Sewing Business Blog

Giveaway’s – A Boost To Business

by Leave a Comment

One of the best business building techniques is to offer something of value for free to your customers.  We’ve all been to Sam’s Club or similar discount clubs or grocery stores where, on certain days, they have people fixing small pizzas, or a new type of meat, etc that they give samples of to the customers as they shop.  They really aren’t giving you a “free lunch” – they’re enticing you to try, then buy, their new products.

Your business, whether a sewing, alteration, crafting or sewing machine repair business can come up with ideas for something FREE for new customers, just for trying your services.  If you have an online presence, you need to come up with something free for those who might visit your site — free information of some sort, buy one – get one free, or something similar depending on what type of website you have.

At SewWithSarah.com, we have many FREE “introductory” classes.  For example, if have a basic dress or blouse that you simply love, but don’t want to make every garment the same, you can check out the free introductory “How To Change Necklines On A Commercial Pattern”.  This class gives information on not only how to change a single neckline, but also gives you “heads up” on the full blown neckline changing class that you can purchase.  Or, if you’re really tired of not being able to get store bought patterns to fit and you’d  like to try your hand at making your own patterns, you can try the free introductory class on how to make skirt patterns.  By utilizing the free “giveaway” introductory class, you can see how easy the steps are to follow, how well the skirt actually fits YOUR measurements, then you think “I can do this!”, so in most cases you’d want to go ahead and purchase the complete class.  There are many more free classes in our “tips and tutorials” section at SewWithSarah.

Do you see how the “free” giveway can help to build your business?  Spend some time thinking about what you might already have that you can rewrite or repackage into a free giveaway to potential customers.  If you’re in the sewing machine repair business, you could perhaps give away a spool of thread or seam ripper to new customers – some item that would be valuable to them, but not cost too much, as you would be buying them wholesale.  In addition, the customer you “gave” the spool of thread to might just ask if you have other thread available that she could buy because she “just ran out of white thread” and would have to make a special trip to the store to get more.   WOW!  You could just make an additional sale on top of the bill for repairing the sewing machine if you had a few extra spools of thread with you!

Enter to Win a Gorgeous Pair of Collectible Gingher Scissors

by 87 Comments

'Sarah' Series Designer Gingher Dressmaker's Shears
'Sarah' Series Designer Gingher Dressmaker's Shears

We’re excited to announce our first annual Holiday Giveaway!  You can enter to win this gorgeous pair of 8″ Gingher Designer “Sarah” Series Dressmaker’s Shears in a gift tin with sheath, PLUS a length of pattern paper.  The “Sarah” series has been retired and currently retails for up to $99.99, and the value of these collectibles tend to rise as they become more scarce.  Use them as a special gift for the holiday’s, or keep them as a gift for yourself.  Better yet – USE them to make gifts for other people.

To enter, simply reply to this post with a comment about your favorite fall or holiday project, or submit a link to a favorite fall themed project tutorial.  You can also get a second entry if you post a link on your blog or website to this giveaway page, or add us to your blogroll.  Just email us at submit@sewingbusiness.com to let us know that you qualify for a second entry.

Enter by Saturday, November 28th and we’ll announce the winner on Monday, November 30th.  Good luck and enjoy all of your holiday creating!

How To Promote Your FREE Giveaway

by Leave a Comment

A couple days ago we talked about how the free giveaway’s can increase your business.  But now comes the big question — how do people KNOW that you’re giving away something of value to them?  Are people mind readers? 

After determining what you can rewrite or repackage to give out to new customers, or those who visit your website, you now need to start promoting those giveaways at places where people can see the informtion, read about it or in some way learn that you do have a free giveaway.

You can promote your free giveaway programs with very little expense, which will ultimately lead people to your store or site who usually will be ready to make a purchase.   Here are a few suggestions:

SQUIDOO:  Squidoo is a very large community of people eager to get all the latest tidbits, information and want to be in the know of what’s available to them.  You can do an entire “lens” (page) at Squidoo about your free giveaway.  This will give you tons of readers and potentially tons of traffic back to your site.  Look at a couple of samples that we have.  One is promoting our free giveaway information about changing store bought patterns into maternity styles, and another one gives our free introductory class on how to make a variety of new necklines from one store bought pattern.  Think about what you can write about to promote your giveaway.

BLOG:  If you have a blog, talk about your free giveaway in a blog post.

YAHOO or FACE BOOK groups:   If you belong to any of the “social” groups, be sure to mention that you have free giveaways at your store or website.

MESSAGE BOARDS:  If you are part of forums or email discussion lists, don’t forget to mention your giveaways.

ARTICLES:  If you write articles for article directories, you might want to mention the giveaways in your resource box at the end of the article.

EMAIL SIGNATURE:  Add the giveaway information to your email signature.

There are other ways to promote and pass along information about your free giveaways, and what we’ve listed for you are just a few for you to think about.