Michael Caston - Marketing Plan2

CAMIC designs LLC - Entrepreneurial Marketing
Ballet Gift Shop
Marketing Plan 2016 - 2017

I. Company History
II. Company Details
III. Opportunity Identification

IV. Customer Analysis
V. Survey Results
VI. Product Performance
VII. Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
VIII. Fundraising Services
IX. Marketing Strategies
X. Conclusion
XI. Works Cited
Table of Contents

Company History
6577 S. Clarkson Street
Centennial, CO 80121
(303) 794-3630
camic@camicdesigns.com
www.camicdesigns.com
CAMIC designs LLC is the parent company of the brand “Ballet Gift Shop”, which is the focus of this
marketing plan document. The parent company, CAMIC designs LLC, is a design firm specializing in
product and graphic design as well as packaging design. CAMIC designs was founded by partners
Michael and Cheryl Caston in 2007. Since its founding, CAMIC designs LLC has brought numerous
products to market under several house brand names to include “CAMIC designs”, “Ballet Gift
Shop”, “Nutcracker-Gifts”, “Critter Gift Shop”, and “My Custom Gift Shop”, in addition to a host of
products under independent client brand names. CAMIC designs LLC’s clientele include Fortune 500
companies, independent inventors, and various U.S. government agencies.
During the past eight years of business, CAMIC designs LLC has achieved incremental and steady
growth as a company until this past year. In 2015, CAMIC designs saw a significant decline in
business from one of its major house brands, Ballet Gift Shop.
Ballet Gift Shop is a brand that serves both the wholesale and retail markets in the dance gifts
industry. The brand started with one product, a Christmas ornament, that was available in two
different materials (wood or acrylic) and seven color variations (mahogany, poplar, red, blue, purple,
pink, green, and blue) with 34 different designs for a total of 238 different color/design combinations.
The brand has since grown to over 50 different products with over 200 different designs for a total
of over 1,000 SKUS in a number of variations, product/design combinations, not to mention color
options. In addition to this, a majority of the products are offered with the free option of adding
custom text (up to 40 characters for most products). A majority of these products are designed
and manufactured in-house, while other products are manufactured in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma,
Missouri, Wisconsin, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, and
Massachusetts products. Ballet Gift Shop strives to have all products and the supplies that go into
the products be 100% “Made in the USA”. This passion for US-made products originates from the
owners and can be connected to the time period in which the business initially launched. The year
2007 marked the beginning of the recent recession and an re-emphasis in the manufacturing industry
for “on-shoring”, which is the process of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. CAMIC designs
joined this movement and has helped to perpetuate it by sourcing American-made supplies and
products.

Mission Statement:
CAMIC designs LLC has a mission statement:
“To make the world a better place and improve
lives through thoughtful, high quality design”.
Company Goals and Objectives:
CAMIC designs LLC desires to enrich people’s lives through design. We achieve this by investing
in projects that we believe to have a positive impact on this world and quality of life. We desire to
continue to be a small and agile business, but to grow to a company that employs 5-10 full and part-
time employees with gross sales between $1 and $2 million annually.
Business Philosophy:
CAMIC designs LLC believes in high quality products that are designed with empathy, delivered with
compassion, and backed with responsible responsiveness.
Company Strengths and Core Competencies:
The founders of CAMIC designs LLC have a combined 25 year history of experience in business,
product and graphic design, engineering, website design, marketing, search engine optimization,
manufacturing, distribution, and sales. Michael holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and
Spanish and a graduate degree in Industrial Design. He is currently enrolled in an MBA program
focusing on entrepreneurship. Cheryl holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Design and
Graphic Design and a graduate degree in Industrial Design. In specialty areas that CAMIC designs
LLC does not have experience in, they have contracted out through the company’s large industry
network. Currently, there are four contractors working for CAMIC designs LLC with skills in ideation,
metal fabrication, medical equipment design, automotive design, customer service, distribution, 3d
modeling and rendering.
Legal form of ownership:
CAMIC designs is a Limited Liability Company, organized in 2007 as a 50/50 partnership between the
founding members: Michael Caston and Cheryl Caston. An LLC was selected because of the lawsuit
protection, tax benefits, deductible employee benefits, and perpetual duration afforded by the State of
Colorado. Each of CAMIC designs’ house brands, Balletgiftshop, Crittergiftshop, Mycustomgiftshop,
and Nutcracker-gifts, are protected under the CAMIC designs LLC umbrella.
Company Details

