Images Magazine November 18

www.images-magazine.com NOVEMBER 2018 images 27 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT focused – they are not afraid to shop around when it comes to huge savings! ■ Create eye-catching content: Whether it is for your business’s website, social media or a newsletter, creating eye-catching content significantly increases click-through rates. ■ Plan for an upsurge: Ensure your website can deal with increased volumes of traffic. Too many page requests can slow the site down or crash it. Test your website using tools like loadimpact.com to ensure the server that hosts your business’s website can take the strain. ■ Test, test, test: Before any of your promotions, artwork or copy goes live, test your processes and ensure your site is fully prepared and operating as you would expect with the new pages, copy etc. Get another set of eyes from a team member and ask for feedback. Some businesses offer loyal customers ‘exclusive’ early access to a flash sale. This can be used to gain customer feedback and fine tune your offering to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible during the main event. Whether you love it or hate it, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The chances are if you are not taking part, your competitors are. Andrew Langridge is from ETrader, one of the industry’s leading suppliers of websites to garment decorators across the UK. www.etraderwebsites.co.uk BPMA: BRANDED CLOTHING OUTSIDE THE WORKPLACE T he public are now very familiar with traditional corporate apparel such as the polos and shirts that make up many uniforms and are key to maintaining brand consistency. However, most employees are not going to wear these company-branded uniform items anywhere but in the workplace. You can change this by presenting your clients with a range of apparel that their staff will want to wear outside the office, and which will continue to subtly promote the brand or company beyond the workplace. It‘s an extra sale for you and a secondary branding opportunity for your customers that is all too often overlooked. These clothes should represent a lifestyle choice – a garment that the employee actually chooses to wear – with branding that reinforces the item’s style and appeal. With so many choices of garment in the marketplace, there is no need to only present your client with a basic T-shirt or polo for staffwear – instead, offer a quality product that has a point of difference either in cut, style or material. Also, offer them an alternative garment with a high perceived value – for example, an item of performance apparel that uses smart materials incorporating moisture management and odour control, contemporary retail-ready styles made from high-quality materials, or named brands that they recognise from the retail area. The key message to convey to your client is that people like to wear clothing that fits their lifestyle and fashion requirements. If you give them quality apparel with a unique design that they will appreciate, they will choose to wear it and advertise the company‘s brand in their leisure time. Turning employees into brand ambassadors in this way will more than justify the extra cost of using a more desirable garment. L ove it or loathe it, Black Friday and Cyber Monday at the end of November are the biggest online shopping days of the year and offer online consumers the chance to make huge savings in the build up to the festive period. With more and more small businesses jumping on board and offering flash sales, bargains and discounts, you need to ensure your business has the tools to run a flash sale smoothly. Here are a few simple pointers to get you started: ■ Start planning now: Plan your promotions in advance, build up suspense with your customer base and let them know of any upcoming offers and savings in advance, whether it’s in-store, on social media or via an email campaign. ■ Create specific page copy: Ensure your website is optimised with product pages for the products or services you are going to offer savings on. Point customers in the right direction and ensure your user experience is customer Fail to prepare, prepare to fail Clive Allcott is the commercial director for Screenworks and member of the BPMA board and The Branded Clothing Group. If you have a question for the BPMA, please email editorial@images-magazine.com with BPMA in the subject line.