Thanks to the credit-crunch/growing-unemployment end of the recession, many small businesses are losing sales and customers. They’re in a crisis situation, in danger of closing. Desperate times call for, well, any measure you can get your hands on. So, I thought it might help you, or a small business owner you know, to revisit a story that I blogged about in April.
A Success Story About Tapping Into a Community
Earlier this year a small business in Minnesota, the St. Paul Cookie Company was facing hard times. Really tough times. St. Paul Cookie needed to boost their customer visits. Quickly. Using good old fashioned email and her blog, the owner, Katherine Novotny, reached out to her loyal customers with an authentic, open email about the company’s financial situation.
Katherine talked about her short term need for customers and cash flow. Both in an email and on her company’s website/blog. She appealed for help to her customers and her network. Word of mouth kicked in as her customers, friends and colleagues spread the messages. Customers began showing up. She found that the community (her customers and friends) rallied around the St. Paul Cookie Company and the company survived. They even now sell online here.
If you’re facing a crisis, what kind of a message can you send to your customers, friends, colleagues? Your community?
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Thanks Cynthia for sharing our story. I think the biggest lesson I learned from that time was how important it was to reach out and connect with our customers. Social media is such a great way to do that, makes it both personal and you become available to your customer in ways never imagined before. Social media allows our customers to see the human side of our bakery and business. Not only does our blog allow us to interact with our customers, we also use both Facebook and Twitter and it has allowed us to reach a new audience we didn’t have access to before, but also get feedback from our customers.