To say we have a light touch when it comes to marketing would be an understatement. Deb posts pics on Instagram and Facebook when she makes a new soap, and that's about it. For the most part our customers have found us through those social media platforms, word-of-mouth, and shear accident.
This lack of marketing isn't a product of laziness or incompetence. We have two main reasons: first, the world is super-saturated with marketing. We're personally sensitive to it, and avoid advertising whenever possible. We don't want to introduce more to the world. We'd rather have our customers discover our soap and fall in love with it naturally. Those who do become regular repeat customers, and don't require prodding by way of email reminders, notifications, sales, promotions, etc.
The second is self-preservation. We both have successful full-time careers, and have lovingly devoted a lot of our free time to the soap. We're not in a position to make and sell the soap full time. Yet anyway. We're planning on it, but not in the near future.
All that being said, we were approached by a senior designer at Connecticut Magazine, who wanted to mention our soaps in their Handmade Holidays edition. Despite our reluctance to put our name out there, we were so excited. It's not in-your-face advertising (in other words, the reader is purposely looking at gift ideas), and given the local market, any sales we get won't overload us. It was the absolute perfect amount of attention that we could want.
So fast forward a few weeks, and the latest copy appeared in our mailbox. We excitedly flipped through and found the soaps proudly displayed and mentioned in the handmade guide.
I really have to give a great shout out to the magazine. To quote their website:
For more than 45 years, Connecticut Magazine has coupled award-winning journalism with a monthly slice of Connecticut living in a magazine that reaches more than 380,000 adult print and online readers each month statewide.
We've subscribed to this magazine for a while now, and truth be told, it's the only paper magazine we subscribe to. We're always looking for new places to eat and local adventures to go on, and the magazine never fails to deliver.
Thank you so much Connecticut Magazine! ❤
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