So…
in a recent post, I told you about some of the things that worked well for us this year, as well as some of the things that didn’t quite go as I had hoped. And now, with our 2017 assessment completed, I’m ready to detail our goals for the new year, 2018.
1) Our Show Schedule for 2018-
Since it’s for sure that once again we will NOT be traveling to Spring Quilt Market, this year in Portland, OR, I’m once again researching our options for our 4th retail show. You might recall that last year we picked up the AQS Daytona Beach show, and even though it was an OK show, I’m not sure it justified that long drive. So that means I was STILL on the hunt for a terrific East Coast show. Just like last year, we were hoping to get into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA but since
I knew right upfront that I wouldn’t find out if we would get into the MAQF until early December, I signed up for the brand new AQS Virginia Beach show which will be held in early October. But then guess what? We found out a few weeks ago that we would in fact be extended an invitation to the MAQF so….. we’ll be adding that show to our schedule as well and we pretty pumped about it. I’m thinking that we’ll evaluate our performance at each show and keep the show we have the best return at! 🙂 So with that in mind…
Here’s our final 2018 Show Schedule!
Road 2 California– Ontario, CA- Jan 18-21, 2018
Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival– Hampton, VA – February 22-25, 2018
AQS Quiltweek Paducah– Paducah, KY- April 18-21, 2018
AQS Quiltweek Virginia Beach– Virginia Beach, VA- October 3-6, 2018
International Fall Quilt Market– Houston, TX- Nov 3-5, 2018
International Quilt Festival– Houston, TX- Nov 8-11, 2018
2) Give a larger booth a try! We’ve tried a host of different layouts for our booth but here’s the deal… We haven’t changed or increased the SIZE of our booth since the Fall of 2009. Oh, we’ve toyed with the idea of trying a larger booth but it’s always been difficult to justify the extra expense as long as we can fit everything we have into a standard 10′ by 10′ area. But in order to get our foot in the door at the MAQF we had to accept a 10′ by 15′ booth, which of course we did without hesitation. First of all, the extra cost was easy to justify just to get into this show and secondly it gives us a really good excuse to give the larger area a try. Who knows… we may love it so much that we choose to incorporate the extra size at ALL of our shows? So stay tuned for the outcome! By better still…. if you’re on the East Coast, come see how it turns out in person!
3) Add a new zipper option to our line. So we haven’t added a new zipper option to our product line for almost 18 months, mainly because I just didn’t have an inspiration. Adding a new print or color is both a risk and an expense so I don’t do it lightly, but at long last I think I know how I want to proceed so stay tuned for the big unveil which we’ll be doing soon, probably in late January!
4) FINALLY figure out Instagram! For two years I’ve been trying to gain traction on Instagram, but any progress I’ve made in this medium has been slow and hard fought. Maybe this will be the year? I’m not holding my breath that’s for sure, but I’ll keep plugging at it, because I hate to give up on ANYTHING!
5) Our other business goals are pretty much standard from year-to-year, ie;
publish two new patterns
add any necessary new hardware to our line
publish a newsletter every month along with a handbag of the month contest.
So…there you have it.
That’s what we’ll be shooting for this year! But hey, if you have any comments, or suggestions for us, especially zipper suggestions or ideas about how to grow our Instagram following, please feel free to leave them in the space provided below.
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