Serving a Market Segment: Nutcracker Ballet Fundraising
“No one offers affordable ornaments in designs for all characters of The
Nutcracker Ballet. The children who play the characters in the first scene
don’t have a way to remember their parts. Neither do the children who
play half of the characters in the second act.” When Maxine, a volunteer
in charge of fundraising for an amateur ballet company in South Carolina,
expressed these concerns, an opportunity arose to design for a niche
market that would include small-scale production. The year was 2007 and
design students, Michael Caston and Cheryl Moehlenbrock (Caston), took
on the challenge.
Amateur ballet companies are non-profit groups that provide performance opportunities for children
from age eight through high school. They are often associated with a dance school, where the
dancers learn various styles of dance and how to apply them in performance. The company, not the
dance school, is the entity that puts on various productions throughout the year. The performances
require funds for renting and staffing the theater, purchasing costumes, paying guest artists invited
to perform with the group, and other various costs associated with putting on a performance. Theater
rental fees and personnel fees are high – in the $10,000 to $100,000 range – depending on which
services are needed and the length of time they are required. Ticket sales alone usually do not supply
the necessary money needed to cover these costs (Point Shoes, 2006).
Some ballet companies try to offer scholarships to underprivileged students as a way to diversify their
student body (Tuition, 2008). These students are among the more enthusiastic and dedicated dance
students. Such scholarships might provide the costs of lessons, shoes, and other dance supplies.
These costs can be quite high: a pair of pointe shoes alone can cost between $30 and $83 a pair
depending on the brand and style of shoes. The dancer’s technique, frequency of dancing, and type
of foot can cause a pair of pointe shoes to wear out in a time period as short as only two weeks (Point
Shoes, 2006). Due to the cost of providing dance scholarships, ballet companies can usually only
offer scholarships to a few students, sometimes none at all.
One way for ballet companies to obtain funding is to apply for government grants through the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA Announces, 2007). This government-funded organization has been
awarding an increasing amount of grant money to ballet companies and festivals each year for the
five out of the past six years; however, when the economy suffers, the size of government grants to
the arts, including ballet companies, decreases (Discount Dance Supply, 2007). Therefore, private
funding and funds raised at performance boutiques, banquets, and sales of donated dance supplies
are often crucial to the company’s existence and its capabilities.
A boutique is a very common fundraiser event. It is a temporary store set up during performances.
Here, goods relating to the performance and/or the ballet company are sold to audience members
and cast members as a way to memorialize the event. Such boutiques are capable of raising large
sums of money for the ballet company, depending on the cost of the items to resell and the appeal
that the items have to their audience. The audience that attends the performances is comprised of
family and friends of the performers as well as dance students from other schools and members of
the local community who appreciate the arts. These make up the customer base for the boutique to
sell to.
Opportunity Identification
Maxine, volunteer

