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Six Tips to Take Your Vlog from Blah to Va-Va-Voom
Guest Post by Wendy Stetson from Babies Gotta Have It, where she blogs and vlogs about must have products for babies. Wendy’s blog is one of the most unique baby product blogs out there, and her video blogs make her site to stand out. See the difference yourself. Would you rather read the text or watch the video?
I haven’t been vlogging for long. Just a couple of months, in fact. I have, however, been standing up in front of people and saying things for small amounts of money for more years than I’d like to say, and on occasion I have been filmed not saying things for larger amounts of money. So I have given some thought to the way in which a person presents herself to the world. What I mean to say is I may be a newbie to vlogging but I’ve got some game.
So here is what I’ve learned about vlogging in the last four months.
1. Shorter is Better. There’s just no way around this. Edit yourself when you speak as rigorously as you would when you write. I struggle with this one on every post because I’m so convinced that what I have to say about bottle cleaners is vital to the nation. But nine times out of ten, I choose the shortest take to publish. Time is money, and in the age of the 60 second sound bite no one wants to listen to you drone on for thirteen minutes about potty training. Which leads me to…
2. Content Matters. You may be terribly charming. You may be drop dead gorgeous. Your friends may even think you are funny. But when you put yourself out there in the world and ask people to listen to you speak, you better have something to say. At least until you’re a celebrity. Then you can talk for hours about very inane things and people will nod their heads earnestly and call you brilliant and insightful.
3. Wear Makeup. Unless you are Rosie O’Donnell or Grace Kelly you need to slap on some lipstick and concealer before you break out the video camera. It takes a lot of product to make it look like you just stepped out of the shower looking like yourself.
4. Pay Attention to Lighting. And setting. And sound. We can’t all have professional lighting and camera equipment. And perhaps that’s part of what we love about vloggers. They look like they just pulled out the camera, held it in front of their faces, and started to rant and roll. But if you the viewer can’t see you, or hear you, or focus on what you are saying because of the cat throwing up a hairball on the sofa behind you, then the viewer will go elsewhere. And there are so many places to go in this big bad internet we’re creating, that you can’t risk giving your viewers one more excuse to leave.
5. I Talk Out of the Side of My Mouth and Squint My Left Eye Weirdly. Especially when I’m not totally relaxed. There is nothing like seeing yourself on camera to make you feel so self-conscious, so inarticulate, and so riddled with bizarre tics that you feel you must commit yourself to some kind of center. Take a breath. Remove hands from in front of face. And look with a generous heart. So you talk out of the side of your mouth? Is it so odd that it makes it difficult for the viewer to concentrate on what you’re saying? Yes? Then work to relax and let it go. Is it just charming and unique and part of what makes you you? Then embrace it. We can’t all be Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s ok. That would be an awfully blonde and boring world.
6. Be Yourself. This is the hardest one. Speak with your voice. Not to get all oogley-boogley and Oprah on you, but say your truth. You know when you watch a TV show or a movie and you think, “dude that guy is such a bad actor. I could do better than that any day of the week, and I haven’t acted since the third grade!” At that moment, your inner truth-meter has gone off. We all have them. It’s why we all are critics of TV and movies but maybe not art or music. We know human truth when we see it. And we know it on the web as well. Vloggers: be yourself. As fully and truthfully as you can. And stop trying so hard.
So there you have it. Six basic tips that will make you more watchable, your vlog posts more compelling, and hopefully increase the number of viewers who “just watch it”. As a vlogging newbie I cannot say that I execute all six of these commandments with any kind of consistency or aplomb. I’d like to work to make all my posts three minutes or less. Okay two minutes or less. I’d like to talk out of my entire mouth and open my left eye on occasion. And I could sure as heck use a lot more concealer and much better lighting. But when all else fails, vlog with an impossibly cute baby on your lap, wiggling her toes and saying “baa.” That’s one way to ensure that no one will be looking at you!
Exposure for designers!
A great marketing opportunity for our LadyBosses and LadyDesigners!
