Holiday Market Vendors Spread Cheer with Their Marketing- Part 2

[Abigail_S]

It’s the time of year where Boston becomes a magical snow globe, we begin romanticizing the frigid New England air, and we have Mariah Carey waiting in queue. It’s also when Boston’s Seaport transforms into Snowport with endless vendors, twinkly lights, and holiday cheer. Snowport brings together a diverse group of small businesses and gives them a platform to market their products, make connections, and allows you to shop locally. 

“Boston creates a great community for people who just have a lot of spirit and pride for the city,” says Albert Feldman, owner of Sky Candle Co. 

The Holiday Market at Snowport in Partnership with Constant Contact features more than 120 small businesses, 66 percent of which are local to Boston and the New England area, and 76 percent are minority and/or female owned.

Three of our Constant Contact customers participating in this year's Holiday Market share their story on how they use marketing to communicate exciting updates, stay connected with their audience, and capture new emails. Whether you’re an aspiring holiday market vendor, a seasoned veteran, or a small business looking for holiday ideas, learn how these customers are making the most of the holiday season through Constant Contact.

Rosaline Hansen is the owner of Pet Wants Newton. With a background in Sales and Marketing, she was in the wine industry for 15 years but it was no longer fulfilling her. With a passion for animals, she and her husband created Pet Wants Newton with the help of Constant Contact. 

“Constant Contact has been really helpful for me being able to have the opportunity to expose all of the people who follow me to different products.”

As a way to engage with her customers, Rosaline writes nutrition based articles for the company newsletters. She is able to do this through Constant Contact’s customization tools. 

“The customization ability that we can do with Constant Contact allows me to be able to put a new product and an article and any important information going on with the business [in one place].”

If you’re a small business and you’ve been at this for a while you may have a pretty robust contact list and a good understanding of your audience. If that’s the case, it may be time to grow your list and consolidate your contacts through our list growth tools and integrations. We know your time is also even more precious and we have tools to help you consolidate all of your contacts in one place so you can better segment your entire audience and engage with it through automated content. List Growth 

Elaina Holm is the owner of Simple Sips, a fresh cocktail mixer. With fresh fruit purees, fresh juice, and herbal syrups made in-house– all you need to complete the fresh mixer is your favorite beverage.

Elaina had just quit her full-time job and only had enough money to apply to Snowport when her business first launched. 

“The Snowport Holiday Market is the single event that set my business on the trajectory that it’s been on now for the past few years,” says Elaina. 

Post-Holiday Market, her sales were off the charts and the increase in revenue allowed her to reinvest in her business. This year at Snowport, every customer who purchases a product has the opportunity to subscribe to Simple Sips mailing list with the help of a QR Code provided by Constant Contact.

This allows vendors to gain a better following and communicate with customers who want to engage with their products. This also allows business owners to potentially send new members coupons, encourage them to sign up for texts and SMS Marketing, and allows them to cater personalized offers to different lists.

Getting more people to read your email can only help you build your list and spread the word about the services or products you offer. We make it easy to get your content onto the major social networking sites with our Social Posts and Monitoring tools by Sharing an email or share an event on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. You can schedule a series of posts in advance, view engagement activity with your posts, and view and respond to comments. If you're trying to drive some traffic to your social media pages to engage with your customers and supporters, start by promoting your social page in your email. 

Albert Feldman is the owner of Sky Candle Co whose mission is to create nontoxic, paraben free, cruelty free, clean burning candles. 

“We wouldn’t be here today without the Snowport market,” says Albert.

Every candle is touched by him and his partner: they pour, wick, label, package, and ship all of their candles by hand.

Boston and the Holiday Market is a melting pot to meet other communities. Last year, as a way to capture leads, Albert and his partner gave matches to customers who signed up for their mailing list and created a way to engage with customers beyond Snowport.

“We make these connections at markets. We meet people we've never met before and probably wouldn't have ever met before”

Constant Contact helps them reach their consumers in a smart and thoughtful way. Growing a contact list is one of the most important ways to boost your marketing efforts. 

“We use Email Marketing to promote what has proven success? What is really popular out there? What are people really enjoying?”

Constant Contact has a variety of tools to help you capture new contacts in ways that make the most sense for your organization. Use one or use them in combination so you're capturing new contacts from different sources: Collect sign-ups through a website or blog, Social Media , or from a physical location. 

What are you waiting for?

Now is the time to use marketing to build your brand and start growing your business. After listening to so many stories about how other customers are growing their businesses with Constant Contact, we want to know how you are sharing your #smallbizstory. Hop on Instagram, post a story, and tell us how you're attracting new customers by tagging @ConstantContact and using #smallbizstory.