Boutiques will start searching for items to sell for the December Nutcracker performances as early
as January (eleven months prior to the event). Many groups aim to acquire all of their boutique
goods by the end of the summer prior to their Christmas season performance. They search for
attractive items that are associated with the characters in The Nutcracker Ballet and/or with the
Christmas season. They search for products that are inexpensive enough to be marked up for as
much profit as possible. After-Christmas sales, clearance sales, and online Christmas stores are
popular places to scout out, as well as craft stores selling inexpensive materials for making craft
items to sell. A large variety of nutcrackers, candles, dolls, coloring books, Christmas ornaments,
bags, pillows, autograph books, t-shirts, and hand-made items are among the typical goods sold at
a Nutcracker Ballet boutique. The boutiques are usually organized and run by volunteers (mothers
and fathers of the dancers in the company), some of whom are very serious about their roles and
will search far and wide for the best items to sell. Volunteers may look for items in craft or home
goods stores with nutcracker, angel, snow, or candy themes not directly related to The Nutcracker
Ballet, and adapt them by painting, personalizing, or decorating them to sell as Nutcracker Ballet
memorabilia.
Dancers have different roles in The Nutcracker Ballet from
year to year. Depending upon the size of the company, they
may have multiple roles as well. This presents an opportunity
to sell different character ornaments or gifts to the same
people each year. There are generally 35 different characters
in The Nutcracker Ballet. The list of characters varies from one
ballet company to another. Some may have the “Candy Cane”
character while others may have “Russian Trepak” as the same
part. Still, others may not have the part at all or something
completely different. For some more obscure characters, it may
be difficult or even impossible to find gifts or memorabilia on
the market.
Thorough market research reveals that there are not many gift items for all of the characters from The
Nutcracker Ballet. The majority of products out there are based on the main four or five characters of
the ballet. The children who play the lesser-known characters in the production would have nothing
to remember their part by. In addition to there being few character representations on the market,
the majority of the items are manufactured overseas, primarily in China, by people with little to no
experience in ballet. The posture and positions of the dancers are rarely accurate to the discerning
eye – the eye of the dance student or dance enthusiast (the customer and end-user).
One of our biggest competitors that specializes in Nutcracker Ballet merchandise is
NutcrackerBalletGifts.com. They offer a wide variety of gift items based on The Nutcracker Ballet
including plush dolls, snow globes, ornaments, t-shirts, socks and wooden nutcrackers. The items
are made of resin, molded plastic, wood, fabric, and glass. Despite the variety of items, there is still
a lack of representation of many of the lesser-known characters. The majority of the items are based
on the few main characters in the story. Most, if not all of the items are manufactured overseas. Their
prices are quite low and the quality of the products and accuracy of the dance positions reflect the low
prices. These low quality products are being used, often reluctantly, by nonprofit dance companies in
their fundraising efforts during Nutcracker Ballet performances.
Opportunity Identification
Performance ballet boutique

Critical Needs of Target Clients and End Users
RETAIL
WHOLESALE
• PROFIT - low cost products that can be resold to generate profit
• POPULAR - products need to have a high demand with audience members
E.g. event mementos, impulse buys, small essentials, trendy.
These products must appeal to a wide range of customers (dancers age 8-18,
dance moms, dance enthusiasts, etc.)
• CUSTOMIZABLE - memorabilia to commemorate an event
• SPECIFIC - representative of specific parts played in a performance
• AESTHETICS - attractive and accurate in depiction of dance position
• POPULAR - in style and appropriate for age groups
• COLLECTIBLE - can build a collection from year to year
Clients: Retail vs. Wholesale
Retail: 38%
Wholesale: 62%
WholesaleRetail
Profits: Christmas Ornaments - Wholesale vs Retail
Wholesale to Retail Stores: 1%
Wholesale to Non-Profits: 52%
Retail to Consumer: 34%
Wholesale to Consumer: 13%
Wholesale to Retail Stores Wholesale to Non-Profits Retail to Consumer
Wholesale to Consumer
# Sold: Christmas Ornaments - Wholesale vs Retail
Wholesale to Retail Stores Wholesale to Non-Profits Retail to Consumer
Wholesale to Consumer
Wholesale to Retail Stores: 1%
Wholesale to Non-Profits: 71%
Retail to Consumer: 19%
Wholesale to Consumer: 8%
Customer Analysis
These graphs describe the breakdown of our
customer base and sales channels. The majority of
our customers (62%) are nonprofit dance companies
(wholesale) that purchase our products for resale at
performances to genererate funds. The remaining
customers (38%) are dancers, parents of dancers,
volunteers, and dance enthusiasts (retail).
Of the over 50 different product types that we sell, our
Christmas ornaments are by far our most popular item
making up 43% of our profits over the last three years.
The graphs below illustrate the number of Christmas
ornaments sold as well as profitability compared across
sales channels, direct to consumer (retail sales) and to
companies for resale (wholesale).

