Chuck: Recap of Board Meeting Notes

Owner’s Meeting March 11th– 13th, 2009

Chuck: recap of board meeting notes.

• Update on domestic programs
• Update on import programs
• Wilsonville or Dallas
• Spring meeting location suggestions and fall meeting location suggestions
• Sharing formats
• Facilitators
• Category discussions

Advertising facilitated by John S.

Billboards

Paul: Billboard is effective for us, we change a couple of times each year we purchase the extended billboard at Christmas that stands taller than the average billboard. When renting the space it is measured by highway traffic our locations gets 36,000 passers by a day the fee is $1100 per month investment. We have received a lot of comments and they are located in an up and coming area of the city. We placed in a higher income, high visibility traffic area. We have a right hand read (the statistics are better for right hand read).

Betty: I have read numerous advertising articles and they all agree that yellow is the first color the eye see’s.

Scott S: WP will share their billboard ideas. We can share the link, all billboards from 2006. We tried the digital it was expensive and we did not see a big change. We have a couple consistent boards.

Scott S: Cost is $2400 a month for 35,000 in traffic.

Paul J: We change ours twice a year but we would like to do more. It costs $1000 to put up and take down so we have limited ourselves. The advantage is that you can store the vinyl billboards and use them again.

Rusty: We tested digital last year and there were 6 advertisers on it and we drove by and could never catch ours up and running.

Emma: Consider billboard sharing we swapped with Ace every 3 months and had a constant presence on that space.

Eric L: What percentage of sales are people spending on their advertising? We are at 4 ½%

Chuck: We are at 3% including print, and anything else that is billable to advertising

Adrian J: We tried billboards for the last couple of years. We had one that had a little girl whispering in Santa’s ear saying we know where you shop “Ben Franklin Crafts” Deanna designed it. We are paying $2000 for the billboard and it is flat against the road and you can read it both directions

Chuck: The best advertising you can do is on the side of your van is what I listened to a few years ago from the office supply industry. It is a traveling billboard.

Blogging/Facebook/Twitter:

Emma: Renee is blogging about a different department every day. And she has a way to get information from staff and signing it for customers to promote. We have coupons on the blog. She has given the information

Jane: We are seeing huge increases and success with the blog specifically in scrapbooking promoting classes. Dana has 43-50 people every month for the crops and seeing new faces every day. They are talking about it on line.

Kim: Do you do separate blogs for paper and fabric and crafting?

Audrey: Our blog has different options that you click the category for each department you want to read about.

Scott: You can set up your categories and everyone can blog. We have a new products blog, Savvy Scoop and just featured an ongoing blog called 14 days of love. We saw a spike because people got attached to the subject. We also create widgets that are a piece of advertising and then the customer can then embed them in their blog and now you are advertising on their blog.

Scott: We did a rewards program that started last week “Passport to Creativity”. I thought we might do 100 per day we did well over that in just a couple of days. We are at 1200 so far. We also use Constant Contact.

is a site I use to develop widgets.

Greg: Do you have a Facebook page? We just started one. How do you determine what you put on your store page?

Scott: We have one for new products and the other is what is happening classes, new project sheets etc… we are considering combining the two. Our new product blog is more popular than the Savvy scoop blog.

Paul: Are all of your blogs in Widget form?

Scott: Yes you can create a few.

Kim: We started a fan page Facebook page for TM.

Mark: Is anyone using Twitter and if so how are you using it for the store?

Newspaper/Posters/Movie Theaters:

John: Are there other things you are doing?

Kim: We are doing a Poster Printer. If you haven’t seen our poster

Rusty: Our newspaper came to us for a 4page full color ad for a 2mo period for $595 and they threw in another full page for free.

Eric: We are finding we are able to negotiate and they have come down on their prices

Chuck: I do quite a bit of advertising 3x14 and 3x18 still dominate the page and now I only do pages that are full color. Roberts runs in the paper all the time. I paid 20% extra to get the page and location I wanted in the paper. I wanted living page 3 and am consistent. We advertise every day of the week Sunday is usually the fullest day. If I am not in the Sunday it doesn’t get noticed at all. I also take the PDF and post it to the website. The newspaper puts it together for me.

Adrian J: We are in our local movie theater and are on 12 screens and we have a leader that goes in there and we change once a month. We advertise kid’s parties.

Paul: We use newspaper ad’s at Christmas and I guarantee page 3A every year and we publicize a week ahead of time in the store to let customers know.

Audrey: We talked about branding in Dallas with Traci. I noticed I am getting Michael’s ads 3 times a week.

