The Stationers Guild

Every few months or so I get an email or a phone call from someone who suggests that I should advertise on their website “to get more wedding business.”  As readers are aware, I do not believe that any serious stationer should “advertise” on these wedding portals since their claims are disingenuous, misleading and self-serving.  In fact, advertising on these websites will drive traffic to online retailers rather than your store.   

While your store will not only lose business, you are also providing online retailers with the resources (your advertising premium) and your credibility (your name) to market shoddy products to a consumer who believes that they are actually getting “value” from buying online.  Was it P.T. Barnum who said that “there is a sucker born every day?”

This week, I received email and phone solicitations from bride.com and getmarried.com.  Now these two websites are no different from The Knot or Martha Stewart Weddings and I take no particular relish in singling them out from the crowd, but I do so for illustrative purposes only.

Bride.com  was offering a banner for 14 months at half-price to promote our store in the New York Metro area.  I was “guaranteed” a priority listing, but my store banner was competing with about 20 online retailers.  Why?  An online retailer is not a local resource.

The situation is similar with GetMarried.com.   A bevy on online retailers and GetMarried’s online store selling cheap and unattractive wedding invitations.    Pardon my ignorance, but why I should subsidize GetMarried.com’s website through an advertising contract when they are doing their best to disintermediate my store and thousands of other local merchants?  Doesn’t make sense to me.

Richard May is a Founding Member of the Stationers Guild and write frequently about NYC Wedding Invitations and wedding invitation trends.

If you have not used Google Adwords to promote your current holiday card sale or back-to-school sale, you don’t know how effective your advertising can be.  I am giving away 10 FREE $100 Gold Card Certificates to help you get started to promote your local business.  This is available only to business owners who have not used Google adwords. 

In other words, Google is giving you $100 in free advertising just to try one of the most effective advertising tools available today.  All you have to do is say, “YES!” and I’ll send your FREE Registration Card.    No gimmicks and no red-tape. 

I first started using Google Adwords in 2002 to promote the Therese Saint Clair wedding business.  We don’t sell online (but do have a modest website) and many bridal couples  who clicked on our Google Ad visited our store to purchase their wedding invitations.  I found this to be a far more effective form of advertising than the Yellow Pages or print advertising.  If you would like to find out how easy it is to get started, just give me a call at 203-661-2927 or email me at rmay@stationersguild.org and I will gladly send you a $100 Google Gold Card to help you get started.   Trust me, it is not rocket science.

Again, it’s FREE so why not take the plunge and generate some extra business this holiday season.   Why wait for the folks down in D.C. to come back from their summer vacation to kick-start the economy when you can now take matters into your own hands?

Richard W. May
Founding Member Stationers Guild

I participate in a number of forums related to the stationery industry.   For the most part, these forums are used by the participants to promote their products rather than provide useful advice to newbies and a few old-timers (like myself).  As the groups grow larger, the level of relevant communication diminishes which I guess helps explain why those who speak loudest or more often tend to dominate forum discussions.

Over the last couple of months a couple of themes have emerged:

• How to outsource to China and get cheaper products
• Advice on how to market store retailers to sell products that are now currently sold online.

Outsource to China

I have often been accused of denigrating the quality of products from China.  This is simply not so.  Let’s face it, the people who outsource to China are Gringos who insist on the “lowest price,” not the “highest quality product.”  I have no doubt in my mind that Chinese craftspeople can (and do)  make or design products of unmatched quality and design.  The problem is that these “outsourcing Gringos” want the “cheapest product” rather than the “best” product.

Therefore, if you are buying greeting cards manufactured in China, would you really like your client to lick the envelope?

Should you promote “new” products that are now sold exclusively online?

A common problem for many “new” artisans in the greeting card industry is that they first begin to sell their greeting cards online directly to the consumer.  It is a relatively inexpensive way to get your product out in front of wider audience, but requires a great deal of online marketing skills that these artisans don’t possess to develop a sustainable business.