Customer Analysis
# of visitors
month
Website Visitors April 2015 - April 2016
July 2015O ctober 2015 January 2016 April 2016
150150
300300
O
An analysis of customers reveals that a majority, 85%, of our customers are female with over 50%
falling between the ages of 35 and 54. Ballet Gift Shop customers purchase our products almost
exclusively through our online ecommerce store: BalletGiftShop.com. Since the majority of our
customers are nonprofit dance companies who purchase our products wholesale to sell during
Nutcracker Ballet performances, our sales are very seasonal with the majority of activity occuring
between the months of October and December. There is a smaller peak of activity in April and May
during Ballet Recital season. The sudden sharp peaks visible in the graph below demonstrate an
increase in website visitors as a result of an email campaign.
Age
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-5 5-64 65+
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
4 5
Gender
female male
14.7%
85.3%

Survey Results
A customer survey was conducted via
the web. Of the respondents, 50%
are parents of a dancer and 21%
are volunteers for nonprofit dance
companies. 22% work at either a
dance studio or store. There can
be a lot of crossover between these
categories. For example, parents of
dancers often volunteer at events,
such as operating a ballet boutique
during a performance; and sometimes
parents will even play a part in their
child’s performance.
A majority of our customers are
affiliated, in some way, with a non-
profit dance company and many
are buying our products to resell for
fundraising purposes or to give out
as cast gifts from the dance company
to the participants or even audience
members.
Most of our customers (95%) are
using at least one type of social
media with Facebook being the most
popular. Ballet Gift Shop has active
social media accounts with Pinterest,
Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler.
Facebook is our most active with over
1,000 likes.
Our customers care about quality,
value, and customization. 67%
of sales are products that include
customized text, color, and designs.
Our products are most often purchased
by parents of dancers in non-profit
amateur ballet companies as gifts to
commemorate dance performances
and other dance-related memories.
Who are our customers?
Dancer: 7%
Parent of Dancer: 50%Dance Store Staff: 11%
Volunteer: 21%
Dance Studio Staff: 11%
Dancer Parent of Dancer Dance Store Staff
VolunteerDance Studio Staff
Which social networking sites
do you use frequently?
Facebook
Twitter
Google Plus
Pinterest
Tumbler
Instagram
None
Facebook Twitter Google Plus Pinterest
TumblerInstagramNone

Survey Results
Our customers are primarily finding us through
a web search. Common search terms that we
rank well on include:
• nutcracker ballet fundraisers
• ballet fundraisers
• ballet fundraising
• nutcracker ballet gifts
• nutcracker ballet gifts wholesale
• nutcracker gifts wholesale
• dance gifts wholesale
• ballet gifts wholesale
• nutcracker ballet boutique
• dancer gifts
Almost 25% of our customers are learning about our company through their family and friends
and/or through product samples. Each year, we send a customized ornament sample to each ballet
company in the U.S. that performs the Nutcracker Ballet. Our list is constantly being updated to
ensure relevancy.
When asked how likely our customers would be to recommend us to a friend or colleague, results
show a high number of Promoters. With a score of “64”, we are above the national average of “55”
for “specialty stores” (NPS Benchmarks, n.d.)
64NPS
0
50-50
-100 100
How likely is it that you
would recommend Ballet Gift Shop
to a friend or colleague?
How did you hear about us?
Friend/Family: 11%
Product Sample: 11%
Internet Search: 65%
Referral Website: 5%
Magazine: 5%
Ballet Studio: 3%
Friend/Family Product Sample Internet Search
Referral WebsiteMagazine Ballet Studio

Profit by Product: 2013 - 2015 (averaged)
Ornaments: 43%
Books: 5%
Magnets: 4%
Buttons: 8%
Nutcrackers: 8%
Bouquet Tags: 4.5%
Other: 27.5%
Ornaments Books Magnets Buttons
NutcrackersBouquet Tags Other
Product Performance
Product Quantity Sold: 2013 - 2015
3409
5451
3619
2066
1084
1306
706
482
333
578
7
06706 1455
130013061306
442
5395395394824828
64 230
139
159159595955995959
Ornaments Books Magnets Buttons
NutcrackersBouquet Tags Autograph Books
2013 2014 2015
0
2000
4000
6000
As previously discussed, Christmas ornaments make up the majority of both the number of products
sold as well as the total profits for the brand. With over 50 different products, Christmas ornaments
make up a substantial portion of the business and are in high demand. These graphs represent a few
of the higher volume products we sell.

