Arriving in San Francisco - Atmosphere for Your Website

Posted on October 12th, 2006 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: CP Connect.

So I’ll back up a little. My CP Connect trip is a combination road trip / Conference trip. I carpooled up with Mary of evisionArts who I first met because of CafePress! I found out she lived in the town next to mine which was pretty unusual in this day of International Internet meetings.

So, when CP Connect came up, we decided to make a road trip of it.

Well, after several hours on the road, we arrived at my brother’s house and he had a great plan to eat dinner at a winery owned restaurant.

Beautiful! We saw sunset over the vineyards as we neared the restaurant.

The place was inviting and though my brother said it was a pity we could not see the place in sunlight and eat outside on the patio, the place was enchanting as is. Tables were spaced far enough apart to have private conversations, the lighting was neither too soft nor too bright and the background music was very subtle. All of these things made the place a great place for a lingering conversation.

I think online t-shirt entreprenuers can take something from this, make your visitors feel welcome, they will stick around longer. They may even order desserts!

On a restaurant review note, the food was excellent as was the wine, I felt decadent. Our waitress was also very apologetic saying our food was coming up and apologized (when we hadn’t even noticed it was taking long) and in the end comped us our desserts! How’s that for having your cake (or Chocolate Brownie S’more dessert with ice cream and caramel) and eating it too?

Delicious Food!

In front of the restaurant

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Offline Promotion… Literally

Posted on October 12th, 2006 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, Offline Promotion, CP Connect.

When you have an online store does it do any good to do offline promotion?

Come on, you know the answer to this right? The old, “it depends”.

In the case of this trip and this picture, I already had a ready made sign which I’ve used at conventions so it wasn’t much effort and no additional expense to prop it up on the back of my rental car. We drove from Southern California to Northern California, a drive which has folks passing and repassing each other quite often. How many people saw it? Not sure, there wasn’t much traffic (thank goodness!). Will it generate tons of sales? I doubt it.

So in this case I’d say my OffLine promotion was worth it but the equation was.
0 Expense + Very little effort
- Versus -
Small Chance of Benefit

A side effect on this is, I have a picture to blog about, so bonus for me!

I believe that for stores that only have an online presence, a good portion of your time and money is best spent online where you know you are reaching pre-qualified folks. Meaning, they at least have a way to get online and the skills to browse around.

I do think that offline promotion opportunities should not be ignored though. Again, it’s time to think about your customer. Where are they? If they are not online then go find them offline.

Also, be aware of opportunities. They may present themselves in places you haven’t thought of before. More on that during my Niche Shop Panel Discussion ;)

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Obstacles to Success

Posted on October 12th, 2006 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: CP Connect.

Sometimes road construction happens. Don’t let it get you down :)

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Mobile blog post sent from my Treo 600

1 comment.

On the road… With signage!

Posted on October 12th, 2006 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: CP Connect.

Offline Promotion... Literally

I already had this so decided to put it to use

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Mobile blog post sent from my Treo 600, Photo from digital camera uploaded later

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