Private Label Marketing

     One blog post on private label marketing is not going to teach you about the intricacies of getting your name out there. It will however give you some great ideas that will show you how to think outside the box and the type of creativity is required.
     I advertised in the traditional ways in the beginning just like every conventional business. I tried newspapers, magazines, videos, and mailers. Out of these four, my greatest success was in the newspapers. Mailers go straight in the garbage in 90% of all households. The remaining 10% are customers you don't want to attract. They stick to budgets. They take your ad and use it by buying exactly what is advertised. They never buy an additional item like you are hoping for. This is their mission. How do I know? I know this because I tried it for about two years. It's a hard fact to swallow especially after you have sunk all that money into it. Fliers are mass mailings or any type of advertising that you send directly to your customers via the mail.  I found that constantly putting my ads in newspapers was the most effective out of the bunch but was expensive and fell short of my goals.

Kristen Bell in a Chewbacca
T-shirt. Imagine a team
wearing your logo

     Think about bringing in new customers from different age groups. If you sell specialty chocolate, think about selling in a new market. Can you make your chocolates for the local Kiwanis group? What about for the local high school prom and put them on every table? Do not look at this as a step backwards, think of is as a very cheap test market that you can experiment with. Why would you want to try the high school? New age group, they consume more chocolate than any group, easy entry into the prom, and word of mouth travels through schools like wildfire. If you are successful locally, you can market to every high school within 200 miles. If you could land just 10 percent of those schools, you will have made enough additional profits to at least put one kid through college!  How do I know? I know because my private label name was doing great until I designed a popular t-shirt that the girls in the local high school loved.  They would come in and buy them in different colors.  They wore them all over that high school.  This brought them into my business and they would spend great money.  High school kids, unlike adults have no budget.  They spend your money. They could care less what an item costs.  This is a hard fact of life but it's the straight up truth.  I sold my t-shirts for $25 dollars and couldn't keep them on the shelves.  Eventually I had exhausted all of my colors and the frenzy died down but it was beautiful to see.  My places became a hangout for quite awhile amongst the youth and this generated more sales and I was able to move more private label products because of it.  Never under estimate the power of youth spending and word of mouth.
     If you are up against a ceiling in sales, think outside the box for ideas.  Do not disregard ideas because you have tried them or because you think they sound stupid.  How many people know how to do the Electric Slide or the Harlem Shake?  Millions upon millions and that is one of the most ridiculous things a person could know.  Think about the last wedding you attended.  As soon as the music for either one of these dances comes on, people run to do this dance.  Old, young, big, little, even the timid will get up and dance to these tunes.  That's the power of popularity.
I used chocolate in this blog as a metaphor, think of "your product" every time you see the word chocolate.  Have a great day! If you would like to comment, please click below.
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