SheFinds is looking for designers and offering you an amazing opportunity to get your design work noticed and your name known. This fall SheFinds will run a promotion to raise money for Count Me In and help small designers get the word out about their designs.
Count Me In is the leading national not-for-profit provider of business resources and education for women entrepreneurs. Their mission is to promote economic independence and the growth of women-owned businesses.
SheFinds is going to feature original accessories created by independent designers this September that incorporate either the motto “Believe In You”, the Count Me In or Make Mine a Million $ Business® logos, and/or the colors into the design. The designer will need to pledge to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of each piece to Count Me In. You will have to design a product specifically for this purpose. Read details and requirement at SheFinds.com.
Hurry, the deadline to participate is August 1st, but they need to know as soon as possible if you are planning to participate. Please contact them by July 1st!!
Here is one great example of a participating product, a necklace from Payson & Co.
Looking for Mom Experts
I was invited by Jessica Smith, one of our members, to try out a new social shopping site Wishpot.com and I’m already hooked. It is so easy to share my finds and make my own wish lists. I think it is an excellent tool for bloggers who review products, you can also make a list of upcoming products you would like to feature and just keep the list visible to yourself. And of course you can share all your finds in public lists. You are welcomed to add your link to your site, so this is another great way to get traffic to your blog!
Jessica just recently had some Ladybug Luck and she was hired by Wishpot to be Wishpot.com’s Chief Mom Officer for their soon-to-be launched Baby Registry. Congrats Jessica on your new job! She is currently looking for Mom Experts for Wishpot.com and would like to see as many members of Ladybug Landings there as possible. What does this mean for you? Lots of exposure for you and your blog to expectant moms and their friends all over the world for starters, plus the opportunity to guest blog for Wishpot’s Baby Blog and showcase your mom expertise!
Read our next newsletter for details - you don’t want to miss this opportunity!
Case Study - Carol’s Cuties
Is the more retailers you have the better? Not necessary as our case study shows. Read first more about the four Ps in marketing mix, and especially how “Place” should be one of important pieces of your marketing strategy. Told by a girl to a girl, and trying to avoid all the difficult words so even small biz owners with no business education can follow.
CASE STUDY CAROL’S CUTIES - MORE RETAILERS ISN’T ALWAYS THE SOLUTION
I have a great example of a designer who makes handmade products and has almost 200 retailers but her company is not using the retailers as a marketing tool as effectively as they could. In fact the designer told me, that she feels she is competing with her retailers and wishes she could get all the sales from her own onlinestore. Let’s call her company “Carol’s Cuties”, but so you will know - this is not the real name of the company, nor her name is Carol. Carol’s Cuties is a 6 year old company. And with almost 200 retailers Carol’s Cuties is still struggling, and sounds like having 200 retailers might actually be worse than having 50 good ones.
What did Carol do right?
Carol got her products to almost 200 stores, that’s amazing isn’t it?! She wanted to raise the awareness of Carol’s Cuties so she did exactly what I would suggest her to do - got her products in many stores, even if it meant lowering the price or doing drop-shipping for online stores. The retailers were her marketing force, they told their customers of her handmade product. Carol’s Cuties reached their target market very effectively, and probably in a very short period of time. You might even call it a marketing miracle, but just don’t do it yet.
What did Carol do wrong?
She didn’t choose retailers who share the message she is trying to voice out with her product. The product is sold in variety of stores, having totally mixed and opposite messages. So even though she got her product known and out there - this by selling for anyone who would buy- didn’t actually work as a brand builder. And her price was too low, now she is selling too many products on too low wholesale price and her business is struggling.
HANDLING 200 STORES
Carol’s Cuties is a handmade product Carol still makes herself. Yes, it is possible even with 200 retailers. Because over half of those retailers are online retailers and Carol just drop-ships for many of them. Some of the retailers sell only 5-10 Carol’s Cuties a year, so she can still handle tens of drop-shipping accounts herself. And can you believe this, but Carol is one superwoman, she also handles all of her retailers herself. Selling, staying in contact etc. with her close to 200 retailers! As amazing as it sounds, but also sounds like she is wasting a lot of time. While “brand building” is important and I’d keep the high profile stores that goes with my product’s brand, even with 10 product sales a year, sounds like she was collecting retailers just for the sake of it. And she should just drop some of them and focus on getting sales from the good ones.