Brand Positioning and Competitive SWOTs
Quality vs. Price:
We’d like to increase our products’ level of quality over time while lowering our production
costs. The perceived level of quality improvement may allow us to charge higher prices than our
competition.
“As-Is” Positioning:
+ Made in USA using high quality materials puts us above our competition on level of quality
- High labor costs
- Slow manufacturing process, older model laser engraver
“To-Be” Positioning
+ Faster manufacturing
+ Use Just in Time Inventory to lower material costs
+ Optimize file setup processes to reduce high labor costs (implementing Obrary configurator)
- Slow manufacturing process, older model laser engraver
Low Quality High Quality
Low Price
High Price
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs
Nutcracker Ballet Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance Supply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe Press
Zazzle
Etsy
The Ballet Gift Shop brand was born in 2007 and since then has slowly built up a following of brand-
loyal customers who have connected with the values behind the brand name. The Ballet Gift Shop
brand represents high-quality, made in the USA products that are as true as possible to a dancer’s
line, form, and expression. Ballet Gift Shop strives to provide the highest quality individualized
customer service, even when it will not directly lead to a sale.

Customer Service vs. Customer Loyalty:
Over the past 9 years, we have developed a small but loyal customer base. We do our best
to offer friendly and prompt customer service. Of course, we’ve had our share of “one purchase”
customers. We’d like to engage with our audience more online, in person, and by phone to try to
increase customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing.
“As-Is” Positioning
+ Provide friendly and prompt customer service
+ Background in dance gives customers confidence and helps them feel connected to us
+ Include 10% off coupon and QR code to customer satisfaction survey in every package
- Phone greeting can be confusing because it is a shared number with our other 4 brands and
webstores
- Long lead-times during Oct-Dec busy season
+ Continue to improve lead-times as much as possible with automation, stock, and Just in
Time inventory
+ Follow up with customers by phone to ask about needs for upcoming fundraising events
+ Follow up automatically by email asking for feedback about their customer experience
- Have custom phone message that “routes” the call to the correct mailbox... (not cost effective
currently)
Good
Customer Service
Low
Customer Loyalty
High
Customer Loyalty
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance
Supply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe Press
Zazzle
Etsy
Poor
Customer Service

Low use of
Social Media
High use of
Social Media
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs Nutcracker Ballet
Gifts
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance
Supply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe Press
Zazzle
Etsy
Low Quality
eCommerce site
High Quality
eCommerce site
Web Presence vs. Social Media Use:
The trend seems to be that an easy-to-use, automated e-commerce site is also more active
on social media since e-commerce platforms often have built-in social media features. We are in the
process of improving our online shopping experience and increasing our social media presence. A
well-designed and easy to use website builds brand credibility as people expect good design and ease
of use today.
+ Just opened a new shopify e-commerce store: more automated and easier for business
owner and customer to use
+ Knowledge of website coding gives us the ability to customize our website to meet our needs
+ Design experience helps us maintain a well-designed website and other marketing collateral
to communicate our value for high-quality products
- Engage somewhat with customers on 4 social media platforms - could be more regular and
content driven, instead of only being e-commerce driven
+ Schedule automated posts to social media once a week/month to save time but still keep an
eye on current events and conversations so we don’t appear to be robotic
+ Develop plan of topics to discuss, holidays to highlight, and conversations to engage in for
the next 12 months - this will guide design of ads, postcards, social media posts,
homepage slideshow images, email campaigns, etc.

