I've been busily creating items for the February hunts and released some new Victorian wear in store. If you haven't stopped by in a while, the store has been rearranged to allow the jewelry to shine through more easily. I've also added some pictures wearing the jewelry to give more of an idea of how it looks a well as the true purpose for the store.
One of the toughest things about owning a business, whether in real life or in second life, is how to promote it without breaking the budget. If you have your main store on land you control, you can place a fairly cheap advertisement tied to your land. If you don't own land, then there are fewer options.
I've rented an ad-board at the Happy Hippo Building School for two reasons. First, I hope to drive some traffic to my store. Second, I do it to help Victoria Paule, owner of Happy Hippo. The ad boards help her make the tier payment on her land, so I don't begrudge the money as I learned a lot at HHBS as I started out, have done some teaching there, and have many friends from there. However, it doesn't seem to be helping with traffic.
The hunts are another mechanism to drive traffic. With the Renaissance Hunt, I received a lot of store traffic as it was a large hunt. The hunts I'm involved in now are smaller and drive smaller audiences to the store. This is making me consider other options.
One option is a classified ad. I will probably end up doing this. I've heard mixed reviews about the effectiveness of these ads. In an effort to determine what works, I'm trying one thing at a time. It's about time for the next thing in the arsenal so I believe I will place a classified ad.
Someone suggested getting my store featured by bloggers. I may try this also. I've been trying to get a bit more merchandise before I contact them. That too is a balancing act. I was rejected by one hunt group as not having enough merchandise. Since all my items are custom and different, creating new items takes a while so I will never be terribly fast in creating new merchandise.
A friend suggested getting a midnight mania board. I'm contemplating this as well. I'm really not fond of these as it takes away from the themed, period look in the store. When, again, I get a bit more merchandise, and I start using the second floor, I may put one up there. This one really makes me think - is it a necessary evil or a huge mistake? It's hard to say.
And to think I didn't have anything I wanted to say when I started writing today.....
No comments:
Post a Comment