MESSAGE 200 STORES SENDS OUT
You know when you graduate from school and you don’t have a lot of experience, you add things in your resume to make it look better; like you were the team captain in a sports team or won spelling bee several times. But someday you will have some real work experience, and you won’t show these in your resume anymore.
(And to be honest, doesn’t it become a bit embarrassing at some point to keep showing your hobbies from high school in your resume? Especially if now you are 200 pound “ballet dancer”. Just saying.)
Well, Carol has that amazing resume now - when I talk about resume, I call her retailer list a resume- but she is still showing the “spelling bee wins”, “swim team accomplishments” and everything else from Kindergarten, and unfortunately some of the real accomplishments, in this case the high quality stores, which carry her products, don’t shine through and be the effective marketing tool as she hopes they would be. People are not “wow, her products are even in Laura’s Luxury Store” because the list of stores just is that: a long list of stores, sending a message “Carla’s Cuties are available everywhere”.
Which message of course isn’t bad - if the truth was that the products are also sold in quantities in all these places and Carol’s Cuties actually were everywhere. But when some of these stores sell only 10 Carol’s Cuties a year - there is no way Carols products are “everywhere” with those sale numbers. Now it just looks “nice product, sold everywhere, but why haven’t I seen it before”. Don’t have your products “sold everywhere” if they actually don’t sell everywhere. Especially if the stores are not sending the messages you want your product to send.
Like I said, Carol’s product is a handmade product she makes herself. The “available everywhere” message doesn’t really go well with the “handmade with love” message. You start thinking, how does she have time to make products for 200 stores and still say they are all handmade by her. A mixed message again.
RETAILERS AS CAROL’S COMPETITORS? NO!!!!! THEY ARE YOUR TEAM MEMBERS!
Carol feels that the retailers are not making her enough money and she is just making, packing and shipping her products from her home all the time, and still not making enough money to pay herself a good salary. Her company actually has some cash flow problems. She feels that her own retailers are her competitors and she is trying to get the sales from her own website carolscuties.com instead of customers buying them from her retailers.
There are so many things wrong here that I don’t even know where to start.
First of all, retailers are never your competitors, they are your team members, they are helping you to get your product sold. Look again that little circle I did about Your Marketing Mix - the “Place”, your retailer is INSIDE your marketing mix circle. It is not an external thing totally out of your control, your retailers are part of your team, part of the sales force you have created, they are in your circle. They are not your competitors and liability, they are your asset.
If you feel your retailers are a liability or your competitors, you should make changes as soon as possible.
The retailers think they are doing you a favor by selling and promoting your product, and I can assure you that they would rather put their money on a product from a company who actually wants them to succeed and sell their products - this is the way they get profit too.
Retailers want to sell your product.
If you don’t want them to sell your product, drop them as your retailer.
No wonder the retailers are not making enough sales for Carol, if Carol doesn’t even want them to make many sales.
Over all seems like this is a big mess Carol should fix as soon as possible.
HOW TO FIX IT?
Most important thing right now would be branding Carol’s Cutie - to get the “message” down. What is “Carol’s Cuties”, what is the image, who buys it, why they buy it, and everything involved with branding the Carol’s Cutie. And after that everything Carol does has to be in the same line as the brand. Also “where the customer buys it”.
If Carol wants her product “available everywhere”, she should start thinking of a distribution center, and how she can handle the “available everywhere”. Obviously she has now reached her limit making the product from home, so she should also start thinking of how to start making the product in bigger quantities, maybe even how to lower her manufacturing costs. Maybe she can hire a friend to make them with her to start with, or have a part of the product pre-manufactured. If the message is “available everywhere” Carol should work with her retailers to get more sales from all of them to achieve this goal to really get her product not just available everywhere, but sold everywhere. Big problem here might be the cost.