RetailWholesale
High Price
Low Price
Kurt Adler
Covet Dance
Dasha Designs
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance
Supply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe Press
Zazzle
Etsy
Customer Base vs. Price:
The majority of our customers receive bulk/wholesale discounts for either fundraising or large
group gift purposes.
- Tried raising prices, but sales have leveled off or decreased so we may have found the pricing
threshold for our market.
- The bulk of our customers are wholesale who end up competing with our own retail website,
but they have the advantage of immediacy to leverage at the dance performance
boutiques which a webstore could never have
- Have our wholesale pricing posted publicly
+ More profit is made from retail customers, so we should try to focus more of our efforts on this
group
+/- Higher prices = more profit in theory, but we risk estranging customers who don’t perceive
the same value that the price communicates
+ Make wholesale pricing private so retail customers cannot view on our website.
- Making wholesale pricing private, means implementing an application process to gain access
to the pricing. This “obstacle” could be a “roadblock” to some wholesalers making the
order process more difficult or impossible

Many
Personalized Items
Low Price High Price
Kurt Adler
Covet DanceDasha Designs
IDanceUCheer
All About Dance
Discount Dance Supply
Ballerina Gifts
Boys Dance Too
Cafe Press
Zazzle
Etsy
Few
Personalized Items
Personalized Items vs. Price:
Personalization is the main reason we include Zazzle, Cafe Press, and Etsy on our list of
competitors. We are the only company exclusively in the dance gifts arena that offers on-demand
personalization of so many high-quality items at low-minimum quantity requirements.
+ 67% of the total products sold are customized at no apparent added cost to the customer
- Customization can require longer set-up times which ultimately leads to higher costs and
subsequent product prices.
+ Reduce customization costs with automated set-up software (Obrary configurator)
+ “Preview” capabilities on our website will allow us to offer a better customer experience
similar to Zazzle and Cafe Press.

Fundraising Services
There are a few companies that provide fundraising services in addition to selling products for
fundraising. One of our main competitors, Nutcracker Ballet Gifts sets up a boutique table at their
local company’s nutcracker performances. They have also written a blog article on their website with
tips on how to set up and run a similar boutique.
For the last five years, BalletGiftShop has been
slowly expanding into the services sector of
fundraising via two main channels: fundraising
tips and fundraising kits. We have been writing
copy for our blog offering tips for fundraising
in order to engage customers and gain new
customers. Our blog posts show up very well
with search engines. Within the blog posts, we
tactfully promote our own products. For ballet
fundraising, we have the most comprehensive
collection of fundraising tips available free to
the public. Our fundraising kits are available
free of charge in print format. These fundraising
kits are used by nonprofits to collect preorders from their constituents in order to be approved for
higher discount rates with minimal risk (since individual orders are prepaid and collectively submitted
as a single order). But, the traditional “pen and paper method” of having fundraiser sellers and a
chairperson keep track of every customer’s details can be insecure and has a high margin for error. If
fundraising were to be available and conducted online directly with the BalletGiftShop.com shopping
cart software, this would result in a drastic reduction of errors while keeping customers’ information
secure.
Research of other online fundraising
companies has uncovered two
primary online fundraising trends:
affiliate tracking and individual
fundraising websites. With the
first, affiliate tracking, a fundraiser
or advertiser is given a unique
link or URL to distribute to their
supporters. When these supporters
use the unique link to purchase
products or refer sales, the website
tracks activity via cookies or other
means to maintain a record of sales
that were referred by that particular
fundraising group. The fundraising
leader would also be provided with a password-protected dashboard in which he/she could keep track
of any referred sales, maintaining transparency for all parties involved in the service and keeping
the parent company accountable. An example of a company that operates this type of interface with
fundraising parties is Mabel’s Labels. Shoppers can select their school/organization from a drop-
down list. When they shop, they know that their sale is being tracked and a portion of the proceeds
(20%) is going directly to the organization that they would like to patronize.
Nutcracker Ballet Gifts Fundraising Boutique
Mabel’s Labels affiliate program interface.

