Advice on Sales!!

Aww, thank you so much for telling me that, Amar. They were fun to make. I plan to put some out this year, but most probably without the sound.

Wow! Gratz on being featured in a fashion magazine. You all are becoming (or are, more likely) the "big names" now!!! I'm proud of all of you.

Hi, Pulse and welcome to the thread. If you haven't already heard, xstreet is imminently changing their pricing policies to list with them.

I currently have a tiny shop and most of my sales were from Xstreet, so I'm not a happy camper at the moment. If you haven't seen this, you might want to check out this thread:

/327/ad/351187/1.html

Well I don't know about that! But it sure is fun and it feels a little like- "Wow, Really?" Needless to say am most excited.

The forum does not allow for tables- so please note- the Y next to a group name means they allow notices.

Quick Update, though I need to double check some spellings...

GROUP NAME NOTICE ALLOWED
* A&P Midnight Mania * LC * Y
*CS Midnight Manacs!*
Harper's Midnight Mania Shoppers
Help for Midnight Mania
J&M Midnight Mania Group
Midnight Mania Prowler Y
Midnight MadHatters
Midnight Mana Addict
Midnight Mana Lovers
Midnight Mania Board Slap!
Midnight Mania Fashionista's
Midnight Mania Hunters
Midnight Mania No Limit Y
Midnight Mania Reunited Y
Midnight Mania Seekers
MIDNITE MANIAKZ ;p
Midnight Mania Y

OTHER ADVERT GROUPS
“Babyish..!
Beauty in Free
FabLuck
Fashion Consolidated
Fashion Trend
Sexy Shoppers
Top Designers of Second Life
Clasificados en SL (The adverts I have seen include English ones)
Models & Fashionistas Y-DuCk


This list is by no means complete but it does give one a little idea of some of the tools available to us to spread awareness of our brand. I find it is very important to keep detailed notes as to group rules to prevent the sent too many notices warnings or oops I forgot LM type errors.

If you speak another language, use that to your advantage also and see if there are groups you might advertise in that may not see the English language ones. I advertise on a few Spanish groups also.

.:Fashion Express:.
Fashion-R-Us (I get great results with this one, by the way)
Quality Couture
~CHEAP PEEPS~

I am considering Fashion R Us - need to know if they wil let my advert alt sign up in lieu of me- i have no room!

Hey guys, TF got blogged

http://csltm.wordpress.com/

Woot!!! Great blogging for your, Amar! I think I recall you mentioning you were considering doing a male line of lashes, and now here they are in a fashion blog!

Thank you for listing other groups. From all the MM groups, one could make a "career" on SL just hoping from one to another...lol. The group "Babyish" is an interesting name; I'll be interested to see what items it covers next time I get in world.

I dont recall exactly- went to look now but it's on an alt so couldnt read the group info-
And thank you

That's awesome Amar, it looks like you have done something great...come up with a new and awesome idea! You will know for sure when you see others start to make them too, market them well and fast before that happens!

Thanks Ralektra Yeah I am being pretty aggressive in hitting the target Groups with them and I bought Ad space on Pixelook - am working on some others but it is remarkably harder to do these than the women's version. The balance of style and masculinity has to be preserved. But I have a few ideas. I am sure the line won't be as huge as was possible for the ladies... but we shall see

I have like .. 3 different projects I am working on now and the holidays.. running about as fast as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!

Hmm- any one know of any male hunts going on?

Well i thought i would give an updte on the us of the MM groups ama posted.

thoguht i cant give 100% accurate data on how useful they were for me in terms of sales because i ran anothe give away co currently, theybrought up overall traffic of the parcel up 200% for the week. I have slowed off advertising it now as i figure most peopelwithin the group will know about it or have gotten it already.

The lower target seems to work VERY well. My baord was locking down within a few hours for the first few days. This had the added bonus of limiting the number of items i gave away, as well as resulting in some people comign back over several days to get the prize.

The other thing i ran over the past week was a picks reward gift. The vendor gives the item in it to any one who has my store within their picks. I sent out this item to all the freebie blogs i know of, and i know it was shown in at least three of those blogs.

This has been a HUGEEEEE success for me. With 100 people now showing in search with my store in their picks (this number was around 15 to 20 i think before hand) as well as the likely vast number of peopel who wont show up in search all search cos they have no payment info on file etc. I agve out more than 300 copies of the item (the history of the vendor stops there. So that is 300 copies of my item floating around SL as well.

