Local Marketing Ideas To Bomb Cyclone An Upcoming Snowstorm - Make Money Still!

Winter weather makes staying in business hard during the year! But every smart and experienced business knows to expect it every January through March, with the hopeful end in April. The holiday months of November and December don’t really matter, because Americans are hell-bent on shopping, and snowflakes are part of most interior decors and theme music on repeat that plays in every store. But the cold and gray lull before Valentine’s Day? Shudder!

How do you get the people out from underneath their heavy blankets? It requires a lot of coaxing with constancy. Think of the fast food commercials you (used) to see at night while watching cable. You may be too young for this, but, way past the dinner hour, commercials for pizza and burgers would come on. No one was going to get up off the couch right then to drive to get the food, but the next time they were out, they would pull over.

Back to our problem of getting the people out - or at least to buy your product:

• Set the scene with visuals in your Instagram and TikTok.

• Send similar or different pictures in a newsletter with special SNOWDAY coupon.

• Promote ways to buy from you digitally.

Examples On How To Profit On A Snow Day

Pre-Promote Delivery - The Farmer

Problem: A farmer who usually sells in-person at markets is going to lose all sales on a snow day if she can’t show up to the market.
What To Do: 2 days before the predicted snowstorm, use the regular Instagram graphic you had designed that says: SNOW DAY! FREE DELIVERY! Also send that image in a newsletter to your people. They need to be conditioned that you

A. do free delivery,
B. are going to have a hard time showing up at market,
C. they might skip going to market that day.

Make their lives easier by telling them (again, and again, and again) that you deliver. Consider including a 5% off coupon for those who book early. You don’t need to do this every time. We know you need every penny.
Need Something? Don’t have a cute Instagram graphic like this? Hire us at Katie James Inc. to make one for you! We’d love to sink our creative juices into your brand to makes something that will compel people to get off their couches.

Pre-Promote That You Will Be Open

Problem: The snow is falling, and people see inches of snow out their front doors and sidewalks. They assume everything shut down, and they are taking the day off to binge-watch something (including Instagram and TikTok).
What To Do: 1 day before the predicted snowstorm, show your shovels and salt. Tell your people that will most likely be open - that you will most likely be open. Do this in Instagram and TikTok. Schedule a newsletter in advance that let’s people know “WE’RE OPEN!” despite the snowfall. Write it the day before, and have it ready to send the next day. If you can’t open because it’s all just too much, then don’t send it.
Need Something? Don’t have time to write such a newsletter or Instagram campaign because you’re out buying salt, and then you’ll be out shoveling in order to open? Hire us at Katie James Inc. to write it and schedule it for you.

Promote Online Sales

Problem: You shoveled out, but there aren’t a lot of people out. How are you going to reach them?
What To Do: Drop the prices for limited time only. Have a sale, where people can buy the products from their phones. Use Shopify to hook up to Instagram Ads. Or, if you need something less fancy, use your Squarespace site or your Square site to sell something at a special price. This sale pricing needs from be from a certain time frame, and only for that snow day. Create an Instagram graphic that says these time ranges and sale % off. Share this also to your newsletter
Need Something? You know what we’re going to say! Hire us at Katie James Inc. to finally make or improve that website of yours. Or, if you already prepared with a slick website, hire us to create the Instagram and newsletter combo to push your sales.

Book us in advance though! We need to plan just like you do. We usually don’t need to shovel out to do our work, however. So…We’re Open!

Farm Kits Featured In New Grocery eCommerce Section Of Homespun Foods

Product Image Design: Katie James, Inc.
Illustrations: birdiydesign

Homespun Foods has brought back their Farm Kits - a creation during the early pandemic days when they needed to survive during the shutdown. Katie James Inc. Was able to create this new Grocery section for them in their Squarespace website, with Farm Kits being the first product. We opted to create an ecommerce section called “Grocery,” where all food products can go in, and auto-populate. Homespun staff will be trained in how to create a Grocery product so that the section can build itself. Of course, Katie James, Inc. can do it for them in our Pay As You Go program if they get too busy in the kitchen.