If Carol wants to keep her product “special and handmade to order” she should drop half of her retailers immediately, especially all of the stores who don’t have any other products “special and handmade to order” - all those stores which do not go together with the brand Carol is trying to build for Carol’s Cuties. After all, half of the retailers are not really making money to her anyway and other half Carol feels are her competitors.
Also, if you are not making enough money with your wholesale price, your price is wrong. It is understandable Carol feels her retailers are her competitors - because she is selling her product way too cheap for them. You should always be happy with your wholesale price, and to be able to celebrate each wholesale contract. If you have your own website, the sales from there are just cream on the top, because you are making so much more than with the price you are happy to sell your product = wholesale price.
If you sell your product directly to the customers, your retail price should always be the same as the retail price at your retailers. If you offer your product cheaper on your own website than what your retailers are selling it in their stores for - then you are competing against your retailers. And why would they want to sell your product, if they are competing against you? They have enough competitors that they don’t want one of their own vendors to be one!
ONE POSSIBLE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
1. Re-think Carol’s Cuties Brand.
2. Higher the price of a Carol’s Cutie. And be comfortable with your new wholesale price.
3. Price might already drop some retailers, and drop most of or all of the retailers who do not go with the Carol’s Cuties brand.
4. Offer drop-shipping only for the stores with high visibility or which you feel are the stores you would proudly like to have in your “my retailers” list. If a store has been successful with your drop-shipping program and continuously brings you sales, you might even ask if they would be willing to start stocking your product. This would save you some time from packing and shipping.
5. Start working together more and better with your retailers. Keep them updated and excited about your product. Do joint-marketing efforts with them and help them to sell your product. When your retailers are excited about your product, they will want to sell more of them.
YOUR INPUT
Please leave your comments. What do you think Carol should do?
Retailers are part of your marketing
If you are an entrepreneur and still haven’t heard of Marketing Mixand four Ps of marketing, hurry up and do some reading.
Basicly the four Ps, Product, Price, Place and Promotion together make your target where your would like your product to be. Promotion includes what most people wrongly think is “marketing” - the advertising, PR and what ever the sales person tells you. But like the fancy graph above (marketing for girls, should also look like girls, right?) shows, Promotion is only one part of the Big Marketing Mix.
I’ve had several interesting discussions with the women in our network this week, and seems like many people struggle with one part of the marketing mix - the Place.
PLACE
-Distribution, market coverage, channel members, inventory management, warehousing, distribution centers, order processing, transportation, reverse logistics
Ok, I understand that now you might feel that your company is so small, you might never have a “distribution center” and your “transportation” is you going to the post office and mailing your products, and “market coverage” is only a word you can dream of, and this post is not worth reading.
No, this post is specifically for you - the small business owner, the mom making her products from home, and even for the designer who already has many retailers but doesn’t understand why it isn’t working out the way she thought it would.
According to a PR professional in our network many designers and manufacturers feel that their biggest problem is how to get their products in the right stores - and seek help how to market their products to retailers. I recently had a discussion with a designer whose products are in almost 200 retail stores, but she feels she is competing with her own retailers. I recently said in a PodCast interview that I as a retailer I’m lucky that sometimes I don’t even have to do my work as hunting down the best products - they find me.
So I thought - I need to write down a little bit of why your retailers are important part of your marketing strategy, and how to choose the right retailers. And most importantly, how to make this P of the four Ps in the marketing mix to work for you. This is just very basic marketing talk, from a girl to a girl, but I realized this week, that some of these concepts are not as commonly known (or at least in use!) in our network that I thought of and there is a need for some girl-to-girl-marketing-talk. The most important part of this is “Carol’s Cuties Case Study” in a separate post.
CHOOSING A RETAILER
I know, you might be tempted to say that I’m happy if just anyone buys my products, but think again. YOU choose your retailers, and your retailer always has to represent also your company and your product.Obviously, the same product is not sold at Wal-mart and Dillards. The retailer gives customers an idea what to expect (cheap price, high quality, great customer service…) even before she steps in.
