
A Girl and Her Dragon – Marketing Part 2
Jan 25, 2017Posted by Kylie HThis blog is part of a two-part series on how I’ve approached marketing A Girl and Her Dragon Pizza.
Last month’s blog ended with an overview of my first tentative foray into catering marketing. I listed the almost disturbing number of promotional items and random surfaces I’ve put my logo on, from t-shirts and tablecloths to tents and aprons (we recently bought two foot by one-foot car magnets as well). If I haven’t already scared you off (the giant logo emblazoned tent might have been a step too far), then read on to hear about my website and my recent attempts at Facebook marketing.
I am seventeen years old, a G-Zer. Some of my earliest memories involve clicking my away around the computer: turning in homework, making art, and patiently explaining parent lock features to my mother and father. What I’m trying to say is that I know computers, but unfortunately, I in no way understand graphics.
At first, I tried programming my own website using some very basic HTML skills I’d picked up at camp a couple of years earlier. The site worked, but it was awkward and strange looking (much like my first attempt at a logo), so I admitted defeat and went to a site called wix.com, which allows you to create websites from templates.
I spent a couple days writing blurbs, finding photos and tweaking line thicknesses (there were so many, I don’t know why there were so many. How many different line thicknesses does one site need?). Then I showed the site to some of my more design-oriented friends and relatives, waited until they stopped laughing/cringing (sometimes this took several minutes), and made edits.
With time, the blurbs sounded less forced and more authentic and the site layout seemed more professional and standardized (the photos, unfortunately, remained the same, even the ones where I had braces and thought fuzzy hoodies were the height of fashion). When one of my mom’s friends, a professional graphic designer, looked it over and only winced once or twice, I registered my domain and pressed publish!
I’ve continued making edits over the past year or so. Better pictures, more testimonials, even a video! It requires a significant time investment, but it’s definitely worth it. Most of my jobs come through that site, as people stumble across it in search of a caterer and then use the website to contact me. My one regret is that it took me so long to put together because for a while I didn’t have anywhere to send customers looking for more information.
Now, while a website is a great way to inform customers about your business, one also needs a way to attract potential patrons and make them aware of your existence. Fliers, radio ads, sneaking into their homes and putting personalized magnets on their refrigerators (hey, all of the industry giants do this. Did you really think you brought all of those auto repair magnets into your home willingly?). Kidding aside, I primarily service the Silicon Valley, so it’s only sensible I take advantage of one of our industry giants: Facebook.
My dad, a big believer in the power of aggressive marketing, had been urging me to try out a Facebook ad for a couple of months before we sat down and created one together. By then I had some good promotional videos, short clips of me cooking pizza, setting up tables, and interacting with customers so I was able to include something more interesting than a still image. We set our geographic constraints, the target age, agreed to pay $50 for 14 days of advertisement and sent it off.
I pretty much forgot about the ad, too caught up in essay revisions and finals prep, but little reminders kept trickling in. Friends of my dad (who is quite active on Facebook) occasionally announced that they’d seen the ad, and relatives liked it. At the end of two weeks I received a quick email from Facebook’s ad services, and my eyes bugged out of my head. My advertisement had been viewed by over 4,000 people (which is quite average for a Facebook ad, but I expected it to be something in the low hundreds, so I was very excited). It remains to be seen whether or not business picks up after our advertising blitz, so my dad will have to wait a few months to vindicated (or not ☺). However, with the holiday season upon us, we’re going to have a busy month no matter what!