Most likely, other retail items like Honey and Maple Syrup are next to be added to the Grocery section.

Farm Kits are offered in limited supply, in Quantities of 12 bags each week. We utilized SquareSpace’s Variant option to create a different day for which someone could order. Maintenance will require removing the day once it has passed, and adding the next week’s day. A “How It Works” section was also added to the sales page, to educate people in how it works, in order to provide them with expectations for no surprises later on.

We designed the product image to be reflective of what might be in the seasonal bag of fresh grown food, putting it on a black chalkboard. The chalkboard is a signature look inside of Homespun, as they have their menu board on a chalk board across from the register. Homespun is all about good food and working with one’s hands, so the scratchy look is on-brand for them.

Being that the Farm Kits are a joint offering between Homespun and Common Ground Farm, both of Beacon, NY, we included both logos to help identify both brands as the image passed through social media, newsletters and advertisements.

Need an enhancement for your website or a fresh pair of eyes? Katie James Inc would love to help. Reach out ☺️💕

Illustrations from clip art created by @birdiydesign on @creativemarket 💜

Need enhancements done to your website or brand overall? Hit us up :)

New Website Design By Katie James, Inc. ; Barb's Butchery

Barb’s Butchery New 2021 Website

After several years in business, Barb’s Butchery was ready for Version 2 of their website. Adding to the website whenever she wanted was the #1 priority for Barb. The #2 priority was to have all of her offerings be better organized.

We approached the project with this in mind, and gave each main offering its own designation in the top navigation, so that customers could see what was there.

Specials are very important to Barb’s Butchery, who has been putting out the monthly discount special for years.

We were also able to go in for a small photo shoot, to add new photos to the website and show COVID-19 safety guidelines in place. Teslie Andrade was the photographer on this project.

Photography in the shop while the employees were there, to get nice action and ambiance shots.

We kept all of the content from Barb’s Butchery’s old website, and arranged it with the new photo and type treatment on new pages

Last Column For My Local Newspaper, "Kid Friendly" In The Highlands Current

Helllllo November!

It has been some time since I published to this blog, and rest assured, lots has been going on. Some of which is website production that I can’t share yet because it’s corporate and corporate is complicated, so maybe you’ll learn about it, maybe you won’t! Hope that you do, however.

This blog post is centered on writing. I neglected to publicize my newsletter column for the Highlands Current here (tiss tiss!), so now is my time to tell you that November’s newspaper column is my last. For now. Maybe they will take me back. But I sort of resigned the column. For now.

Here’s the scoop I told Facebook, and I’ll tell you too:

Today is the last time I turn in my newspaper column for the Highlands Current. Writing for them and a printed outlet has been an honor. Honor. Dream. Writing about kids and motherhood can be cathartic for me, but also emotionally draining along the way. So I need the break. However, hitting the deadline got me out of the house to complete writing (usually only client work gets me out of the house). So I'll remember this and book myself to get out of the house to finish work that no one knows I'm working on LOL. Having an editor who can cut and replace has also been new. Luckily, I strategically got my article in soooo last minute every time, that he couldn't edit it much. Muahaha. Look for it on Friday's newsstand of the Highlands Current. Thank you for reading the columns if you did. Hope it helped you.

I did write 14 columns (you can read them all here). So that is a little over a year. I am sad. Not gonna lie. Maybe I’ll be back. Maybe I just need the break.

Article Planning; The Fluid Editorial Calendar

Big prep day for articles. A few deadlines are coming up, that if we want to have timeliness with these articles, we got to hit them. Another opportunity is here for Izdihar‘s Food Pantry article, with the Beacon Community Kitchen fundraiser coming up, and a new Food Pantry/Meals setup in the Beacon Rec on Saturdays that I just learned about. The Olivia Abel article on the new Bathroom at Bannerman Castle (on the island), which is really a disguised lead-in for the public bathroom situation in Beacon. As my copyeditor Catherine pointed out to me yesterday, ALBB published 41 articles in April.