Frustrated, they now reach out to store retailers to market their greeting card line.  Should your store carry their line?   In most cases, I would simply say “no!”  The reason is quite simple:  Why should I invest my time and resources to market an undifferentiated product for a new vendor that sells the same product online?    I am often told in these forums that “the customer wants the convenience and choice of shopping online or in a store,” as if that were sufficient justification for marketing a new line.  Sorry, but it simply doesn’t make  business sense.   Why use my expertise, store space and limited marketing budget which often tends to drive clients to an online store?

As most of my advertising and promotion is online, I am extremely careful to market stationery products and custom invitations lines that have either an affiliate program or do not sell online.    The goal of my online marketing campaign is to drive people to my store.  Nevertheless, we need to talk about products and lines that we actually carry in the store and, I suspect, that the first thing the online buyer does is to visit the suppliers website.  While I am certainly disappointed not to make the sale in the store, I feel my marketing efforts have not been lost if that “marketing lead” generates an affiliate commission.

Affiliate programs by leading companies in the stationery industry is, in my opinion,  an important way to raise the standards in the industry and provide the consumer with useful information about quality stationery.  Personally, I no longer feel threatened by promoting the brand of our vendors, using their images and promotion campaigns.   In effect, it is good business for my store, my supplier and the industry as a whole.

I do hope other stationery stores will soon embrace affiliate marketing to help the cream rise to the top.   Read more on how affiliate marketing can help your business.

Wordpress, often thought of as a blogging platform, has emerged as one of the most useful applications for people with few technical skills to build and manage their own websites.  I’ve experimented with most other alternatives and found that Wordpress helps you  create successful websites with little third-party support.  Best of all, it is FREE!

Several years ago, I signed up for an online course called The Joy of Code.  The course was designed to explain the basics of html coding (the language of the internet) and CSS, which is a programming language to help separate content from design for websites.   During the course of these classes, I got a chance to get to know the instructor, Bud Kraus.

We have become good friends and often get together in New York for lunch to discuss website design and topical social and economic issues.  We prefer to talk about websites, since the other subjects are often too depressing.

Bud, whose specialty is website design, has become a fervent convert to Wordpress.  In fact, he teaches several courses for aspiring artists and website designers on how to use Wordpress to build websites.  On Thursday, July 28th, Bud is hosting a one hour Wordpress webinar explaining some of the features and useful functions of Wordpress.

For those who have dated websites or those contemplating setting up their first website, I recommend that you give Bud’s Wordpress webinar a go.  He certainly know his stuff and I am quite sure that you will soon recognize the benefits of using Wordpress to develop your own online marketing strategy.

Richard W. May
www.Rite4u.com

I have just participated in a brief interactive tour of Google+ or Google Plus, which is Google’s new social media platform which will be launched shortly to compete with Facebook.    Unfortunately, I was not on the short list to Beta test Google+ so I really can’t comment on how effective it will be in reshaping the social media arena.

Nevertheless, most of the techies seem to think it will be big.  If you are new to the social media game or simply reluctant to jump into the arena, I suggest that  you give Google+ a chance, because it incorporates many other local search features (Google Places) that are critical to the success of small businesses.

Let’s face it, Google has been helping small businesses develop a presence on the internet for FREE for a number of years.  From my perspective, they have done more to encourage local business owners to stake a claim in cyberspace  than any other company.  The addition of the social media component (Google+) to Google Places is a very powerful marketing tool for local store owners.  Doesn’t it make sense to invest a little time and find out how claiming your business can help you?  It’s FREE and well worth your effort.

Mind you, I like Facebook, but Google has a lot more going for it than becoming a fan of Kim Kardashian.    While it’s best to have a foot in both camps, I’d jump into Google+ as soon as it is launched.

In general, local stationery store owners feel threatened by the internet. It’s tough to sell quality stationery and custom invitations in a two-dimensional medium which is dominated by thousands of online printers masquerading as fine stationery designers.

Indeed, when I last checked (about 2 minutes ago) there were 37 million Google-indexed page results for the search term “wedding invitations.” To be honest, even Walmart looks good when compared to the thousands of shoddy stationery and invitations lines that now call themselves “green,” “beautiful,” “elegant,”or some other descriptive adjective that is either exaggerated or simply dishonest.

