Feel Free To Waste Our Valuable Time

So how does iNSD work when you run a digital scrapbooking store? It is, after all, a marketing event, let's be honest.  It's not rocket science. You get your designers to offer deals in the store and maybe grab bags. You offer generous freebies to your customers. Easy.

OR ....

You send them on a time wasting treasure hunt style blog train to collect letters where one of the designers has hidden the letter so well in a "start here - go there - come back here" blog post that it's impossible to find. I looked. Four times. So customers are understandably guessing that letter and it's wrong. They don't get the kit. They're annoyed. They complain on Facebook. What is the correct response to this in marketing terms?

1) Give out the code, or

2) (Better) Make the kit free for everyone.

Instead they are continuing to annoy people by ignoring them or saying "the code should work".

Customer service tip: When the customer has a problem you provide a solution to that problem, you don't tell the customer there is no problem. If you don't solve the customer's problem don't expect them to spend money in your store ever again. I can't believe I have to write this sort of thing. It's common sense.

iNSD is a busy time for scrappers. Some, allegedly, join in fun stuff. Those of us who run six Facebook groups are too busy looking after our members. And, no, we don't give out your precious codes, we provide a valuable service to stores by promoting their free deals and sending our members to the stores/blog/FB pages to get them. We don't have time for childish games and blog trains to nowhere.

Blog train tip: When you're running any blog train/Facebook hop check that it actually works. That the customer doesn't get stuck in a "Sign up for a newsletter. Confirm it. Get a link that goes to a 404 error page. Do not get link to next stop". How to kill it stone dead. How to ensure that person will immediately unsubscribe from your mailing list. Mailing list management is a big area where designers and stores get it wrong ... article to follow.

It really isn't hard and it comes down to respect for your valuable customers. They work hard in horrible jobs to pay for kits in your store so you don't have to work in those horrible jobs.

FOR GOODNESS' SAKE JUST GIVE THEM A FREE KIT!!!

Latest: Apparently the treasure hunt store changed the code. It then didn't work  for those who had got it earlier. So they had to go through again and get another one. For once, words fail me.