Anthony: I advertise in the paper 40-45 times last year in every other week the biggest thing for me is coupons, I blew it up to 24x36 I have 3 of them. The newspaper came to me last year and said we need to get you on line. I am using the newspapers website to drive them to my ads. Readership is looking at the paper for 4 reasons arrested, born, died and general news

Corinne: I worked for a non-profit prior to Mangelsen’s and we utilized the chamber, HOA, new home welcome and builders in the area to gain new customers

Adrian J: We also advertise on the newspaper’s electronic webpage’s. We were on the weather page but people only look at the weather when it is extreme.

Emma: We determined the value in the shiny paper makes the products look better. Remember to keep your branding out there on everything you do.

Cecil: The bulk of our advertising is ROP bases on newspapers backing off on circulation I wanted to run a full page every week and it was too spendy. We negotiated a half price every other week as long as we did not change the content. It is a great way to stay consistent with our customers. It is a color ad and the rest of the paper is not in color. The grocery stores put their ads in on Tuesday and we insert on Tuesday.

Bags and Community Programs

Eric: We are doing a bag promotion 10% off your entire purchase if using the reusable bags.

Jane: We did a food drive and tied the can donations to a discount e.g. 10% for 1 can, 20% for 2 cans, 30% for 3 or more cans receives a discount. We collected 332 pounds of food to the food bank. They shopped for a cause. Tie yourself into a charity. Don and Dana delivered the food to the food bank and they were busier than the store. The Happy Birthday sale we mail 200-250 postcards for Birthdays with 20% coupon and have an 18% return rate.

Keizer and Bender we did a meet my friends and family coupon. . ***In Antioch packets from Rich and Georgeann.

Heather: For the food bank donate your time and energy and partner during the non holiday times.

Scott: We did the discount of bring the food in and received old food. We did a cash donation for discount. The food shelter can buy at a lot better price than we can.

Andrea: Recycled Eco- bag promotion. We have key people in the store that have been given $5 gift cards to pass out in the community to those people they spot carrying the Grass Valley shopping bag.

Kirk: For the in store advertising instead of clearance term it “Manufacturer inventory reduction sale” the perception is that it is not OLD product but a good value.

John: We have 5 screens in the store and at the registers with a split screen. We also went to bag stuffers 2 years ago and have dropped the others and have not seen a reduction. We do more pictures with the newspaper instead of ad featured prices

Trina: We have reduced our print and are only printing once a month and in store advertising. We are also running bounce backs, cash cards, anything you can give them on the way out to invite them back.

Honors Reward Programs

Rusty: We started club of 50 on Tuesdays and it has turned into our biggest day of the month. We give people over 50 a 20% discount, they sign up and receive a card.

Steve F: Tuesday is senior citizen day in our store 55 and over. We did it because Walmart did it and offered the same thing.

Kim: Do you offer it all the time?

Rusty: First Tueday

Trina: Every Tuesday

Betty: Monday

Craig: We started the “Bag Day” 100% organic bag retail $4.99 and give them 20% off

Last Wednesday of the month. We have trained the checkers to suggest that on the last Wednesday checkers will remind that if they
our sales are up 30-35% over last year for these events. We sold 75 additional bags.

Betty: We do a VIP program buy a card for $10 and receive 10% off regular priced items non sale and no antiques. They like the 10% discount.

TV/Radio Advertising

Jeff: Does anyone do TV and radio?

John: We use it some and plan on doing more.

Emma: TV is willing to deal. If you can find good access it does work. The top of the mind awareness works. I spent $4000 in 4Q it was more expensive because of elections. For May, June we want to do a celebration theme. The first week of the month.

Kirk: We do TV in 4Q and keep it generic about our store. Cable and NBC. It works great and we have traded cable time for frame jobs.

Betty: Quincy is 50 years this year and we are celebrating the history of the company.

Pricing Promotions
Chuck: Jim Mount suggested we do 2 for pricing. We tried easels 2/$10 is really effective. We are buying our towels from Indo and Dunroven and price regular $2.99 and sale 2/$5. We did fat quarters 5/$10 and doubled the sales.

John: I read that you should sign it with “in store special” vs. sale

Linda: With my consumer hat on it would appeal to the consumer and you think it could change.

Marion: I have my fat quarters 5/$10 but I take it off and put it back on.

Adrian J: We did our 75th B-day sale and we did a Founder’s Day sale and doubled our sales and I was on the floor and talked to people all day and it created excitement. We did it this year too but did not plan it as well but it was still good.

Email Blasts and Sign Ups
Greg: Email blasts we ended up allowing guests to sign up for specific categories that appealed to them. When we send it out to people that request specific categories we have 40% open rate.
20% open rate for email blasts. The national average is that .5% of your email blast lists un subscribe to your email if the ads do not appeal to them. We have 10-15 people a day sign up but every time we have an email blast go out we have 30 people drop out. Email general blasts 30 people drop out, if we send by category we have 5 people drop out.