Despite online claims to the contrary, the customer is often disappointed with the outcome after spending several hundred dollars on wedding invitations or fine stationery. Frankly, there is simply no way for the consumer to make an informed decision without the wise counsel of an independent and experienced stationer who works with many lines and can help the consumer explore design, paper, printing and pricing alternatives. Where does the consumer get this advice and information? Sadly, only in a store since the internet search market is totally dominated by companies of questionable integrity pushing their particular brand.

Stationery store owners – like many local businesses – have been slow to embrace the internet and social media to promote this business, there is a paucity of quality and relevant information available to the consumer. The Stationers Guild has long encouraged qualified stationery stores to take a more active role in promoting their business online. Some have acted, but most have not seen the benefit of promoting their business online or, more realistically, understood the threat to our industry posed by online marketing specialists.

If your client has moved online for information and your business is not well represented in cyberspace and on social media platforms, your business simply doesn’t exist and will soon become as extinct as the Dodo bird.

Affiliate marketing is the last opportunity for store owners to effectively establish an online presence and encourage consumers to shop locally.     As such, I will be redirecting much of my time and that of the Guild  to aggressively support affiliate programs that support our vendors and preserve the rich heritage of fine stationery.   

If you are interested in learning more about affiliate marketing and how you can benefit in your market, please contact me at the email address below.   Alternatively, I will regularly be providing detailed information on how to do it yourself at our technical website, Rite4u.com. 

With 37 million web pages promoting wedding invitations it is a long uphill battle, but together we can make the cream rise to the surface.  Consumers deserve better quality than the hyped fast-food invitations which now flood cyberspace.   

Richard W. May
rmay@stationersguilld.org

Found below is an affiliate ad for Crane & Co. 

This is an affiliate ad for William Arthur.

Each of these ads can help grow your store business and send a powerful message to the consumer that “quality is not dead in the stationery industry.”

Supporting the affiliate programs of your vendors should - and most probably will - bring  the following benefits to your business:

• Properly used, affiliate marketing will drive traffic to your store;
• Affiliate marketing is a far more effective marketing tool than the Yellow Pages and most paper media advertising;
• Affiliate marketing allows you to build an online presence without the expense and fuss of doing it yourself;
• Affiliate marketing gives you an opportunity to talk about and promote fine stationery and custom invitations;
• Affiliate marketing gives you credibility with your customers to “see” that your store has online product capabilities;
• You earn affiliate commissions when customers buy online through your affiliate ad referral;
• You support your vendor by promoting their brand online;
• Most importantly, you support the stationery industry by promoting quality brands.

If you are not yet engaged in affiliate marketing to support the brands of your in-store vendors, you should do so now.    Need help?  The Stationers Guild’s technical website Rite4U will give you plenty of instruction on how to do it yourself.    

For those who are more interested in selling “real” stationery than marketing affiliate programs, we will show you where you can get access to affordable talent to replicate the Stationers Guild affiliate programs.   The NYC Wedding Invitation website is an affiliate marketing website focused on driving foot-traffic to our store, Therese Saint Clair.    It promotes the same brands we carry in our store, but subtly encourages visitors to shop locally.  Shouldn’t you have a similar website for your local market?  

Learn how at rite4u.com.

Richard W. May
Founding Member of the Stationers Guild

People shop online and most stationery companies have been obliged to provide consumers with an online alternative.  For many years, people thought that Jane or John Doe consumer would either buy online or exclusively at a bricks and mortar store.  As we well know, they are likely to do both depending on circumstances which are not easy to predict.  The industry has been tip-toeing around channels of distribution for quite some time and it is clear that bricks and mortar stores require some level of online presence to engage clients who may wish to visit their store or purchase products online.

I recently picked up the Summer 2011 Instore Magazine that was published for the Dallas Gift Show.  In this magazine, there are several interesting articles that are most useful to store owners getting their feet wet in online marketing:

• The ABCs of SEO by Cindy Baldhoff
• Use YouTube to Engage with Your Customers
• Getting Social with Email Marketing by Ron Cates and,
• Where’s your ‘Stupid List”?

Now, I have no way of knowing if anyone is going to read these articles, let alone act on them, but they contain plenty of very good advice and suggestions.  I suspect that people’s eyes will glaze over and they will get back to business as usual.  It’s understandable, but a real shame.