Fundraising Services
CAMIC designs created an affiliate
program with one of our other brands,
CritterGiftShop, in which we have
partnered with over 100 animal
rescues across the U.S. But with no
accessible dashboard for participating
organizations to gain access to
their “numbers” and with minimal
marketing efforts on our part, the
affiliate program has not gained much
popularity in the past seven years
since it has been launched.
The second common online fundraising method that several e-commerce stores use is the generation
of individual fundraising websites with unique URLs for each nonprofit fundraising entity to direct
their customers to. This differs from affiliate tracking in that a full e-commerce website is designed
and implemented for the tracking of orders and income generated. Also included is a fundraiser
dashboard to aid in keeping track of sales. Sales made at product “parties” or during face-to-face
interactions can even be entered in. Yankee Candle and That’s my Pan! are both large home goods
manufacturers that run fundraising websites in this manner. Yankee Candle also provides separate
login credentials for individual sellers from each fundraising group. That’s my Pan! also allows
shoppers to choose if the products purchased will be shipped direct to the customer or together with
other customers’ orders for local pick up.
Critter Gift Shop’s affiliate program interface.
If a company has the money to invest, setting up separate websites can be a turnkey solution for
making the fundraising experience feel personalized and helps the fundraising client to feel as if they
are receiving more attention than if they were only using affiliate tracking. However, the infrastructure
needed to maintain potentially hundreds of separate websites is not within our means at this time.
Affiliate tracking is a more reasonable plan of action for the time being until we have reached a larger
level of sales and growth.
That’s My Pan! offers individual fundraising webstoresYankee Candle has a user-friendly dashboard

Strategies to continue in 2016-2017:
1. Direct Mail: For the past nine years, Ballet Gift Shop has targeted primary customers through a
direct mail campaign. We maintain a spreadsheet of close to 500 nonprofit dance companies who
perform the Nutcracker Ballet every year. Each one of these companies receives a promotional
package which consists of:
• a Newsletter
• a Postcard with discount coupon code
• a Product sample (Nutcracker ornament with custom text of the company’s name)
• an occasional new product sample we want to introduce and push sales
These direct mail packages cost $4.73 for material and labor and $2.60 for shipping and handling
for a total cost of $7.33 per mailing. The average success rate of this campaign over the years has
been between 8 and 12 percent, which is two to three times the national average for direct mail
campaigns (Beasley, 2013). Along with e-newsletters, seasonal promotions, and “product spotlights”
in industry-specific magazines (e.g. Dance Retailer, Dance Teacher, Dance), direct mail has been one
of the primary and most successful means of staying connected with our customers and getting our
products in the hands of the decision makers representing our most largest clients.
Our goal for 2016-2017 is to continue to see an increase of 5% in our response rate from our potential
client base through direct mail (promotional product samples). We hope to achieve this, in part, by
removing entities from our list who have not purchased in the past five years. We will continue to
market to these non-responsive entities through more affordable means, such as, e-newsletters and
e-coupons.
2. Website rebuild: We are in the process of moving our website to a new ecommerce platform that
has advanced functionality in comparison to our old estore. For instance, our previous website was
hand-built from scratch using html coding. Updating the 1,000 plus pages has always been extremely
time consuming. With the new website, updates will trickle down through the page hierarchy almost
automatically. Other features of the new website include better search engine optimization for
organic keyword searches, automated reporting and tracking of leads, better crossover with MailChip
(emarketing) software and other third party services we use, and customization previews to enhance
the shopping experience. We are especially excited about the customization previews which is
something that has been on our “wish list” since we launched our first website back in 2007. Not only
is this convenient for customers (they can choose a font and preview the text on the product before
they purchase), but it will save our company a lot of time and money in the setting up of custom text
files to send to our laser engraver. We used to have to do this manually for each order. Moving
forward, these files will be configured automatically and prepackaged ready for the laser engraver.
The cost for this service is $.015 per configuration, but the savings are $.40 per configuration through
a reduction in labor time.
The website rebuild is well under way and should be completed within the next month. When the
bugs are worked out, we hope to have a 50% increase in web site visits, resulting in an overall
increase of 25% in conversions within the first year. The additional capabilities such as tracking leads
that result in sales will help us better fine tune our marketing efforts moving forward.
Marketing Strategies

