We at WealthChoice have great respect and awe for professional women who have created successful businesses. This month we spoke with a woman who recently launched her business and whose marketing practices are leading the business growth. We find the marketing work she is doing truly inspiring, and we asked her to share best practices with us so that we can share with you. We hope these best practices can be of value to you.
Looking at the website for Sweetgum Textiles you instantly feel a sense of place. Sweetgum Textiles creates home goods and fabrics that are inspired by the New England landscape. It was launched by Sandra Venus, Founder, and former architect, in 2016. While Sweetgum is a relatively new company, all of us in business can learn from Sandra’s terrific marketing best practices. Below you’ll find the key steps Sweetgum has taken to build their brand; steps that anyone looking to increase brand recognition can take.
BUILD A WEBSITE THAT FITS YOUR BRAND
Sandra launched Sweetgum in 2016 and we’ve been watching the brand evolve as she fine tunes the products, how they are presented, and who the target audience is. Sandra has created a warm, clean website that is constantly updated and current. The website is just like the products: warm, clean, current, natural, authentic. Also on the website is a blog that Sandra keeps current. It features photos of Sweetgum products with content that fits the warm, friendly, natural feel of the brand.
In addition to the firm marketing, Sandra is also responsible for creating the textiles and products Sweetgum produces. Perhaps because she is the artist of the products, the website is so perfectly aligned with the feel of the textiles and products. Likewise, the blog she recently launched, called Place, feels like a perfect compliment to Sweetgum’s products and designs. Take a look at the font of the website, the color of the text, the content, the photos from both a subject standpoint and their simplicity. Everything about the style of Sweetgum’s website is made to fit perfectly with the style of the products.
KNOW WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS AND BUILD ON THAT
Sandra’s evolution of products and pricing is a direct result of soliciting feedback from her target audience and understanding what is important to them. The feedback on retail price is coming directly from the customers she meets at the Open Art Markets where she shows her latest retail products. Because Sandra is focused on creating more small manufacturing jobs in New England (which includes the second highest minimum wage in the US) with Sweetgum, she has limitations with respect to how much she can cut production costs. This means it’s important she find the right customer who is concerned about transparency of production, ethical labor practices and spends their money in a way that expresses their values. This is another focus of her marketing research right now.
COLLABORATE STRATEGICALLY
Sandra also has very strong values and staying true to those is important to her. She mentioned that collaborating with other makers and artists who share her values is an important part of her marketing strategy. She is able to increase social media followers as a result of collaboration by building off of the collaborator with their social media followers. Collaborating also allows her to share expenses for joint marketing efforts and increases Sweetgum’s exposure. She has also gifted products to Social Media Influencers and asked that they tag and mention Sweetgum in exchange for free product.
KNOW WHEN TO HIRE EXPERTS
Sandra recently hired a social media management firm to help her with the posting and to develop a strategic Facebook marketing campaign. She provides the content and they post several times a week. Because she is in retail, it is important to boost posts, track followers, and convert more clicks to sales. She knew she needed experts in this space so was willing to make the financial investment.
KEEP YOUR CONTENT FRESH AND CURRENT
Sandra recently launched the Sweetgum blog, Place, for very specific marketing reasons: First, she wanted to have a place to create content to draw people to the website and to make Sweetgum more personal and more interesting to potential customers. Second, she wanted the blog to help her create something larger than Sweetgum in order to expand the brand in the future beyond textiles. Third, the blog is another way to collaborate with other artists and makers. It helps her network, share business tips, and support others in their creative pursuits.
Having launched her firm a year ago with little more than a few sketches and an idea, Sandra has used marketing to grow Sweetgum into a fresh, exciting brand in the competitive home goods space. The Sweetgum website fits well with the brand, from text choice and color, to website content and feel. Her use of social media and collaboration has been essential to the growth. Researching her customer and knowing what is important to them has been valuable in knowing which products they want, and at what price. And keeping her website and blog content current keeps viewers engaged, and encourages returns to the website. While not all of us have retail businesses, we believe there are several lessons in marketing here that many of us can benefit from, regardless of industry.
Questions about marketing you’d like to ask Sandra? You can reach her from the Sweetgum Contact page. She’d be happy to share her knowledge.