Crane and William Arthur now have affiliate marketing programs.  There is no reason why bricks and mortar stores can’t share in the online revenue stream if they do a little work.  Will they?  I suspect not, because they lack the tools and the knowledge to do so successfully and are perhaps frightened that they may end up cannibalizing their existing business.  Is this a reason to stay out of the fray?  No, but most will choose to sit on the sideline and surrender the bounty to professional affiliate marketers.  Let me explain.

Online affiliate marketers will hype anything and many have become quite rich by focusing on key words and building website devoted exclusively to capturing affiliate income.  The acai berry diet (14 million search pages) that is hyped by online marketers is a perfect example of how this works.  In fact, I have attended several online seminars that teach you the techniques to optimize your site for acai berry diet searches so you can capture affiliate income.  Even if you decide not to activate your affiliate program with Crane or William Arthur, someone else will to your detriment.

Let me give you an example of a website I setup over a year ago (no affiliate links as yet) to test various automatic “content-generating” products in the market.  The site is nycweddinginvitations.org.      I have done relatively little to this website, but will soon be adding graphics to make it look attractive and begin to add affiliate links and perhaps add an online store.  This website was FREE and costs about $1.50 a month to run.  I then use several Wordpress tools to skim the Internet to look for articles that use my key words (“nyc invitations,”  “nyc wedding invitations,” nyc wedding stationery,”) and then these articles are automatically “spinned” (term for substituting synonyms and rearranging sentence structure to avoid duplicate content) and then published automatically on the NYC wedding invitations website.  You can establish multiple websites using the same strategy built around different key words but perhaps using the same graphics.   All of this is basically FREE and by using the appropriate Wordpress Plugins, ALL OF THIS IS FULLY AUTOMATED  (i.e. no human intervention).

Now, you may have a much prettier website than I do, but because my website has been optimized for search, it is far more likely that it will appear higher in a Google search result than your store.  The first listing in Google’s Organic Search (not paid!) statistically receives between 30% and 46% of the clicks.  Pretty scary, isn’t it?

This is how professional affiliate marketers work.  Sure, there are a lot more wrinkles using Facebook Fan Pages, YouTube, Landing Pages and other strategies, but I can assure you that just because you decide not to actively and aggressively support the Affiliate Programs kindly provided to you by your Vendors, others will!

Is this good for the industry?  I think not, but this is why Tiny Prints and many other online “printing” companies who wouldn’t be able to pick out an engraving press from a lineup of toilet bowls will eat your lunch and mine too!

Isn’t it time to figure out what we can and should do to preserve the quality standards in our industry?  Together we can do this the “right” way and preserve the integrity of our industry  Rest assured that there are plenty of people out there who will and can sell anything and make a fine living doing so.  They are real pros and I admire their spunk.

Call me at 203-661-2927 or email me at rmay@stationersguild.org with your ideas and suggestions.

Richard W. May
Thérèse Saint Clair

Reflecting on the 2011 National Stationery Show, I came across this  Blog post entitled “Don’t take it personally”  by Seth Godin, who was the Keynote speaker at the NSS Future Conference.    Here is an extract from his post:

QUOTE (Slightly Edited)

“Don’t take it personally.”

This is tough advice. Am I supposed to take it like a chair? Sometimes it seems as though the only way to take it is personally. That customer who doesn’t like your product (your best work) or that running buddy who doesn’t want to run with you any longer…

Here’s the thing: it’s never personal. It’s never about you. How could it be? That person doesn’t truly know you … All they know is themselves.

When someone moves on, when she walks away or even badmouths you or your work, it’s not personal about you. It’s personal about her. Her agenda, her decisions, her story.

Do your work, the best way you know how. Is there any other option?

UNQUOTE

Indeed, is there any other option?  Sure, you can exit the playing field and move on, having let someone else’s opinion determine your relevancy and/or artistic value.   Seth Godin’s advice is for leaders or “tribal chiefs” as he refers to them who are not intimidated by failure and certainly not the opinions of others.

With these words of caution from Seth Godin, I would like to reflect on some of the major trends I saw emerging from this year’s National Stationery Show.    Most certainly, you shouldn’t take my views “personally” since my objective is to create a dialogue and not to discredit anyone’s work or business strategy.   The business is hard enough for another naysayer in our midst.