CHOOSE A MESSAGE YOUR PRODUCT SAYS - AND RETAILER WITH THE SAME MESSAGE
If your product says “unique and high quality”, your retailer shouldn’t say “we have the lowest price”. Your retailer should also say “unique and high quality”. Your retailer shouldn’t say “we ship the same day” if your product is made to order and takes a week to finish. The message your retailer is giving out, always has to go together with your message. The customer looking for a “unique and high quality” is not going to look for it from “we have the lowest price” store - she will never even go in, and if your “unique and high quality” product is in there, you are not reaching your potential customers. (I know, should be evident, right?)
Can your product have several messages? Yes, they can, but obviously your messages can not be “cheap” and “luxury” - your product can not have two opposite messages. But your product can be “gift item” and “everyday item” or “low price” and “practical” - and you can choose different retailers to voice out the different messages your product voices out. But also when two of your retailers voice out two opposite messages - your product is in a wrong place in one of them.
I’m thinking here as a customer - if I go to a “store I like” and see a product, and then I go to a ”store I can’t stand” and see the same product - I’m not going back to the “store I like” to buy it. I don’t buy it at all. Because I will think, “well, I really liked that product, but it was sold at “store I don’t like” and all the people who shop there buy it too; I think I’ll keep looking for something else”. End of story.
Just think about it, it’s not always the product you’re buying, it’s also the buying experience in a certain store. Yes, sometimes you tolerate a bad experience for a low price, or a product nowhere else available, but as a manufacturer you shouldn’t think your retailers as the last straw the customer has - you should give your customer the opportunity for the buying experience she expects with a product like yours.
RETAILER HAS TO HAVE A MESSAGE TOO
This same mixed message idea goes for retailers too by the way. I know a children’s boutique, where they sell expensive luxury clothing AND have a room full of used clothing and strollers. Even though I say too, buy higher quality, so it lasts longer, and you can recycle it afterwards - I wouldn’t sell used clothing in my store. The customer who will pay 60$ for a children’s t-shirt wants to feel she is buying her product from a “high quality boutique” - not from the “store where they also sell used clothes”. Same for the customer who buys the used clothing - seeing a 60$ t-shirt intimidates her to even step in, and she might think “their used clothes are probably too high for me too”. While there are customers who buy both, 60$ t-shirts and used clothing (yes, I’m one of those), the store is still sending out a wrong message; or better yet, a mixed message or no message at all. Believe me, the “general store” idea “little bit of something for everyone” doesn’t work often.
SELLING TO RETAILERS
DON’T GIVE UP
That’s my most important message. Keep pitching and selling and until you get a very specific “no thanks” and “don’t contact us anymore”, don’t give up. I get a lot of e-mails, brochures and other sales material of different products. Actually so much I don’t always have time to answer back to the manufacturers (I promise, I’ll try to do better). Many times it’s not the product why I am not buying it for my store, it might be that my inventory is already too big, I have already made my orders for the season, or I love the product but it doesn’t go with the message I’m trying to voice out. And as an online retailer, often it is that the product pictures are bad.
I got a brochure of really nice products and thought I’d love to offer them for my customers, but I already topped my budget, and didn’t contact the designer. She contacted me and offered to do drop-shipping - me just placing the products on my store and as I sell them, the designer will ship them straight for the customer. If the designer hadn’t contacted me and followed up, her products wouldn’t be sold at my store right now.
Always follow up. They might be just busy, and haven’t gotten into making an order - and need your help. Or you’ll find out a reason why they are not ordering. Then you’ll know if the timing was just bad, and maybe the retailer might want to buy from you next season, or you’ll know to take them off your list and not waste your time anymore. If you feel your product’s message is the same as the retailer’s, and see your product sold there, the retailer most likely would love to have your product in. The buyers just get so many sales pitches, that sometimes the good ones can be un-noticed or just forgotten. It is your job as a seller to follow up. (And when I do my pep talk to retailers, I’ll of course say to them it’s their job to follow up).