My sales also picked up significantly over the past week, though this could also be attributed to Christmas and the new releases i did.However i had a nice surge in numbers to my update group, growing to mroe than 1500 now.

Hi

Could someone explain how this MM works? I keep seeing references to it, but would have no idea where to start!

Thank you heaps

Link to the Midnight Mania board on XStreet:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1373324

There also is a copyable version, if you want to run more then one board.
How it works is explained in the product description. Works like a charm for traffic, it didn't do much for my sales. YMMV.

Hiya Eclectic,

Could you let me know which vendor you use for that, and what blogs publish these kind of things? Sounds like something I could use as well!

I woould also love to know how to get the word out as I have one in my store and it has had limited success. Marcel, I picked mine up on xstreet-i will look up the name also-

Thank you for that

I hit your MM board today! I popped by your store! I even grabbed a landmark as I will be back You have some really nice things!

Thank you Milly! How kind of you to say Please drop in any time.

There are bunches of gifts under the tree - I hope you availed yourself to them, if not do go back.

The vendor was on Xstreet, was only around $100 from memory.. just search pick rewards

I sent it to the fashion freebie blogs, though they do sometiems show furniture and other stuff so it is definately worth a try at least.

http://fabfree.wordpress.com/
http://slfreestyle.blogspot.com/
http://freebietelegraph.wordpress.com/
http://slgooddeals.blogspot.com/
http://freehazel.wordpress.com/
http://slondlist.blogspot.com/

Ill admit i have an advantagewith many of these freebie blogs now in that many of the bloggers are signed up to my update group and are either shoppers or check my notices for gifts etc so a number come over and pick up items without me even having to drop them on them.

I tend to drop an IM when i send a folder of my newest free gift (or blogger review items when i do) to open a diologue. This helps me to forge connections and make me a lasting memory and hopefully make them wanna blog me more hehe

Speaking of many things- about to embark in a collaborative project and need a vendor with profit share- any recomendations on a script out there?

tia

So checking in to report on the goings on...

December closed off with a BANG! Best month I have had ever and I am hoping 2010 is going to rock some more. Things I am doing to help that along because you cannot sit around and HOPE for business - you have to go get it!

I took out an advert in Pixelook - http://pixelook.ning.com/ that runs til February. I am will be taking one out in Best of SL - BOSL http://thebosl.com/ - big investment that I am sure will pay of, just need to work out the most beneficial timing.

These both are pretty niche for me and I do recommend them for the Fashion oriented.

I have somewhat slowed down the MM advertising as it has accomplished my primary goal- making folks aware of TF and getting them in there. I still recommend that as a great tool- I do not, however, want it to be the focus for me as I would rather sell than give away!

I am very happy to announce TF is one of the sponsors of the 2010 My Precious Queen contest. That one is a pretty big deal in SL for the fashion industry so am glad to be involved. Have had the good fortune to participate in a couple other shows and they have been very eye opening as well as downright lucrative in cases. And you cannot pay for that kind of networking and advertising- I am very grateful to the folks that moved me down that path.

Recently I was approached by these folks who did a business focus sort of interview, the article is here if you wish to read it:
http://www.news2life.com/process/news.html?id=73

Same folks but the marketing branch has a new thing I plan on taking advantage of soon as I catch my breath - http://www.slbiz2life.com/en/slpano.html

And that's all I gots for now...


What is happening with you guys? Compared to where we started, where are you today? What sort of plans have YOU got for the coming year to make your businesses flourish?

Bumping this for the benefit of another Resident who had sales questions.

~~~~

As long as I am here though- let me run this by you. I had begun a thread on SCII regarding business planning for 2010 - Let's share some of our thoughts on that shall we?

Sarah Nerd commented over there on tier pricing and possible LL changes, that was one thing I had not considered so am adding that to my list of things to budget for.

Here is what I am ticking off a budget for in my 2010 game plan though I don't have I figures as yet - still am arranging 2009 final data for comparisons and trends.

Supplies - this would cover textures (incl uploads)
Rental space-
Tier increases - due to LL or additional land purchase
Advertising- Inworld, major blogs, Classifieds
Hardware/Software -
Continuing Education- Inworld mostly, classes on techniques, etc

What else can you add to this list?

Hey a short while ago i posted hw i wanted to start a biz ect. Well i finally opened up my small store and advertised in shoping search. I have made bloody 7 sales in the last 3 days...that is insane. I guess its just luck and im just waitin for it to go bad lol. Im just in shock that i have started to make sales already so its a very nice feeling )

Anyway all the advice in here is wonderful and has really helped me.

Thanks Anni