Stationery Trends & Observations

1. The Chinese have Landed:   This is the first time that I can recall a strong Chinese presence at the NSS.  It seemed that they occupied a dozen or so booths and while I didn’t see a great deal of activity, their presence signifies that more cheap imports will be arriving soon.    I admire the craftsmanship and work ethic of the Chinese; however, their business model is very much different than our own.  Designers and manufacturers who outsource production to China do so at their own peril.    You may win the cost-efficiency battle, but you are most certain to hasten the demise of your brand and, quite possibly, the industry.
2. Too much Letterpress:   I adore letterpress, but there are simply too many suppliers.   Let’s face it, most anyone with an old press and Photoshop can produce “unique” and “eco-friendly” stationery and invitations.   As a stationery store, I am reluctant to take on new lines since many of the designs look the same.  While I commend everyone on “doing your own thing,” it seems to me that only the established lines that maintain quality standards and continue to innovate will survive.
3. Pricing Models -  Established Lines Hold the Line:    I have long been concerned that manufacturers and designers of quality paper products would succumb to the temptation to lower quality to compete with the “fast-food” paper companies that now dominate our industry.   Meetings at the NSS convinced me that a line in the sand has now been drawn and serious brands will no longer follow Alice down the pricing hole to oblivion.    I welcome this change and believe that consumers will opt for higher quality products at price levels that can sustain the industry.  Maybe this is wishful thinking, but this is the first time in several years where industry leaders have said “No mas!” to price cutting. 
4. Online Sales & Affiliate Marketing:    It is good to see that Crane has re-established an affiliate marketing program.  Other companies that sell online should do the same thing.  While this is all well-and-good,  these affilitate programs will be of little use to bricks and mortar stores unless they take advantage of them.  Affiliate marketing is like learning to ride a bicycle:  lot’s of bruises and scrapes as you learn to ride and pretty easy after you get the hang of it.    I fear that many stores will not do so and the benefits of leveraging one’s sales by providing an online option will be missed.  In effect, Crane and others have given  stores a vital piece of online real estate and it is our responsibility to make it work.   In order to accelerate that process, I will shortly be expanding the functionality of the StationersGuild website into an affiliate marketing laboratory to test various online marketing strategies.  In addition, an affiliate website, Rite4U.com will be focused on best practices to build, maintain and market your local business online.  There is a lot to learn and it is changing each day, but at least you won’t have to repeat my mistakes.

Again. let me thank the organizers of the National Stationery Show and particularly Patti Stracher for keeping the flame burning.    Everybody approaches NSS differently and if I have stepped on anyone’s toes, “don’t take it personally.” We are in the boat together.

I am thrilled to report that Sweet Pea Designs is back on its feet and was proudly represented at the 2011 National Stationery.   For those who didn’t have an opportunity to look through their exciting new Baby album, several of their new yet familiar and comforting designs are featured on a Facebook Fan Page.

As reported last year,  Sweet Pea Designs and its long-time printing partner, Printswell, parted ways in the early part of 2010.  Sweet Pea owners Anne Johnson and Kim Kreis had hoped to relaunch a “new and improved” Sweet Pea Designs in time for the 2010 holiday season, but technology hurdles got the best of them and Sweet Pea wisely decided to hold off until they could get things right.  While this was no doubt a painful decision for both Anne and Kim and their many fans and dealers in the industry, the new album vindicates their decision.

Anne and Kim are far too shy to get in front of a camera – must be that southern upbringing – and, as such, my wife Sheila delivered this heartfelt promotional pitch video:

While I apologize for the sound reproduction and background noise, I think you get the idea that this new Baby Album is rich in design and careful thought has gone into creating a visually attractive and functional experience for your clients. As Sheila mentioned, a totally revamped and new social stationery and invitations album will be released in about eight weeks followed by their holiday album in the Fall.

I join Sheila in welcoming back Sweet Pea Designs and we wish Kris and Anne well in their new venture. If you wish to become a dealer or require additional information, please visit the Sweet Pea Designs website.

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

Two additional album