Now, I will follow up with this blog post, and gather from several retailers, how they would like to be contacted and do another blog post just focusing on that.
RETAILERS BUILDING YOUR BRAND
The “message” your product sends is part of the brand you are trying to create for your product.
BRAND A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. (from Wikipedia)
If you choose a retailer that doesn’t voice out your message, doesn’t go together with your brand, having that retailer might do your brand more harm than good. Do not sell your products “just to anyone who will buy” - of they will be the only retailer ever buying. The good retailers do not want “bad retailers” selling the same product as they do. This is why I’ve had some amazing moments with my store, that “I got the priviledge to buy” some brand and also a big dissappointment when a huge retailer wanted to buy one of my vendors products but said that they wouldn’t buy, if it was sold in small stores, like mine. I also had one really nice product in my store, saw a couple other stores, where they were sold, and didn’t want to offer that product in my store anymore.
But when you find a good retailer, a perfect match for your product, sometimes it is good to have that store as your retailer even if money wise it wouldn’t make sense (they don’t want to order for the limit you have set as your minimum wholesale order, or they bargain the price lower etc). And online - you might want to use drop-shipping as your method of getting your product in stores. This offers the stores an opportunity to try out your product without a risk. I will write more about drop-shipping in a separate blog post.
Having “the right” retailer can also help you to get other retailers to buy your product. Remember, they don’t know that you made a special arrangement with that first good retailer, they just see they are sold in the good retailer. It is so important to list all your retailers in your marketing material. If your retailers are truly building your brand, the list of them is almost like part of your product’s resume. Or like a girl scout badge - something to be proud of - you should be proud your product is sold in these stores. If you feel that you are not that proud of some of the stores - they shouldn’t be your retailer. The right retailers will make your brand stronger and send the right image - to your customers and other retailers.
Ladybug Landings to you too
In many cultures Ladybugs are believed to bring you luck, money or even your future spouse!
What is Ladybug Landings? And for whom?
- Ladybug Landings is a PR service for small business owners, helping them to connect with online media and online retailers, as well as teaching them how to use social media as a marketing tool. Even small companies with shoestring budgets can enjoy big successes by using the tools new media offers, working hard, and with a little touch of ladybug luck.
- Ladybug Landings is a PR service for bloggers to find more ways to monetize their blogs and get more traffic.
- Ladybug Landings will bring together manufacturers, retailers, bloggers, website owners and PR professionals.
What will we offer?
- Networking. Tell us what you need and we will try to find a person to help you.
- Tips & advice. We will offer tips from marketing your product to how to make money blogging, and we ain’t inventing the wheel again - we are collecting a resource list for you of the already written articles.
- Results. What ever your short or long term goal is, we will help you to achieve it and support you.
This can’t be free, can it?
- Yes. At the moment the service is free for everyone. At some point we will start collecting a small membership fee and get more organized. But membership will always be free for people who pitch in by promoting us or our members, or writing us blog posts, supporting our bloggers etc etc. You help us - we help you.
- Ladybug Landings is made possible by product sales of our ladybug gear and by everyone working together. We also offer advertising spots for sponsors on our site.
What is it really about?
- With one word: SYNERGY
Synergy refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents.
Basicly synergy is when 1+1=3. When you and I work together towards the same goal, we both gain more than when working alone. Yes, with the same work input.
We have a lot of amazing women in this network. We all have something to teach and something to learn. Let Ladybug Landings to be the connector between people - you help someone, and someone will help you.
What are people saying?
“Thank you for your help! I tripled my blog traffic.”
“I would have never thought of doing that little change to my website and it making such a big difference. You really know what you are talking about.”
“Thank you for all those connections you got me within a few hours - I made a contact with one of them.”
“I just wanted you to know I just started a new venture. Thanks for inspiring so I had guts to do it.”
Luck lands briefly. Are you ready?
Welcome to LadyBugLanding!
LadyBugLandings is a site dedicated to helping women get started in their online adventure!