Gift Basket Business Blog

Want to Increase Spring Gift Basket Sales? Bring Customers to Your Site!

February 8th, 2009 at 01:38pm Lorie Obernauer

I was thinking about how to encourage your customers to buy Spring baskets, and while browsing through some on-line trade magazines, I read an interesting story. A study conducted by MerchantCircle, the largest social network of local business owners in the nation, shows that “a merchant who has written one blog sees an average of 30% more traffic to their website”. Full Story

So what do blogs have to do with increasing your Spring basket sales? This may sound overly simple, but you first need to get customers to your web site so that you can entice them to buy your gourmet baskets.  And one of the best ways to increase traffic to your web site is to create a blog.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with blogs and the way they work….well, you’re reading a blog right now! According to Wikipedia, “a blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video”. MerchantCircle defines a blog as ” a web log” or an online diary, which is increasingly being utilized by business owners to attract new customers through unique, business-related content that is indexed by search engines. When consumers go on-line to research a particular topic, internet search engines “find” web sites that mention that topic.You can create your blog so that it’s part of your web site. Or you can create your blog as a separate web site, then include links to your web site where your products are featured.

So what are some topics that a gift basket owner might write about? First, you need to think like your customers: what might they search for when they go-line?

• For many holidays, people go on-line to look for “unique holidays gifts”. The gift basket business owner might write about how people from different back rounds celebrate those holidays, and how a gourmet gift basket fits into the celebration.
• Use the blog for direct advertising: share information about your businesses, the services you provide (and how that benefits customers) and the products you carry.
• Blog about community events and how your business gets involved in these events.
• For your customers who have their own businesses, write a blog about how gift baskets can be used as thank you gifts or why they might want to send a gift basket to a solicit new business.
• If a lot of your customers have kids in college, your blog entry could describe gift baskets that can be sent to students during exam time.

The better you know your customers, the more you can customize your blog entries to match their needs and interests. And of course, every blog entry should include a link to your e-commerce web site so that readers have a chance to see your product line.

There are many books available to help you learn more about blogging. One of my favorites is “Blogging for Dummies”.  You can also spend some searching the internet: search for “gift basket blogs” and you’ll find quite a few that can give you some idea of what others are doing.  Concentrate on bringing customers to your web site, then you can “wow them” with your gorgeous designs.

Entry Filed under: Business Tips, Gourmet Gift Foods, Holidays, Marketing, Web Site Ideas