connect with, the following Groups:

• Mother and Toddler Groups
• Nurseries
• Schools
• Church Groups
• Scouts, Brownies etc
• PTA's
• Local Fetes and Craft Fairs  

* Other ideas may be to leave leaflets in Doctors, Dentists, Libraries, Hairdressers, Children's Centres, Community Centres or Maternity Wards.

If your target market are dog owners, you mway want to target:

• Dog Sport Groups (Canicross)
• Dog Walking Groups (lots set up on facebook)
• Dog Breed Fan pages

Publicity and PR

Often the best kind of publicity is free publicity, so when launching your business, or when you have any interesting developments which would be news worthy, you should definitely issue a Press Releases to try to get some free publicity in local or national newspapers and magazines.

When issuing press releases, follow these simple guidelines:

• Make it easy work for the journalist.
• Create a headline that is eye-catching and identifies the story.
• Write something topical and interesting.
• Include your contact details.
• Make sure the article is punchy and ends with “END OF RELEASE”.
• Word count the finished article  and include the figure on the document.
   

Sales Tips

• Highlight your benefits and USP’s - what makes you better or different?
• Understand your customers buying motivations – connect with your Customer at an emotional level, understand their needs, wants and desires and what motivates them to buy. Help them feel an emotional connection to what you are offering through your branding and marketing.
• Ask your customers plenty of questions - so that you can better understand their motivations or objections
• Prepare packages and upsells – how can you encourage your customers to buy more? What could you package together to create a new, different or premium experience?
• Welcome objections - it means that the person is potentially interested.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for the salel - i.e  “shall I gift wrap this for you?” “Shall I make a booking for you?”
• Be Authentic - people by from people, so always be yourself and put yourself and your values at the centre of your brand.  

If you are new to starting a Baby Casting Business, Pet Keepsake Business or  Keepake Jewellery Business and you need a little extra help in starting, launching and growing your Business,  I have over 20 years Business and Marketing experience in the Life Casting and Keepsake Business Sector, which I'd love to share with you.

Apart from offering a market leading series of Life Casting Courses and Keepsake Jewellery Courses, I also offer a growing collection of Business and Marketing e-courses, designed to help you Start, Launch and Grow your Keepsake Business, which go into far greater detail than I am able to here, covering all aspects of Business Planning and Branding & Marketing.  I also offer a range of "done for you' marketing services", if you need any help in developing your Brand Strategy, Logo and Website.

I hope that this information is of value to you, but if you have any further questions, please message me and I'll be happy to help!

If you are right at the begining of your journey of considering starting a Baby Life Casting Business or Keepsake Jewellery Business, check out the additional links and resources below!