Marketing Tips

Marketing is not selling your soul, it is understanding your customer. You form a relationship with your customer and in all relationships you need understanding and compromise. If you just wait for the customers that you click with you have a limited market.  Listen to your customers, find out WHY THEY BUY so you can anticipate their needs and be a better salesperson. A good sales person knows how their product helps people. Keep track of WHAT THEY BUY so that you can better refine your inventory, focus on what sells, get rid of the rest. keep trying new things. 

Persistence pays off at Mallory. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t make much money on their first night. Some people believe that things start off slow because it takes people a few night of seeing something before they decide to buy it. Other people theorize that it takes time for a person to learn how best to market themselves to the Mallory crowd. One thing is sure, Selling at Mallory is something that you learn and you get better it over time.

Successful Mallory vendors are made not born.  Learning to sell at Mallory is like rock climbing, each new marketable product you discover is a new foothold that lets you climb  higher.   Some people are lucky and find their footholds right away, but to be successful you have to get good at searching for new opportunities and climbing. 

You should always have several varieties of your product. Some will sell better than others, keep a written record of what sells and next time you make inventory make more of that and display it on your table more prominently. try different variations on it.

Give your display height, if everything is on the same level the items you sell seem uninteresting and hard to see. Arrange your products on risers or use both horizontal and vertical display space

If you want to bring your product closer to your customers, and you don’t mind excluding children from seeing your table, raise your table.

Make sure you have a variety of prices. Cheep stuff sells fast and may be your bread and butter but you need to have high-end stuff too. Having a high end product that sells consistently can make your business. I would say that most sales will be between $10 and $25.

People tend to buy things at Mallory as souvenirs. Therefore tropically themed things, for example palm trees, sell well because it reminds people of Key West. They love it if it says key west (obviously). If it says Key West on it, it tells a whole story to their friends in only two words. 

“The Setting makes the stone” Presentation can make a big difference. Make your display show off the best aspects of your product. When you first start at Mallory that means keep your display neat and tidy, and use a quality tablecloth. Once you have gotten a bit more experience, it can mean creating a theme for your table. Chose one that works for you, maybe velvet cloth and oak risers will make your product look expensive, or maybe bright tropical colors and patterns will make your product look fun. Make sure all the materials that the customer sees are quality, both display elements and product. Professional looking display shelves/ back drops/ tablecloths etc… can make a big difference. If you treat your products with respect the customers will perceive it as valuable. If you treat them badly the customers will perceive them as trashy.

Have a lot of inventory. People need time to get used to the idea of buying something. if you have only a few items they will see the whole table on one glance and keep moving or alternately if you have a lot of product than they will take time to browse. If they like your product they want to find some way to interact with your products, give them that.  The longer they stay the more the chance they will buy something. This, for example, is why painters have racks of prints that the customer can flip through.

This Tip sheet is a work in progress. It grows from your ideas. As a newcomer you have the best perspective on how we might improve it. If you can think of new ideas or questions, or of you feel we should remove or modify some of the ideas given PLEASE send us an e-mail at jury@sunsetcelebration.org We hope you will stay and participate, and on the day you move from newcomer status up to snowbird status, might I suggest that you think about the things you have learned and send us an e-mail so that we can include those ideas in this sheet.