Paul: We offered .40 a head for each person our staff turned in email addresses and we gave them a $20 gift card for every 50 people they signed up. Our drop off was minimal.

Shirley: How are people building their lists?

Jane: We have a pen at the counter and staff invites them to sign up.

Don: We did a sing up raffle for an arrangement for the Jake’s store.

Adrian J: We do a gift drawing. We did a WII give away over Christmas and people really signed up.

Heather: Friends and Family is being treated as an event. I look at those Friends and Family events because you know it will be a good event.

Jane: Not everyone is going out as much so we are using that as an invite to bring them back in.

Neil: What is the average number people are sending out in a month?

Scott, Jane, Rusty once a month

Marketing Campaign for Fall 09

Heather: To speak on advertising. Fall and Christmas marketing that would include ALL that we are talking about today. Not just print but other mechanisms. How to use Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool also events and blog entries that are candid that work with advertising.

We had a great group committee that got together including the Advertising committee, Import members and other volunteers. If anyone would like to participate we invite you. There will be two meetings in Wilsonville that will help pull together the 2 campaigns. Heather, Kelli and Miranda will all be working on this campaign as well as Traci hired as a marketing contractor. She will be funded by the dues increase approved last year. The core photography will be covered with the $500. It is an “all you can eat buffet” pick what you want and use it how you want.

Wilsonville tied in with the spring import we would like to have a launch party to talk about all of the things that are available for marketing campaign. $500 covers a piece of what will be offered we will also be using vendor revenue. There will be a lot of ways to use it. This will be a full marketing campaign including project sheets, events, photography and

FABRIC and PROJECTS facilitated by Adrian C
Ricki: Back in 2002 and were doing the block of the month program with the group and we sold 200 kits @$200 each and had the rights to the program for 6 months. This summer I invited guest to bring in projects and we are doing the Harvest Song 2009 program by Jackie Robinson and just changed the fabric.

Emma: We do not reinvent the wheel we just changed the fabric and layout. And it is our Heirloom Blooms with family tree fabric from Benartex.

Ricki: I designed Pursenalities (3rd printing) and Pursenalities Too using placemats and Private Eyes apron pattern. I had one store that sold 400 books the consumer bought (SPC Price is $5.00) both books and had brought in their purses and displayed them. The voters each put dollars in their favorite purses and raised money for charity. I went out for a signing and had 50 people, for the book signing.

David: The fabric wrapped canvas and ribbon is still a profitable project for us and sells the brads, pins, etc.. We are also stocking canvas in our fabric department AND metal sheets and turning them into a magnet board

12”x12”, 14”x18” and 16”x20” all work well. People are doing head boards and creating panels and we are seeing increases. We do 6 different models each month and sell the samples. We are getting the embellishments from PA. We are putting the 12” metal in the canvas and you can use metal flashing from Home Depot in 4”x6”.

Trina: We put ours in a frame with cork and fabric and canvas. ***In packet
Neil: We do not have a number but we are doing a 10’ program in the fabric department and is a good lead for crafters into general. We have 6 at all times and every month they change into the newest fabric line.
Mike: Is there a demographic?
David: It started out as a girl’s room project and now has evolved into any area and a lot of seasonal interest.

Neil: Shannon Fabric animal prints we picked up after the fall meeting and talked about it at Dallas.
Mike: How are the dots doing? 323-234-5252 phone number for Shannon Fabrics. ***Negotiated 10% off everyday pricing on going and for orders booked by March 30th receive free shipping. Direct your orders to Arvin at Shannon Fabrics. For advise on colors/prints that sell well contact Emma (POC), Audrey (IF), Jayna (MONROE) and Michelle ™. Orders may be stacked with future ship dates for free shipping.

Neil: I do not have reports for it yet. We are selling a lot of Amy Butler fabric.

Michelle: we have done well with the cuddle fleece from Shannon Fabrics

Melody: In our packet we have a 24x24 project and used the charm pack and wrapped the chipboard tiles in charms and attached to the canvas for a great wall hanging.

Linda/Audrey/Emma: Want to tie into the Shannon Fleece and we have examples using tied blankets with flat cotton and fleece. ***Emma to send Kelli project sheets. Pairing cotton with Minkee reduces the cost. And attracts the customer that is not a quilter. Shannon Fabrics ships in 3 days. You want the cuddle fleece that is 5.

Chuck: I grabbed 10 months of sales from Rexburg and we bought $22,000 line. 30-40-50 stores could potentially be on board. Cost is $6.95-$7.95 yard. $8 for prints per yard.