Of this entire table, I only took 2 squares off today. That’s ok. Part of why these take so long is because I circulate them on Instagram, FB, the blogs themselves (both A Little Beacon Blog and Tin Shingle ), and develop newsletters for them both. The articles travel in newsletter packages. It’s a lot. It’s a workout that I teach at Tin Shingle, but it’s very worth it.

I don’t like walking away from this table, but work/life balance calls. I’m a bit of a work-a-holic. I love what I do, and I love when it works.

#create #creativetime #sundaymorning #writer #blogger #beaconny #tinshingle

Training Session With Knot Too Shabby, An Annie Sloan Home Stockist

Training Session with Caryn of Knot To Shabby as we finalize her website (which has already been processing workshop and paint orders since our pre-launch). She’s a great learner, ready to dive in and wants to get under the hood of this Shopify website to update her home page with creative new collections! Watch for her monthly feature.

Newsletter hookup with MailChimp is next, and then this Shopify project is wrapped (this stage, at least!). Annie Sloan Home and complimentary stencils and furniture was never so easy to buy online! Knot Too Shabby can reach beyond her immediate local in Beacon, NY, to other local who travel to Beacon for free pickup in her shop.

To get a Katie James, Inc. website, simply visit our Services pages to see how we can help. 

Sticker Putter Onner

I’ve never been a sticker-putter-onner before. Never on cars, bikes, once on my computer a long time ago. Like 4 computers ago. Today an announcement of change will go up on @alittlebeacon . It’s a change for someone else, who I am very excited for. Change ignites change for others, and it’s something I look forward to. I have seen my ALBB sticker on other people’s computers and planners. The honor of that is beyond my comprehension. Today it’s time I allow more feeling and put another sticker on my computer. Ruby picked this @taramcpherson sticker out for herself at @dreaminplastic and kept it in my bag. It’s very her. It’s also very me. The dog reminds me of Gerdy. Who is my spirit animal. Who I also secretly think is in Charlie :) It’s time to tap into this feeling of creation.

Website Design Phase 1 Complete for the Telephone Building Beacon

Website Design Phase 1 done for Deborah Bigelow’s the Telephone Building in Beacon NY. This is the second time her renovation work of the building has gone online, but this time at its own website, very clearly, with lots of Before and After shots, as well as a gallery of how the building looks today. Find the website at www.telephonebuildingbeacon.com

Really an honor and a pleasure to work with Deborah (my office landlord) on this, to listen to her direction and learn where she’s going. Her ❤️ heart has been in this building for so long, as evidenced by business owners around here who see her working on it almost every day. Either cleaning cigaret butts from the sidewalk, or up on a boom laying gold leaf gilding papers on the letters atop the building.

Bravo, Deborah.

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Website Design Planning for Telephone Building

Love it when websites take shape on the table first. Deborah Bigelow, owner of the Telephone Building in Beacon, is a very visual thinker and has a process of discovery. She plots things out in binders and boards and delivers them to our meetings. The website is taking shape nicely, and telling the story of the Telephone Building’s 25 year history in Deborah’s hands.

This is a photo of an original plank of wood that served as the architect’s signature that Deborah discovered while she was renovating the Telephone Building.   

Website Design Planning for Telephone Building

Love it when websites take shape on the table first. Deborah Bigelow, owner of the Telephone Building in Beacon, is a very visual thinker and has a process of discovery. She plots things out in binders and boards and delivers them to our meetings. The website is taking shape nicely, and telling the story of the Telephone Building’s 25 year history in Deborah’s hands.

This is a photo of an original plank of wood that served as the architect’s signature that Deborah discovered while she was renovating the Telephone Building.