Marketing Strategies
New strategies to implement in 2016-2017:
1. Increase Facebook Advertising: Demonstrated earlier, the most popular social media website
that our customers are engaged with is Facebook. We have invested in Facebook’s ads intermittently
over the past year, but tracking sales has been challenging and we have not been aware of our actual
return on investment Within the past few months, we have transitioned to a more advanced e-commerce
platform (Shopify) and now have the capabilities to pull reports on our referred sales. Moving forward,
we will implement a Facebook ad campaign with an initial budget of $200 a month. We would like to see
3-5 wholesale orders generated per month (averaged over the busy season) from this investment. If
successful, the monetary investment will be adjusted on a quarterly basis.
2. Capitalize on Organic Search Rankings: Our organic search traffic had been artificially inflated
before Google’s updates to their algorithm (Panda 2011, Penguin 2012, and Hummingbird 2013). This
was achieved through the employment of several SEO companies. After the updates, our search rankings
have plummeted. As is appropriate, now Google rewards higher search rankings for relevant content and
updated content. For the 2016-2017 season, our goal is to post new content to our social media channels
5 times per week and to post new fundraising advice to our blog once per month. We would like to see
increased engagement with our customers, and a move up the search rankings by 25%, overall, for 20
prespecified keywords.
3. Increase Retail Store Customers: It has been an untested theory of ours since BalletGiftShop
launched in 2007 that we might not be attracting brick-and-mortar retail store customers because we have
our wholesale pricing posting on our website for all to see. We decided to post pricing to capture as many
sales as possible to include wholesale purchases, retail purchases, and retail purchases with quantity
discounts encouraging larger sales. While gift items are not a primary focus for brick-and-mortar dance
retail stores, we believe we can increase our percentage of sales to these customers from it’s current
standing of 1% to 5% within the next fiscal year. To do this, we plan to “hide” wholesale pricing and launch
a sub-website for wholesale customers. This will involve developing an application process to guard access
to the new wholesale website. The challenge will be making this application process as intuitive and easy
as possible for our existing and new wholesale customers.
4. Increase Fundraising Services: Since the majority of our customers (62%) are purchasing our
products for the purpose of fundraising, we want to focus our attention on helping our customers achieve
their fundraising goals by providing a platform in which they can facilitate and maximize fundraising. Before
doing this, we must first find out exactly what our customers’ needs are by interviewing them by phone
and in person. Over the next couple months, we are working to set up a handful of meetings with local
customers and phone interviews with regional customers to ask a number of questions about how we can
better serve them with our products and services. We anticipate that our customers will be in support of
increased fundraising services to include:
The costs of setting up a wholesale-only website and affiliate sales tracking are relatively low with the next
ecommerce platform that we have migrated to within the past month. If our customers are in support of
this new functionality, we hope to have the new website and sales tracking in place before the end of the
summer and the beginning of our busy season (October through December). Once in place, our goal would
be to increase wholesale business by 25% percent in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
• Wholesale-only website dedicated to serve nonprofits
• Affiliate fundraising program with:
- automatic sales tracking capabilities
- a password-protected dashboard for customers
• Planning sessions via phone with a fundraising expert at Ballet Gift Shop
• Follow-up calls after orders have been received to ensure quality and offer additional tips

Conclusion
It is important, especially in a niche market, to be in touch with your customers and their unique
needs. “Niche marketing is all about nurturing a base of true believers” (Donnelly, 2016). If you
can do this, you will have loyal customers who are excited about your product and will direct new
customers to you through positive word of mouth. Having exceptional service plays a big role in
achieving this. Jake Jabs said at a recent event on the Auraria campus in Denver, Colorado while
addressing a crowd of students, educators, and entrepreneurs, “provide the best service and people
will recommend you to others”. The first step in providing good service is to be intimately connected
to your customers. In the coming months, Ballet Gift Shop plans to reconnect with its customers on
a personal basis by visiting them at their physical locations and spending more time on the phone
listening to them describe their needs in order to gain new insights into providing quality products and
services to meet their needs.
We hope to achieve a more inclusive product-market fit through the expansion of our fundraising
services to ultimately establish a more comprehensive, supportive, and robust framework to better
assist our fundraising customers in their fundraising goals. The more successful our customers are,
the more successful we will be. It really is a team effort!

Beasley, L. (2013, June 13). Why Direct Mail Still Yields the Lowest Cost-Per-Lead and Highest
Conversion Rate - Online Marketing Institute. Retrieved April 12, 2016, from https://www.onlinemar-
ketinginstitute.org/blog/2013/06/why-direct-mail-still-yields-the-lowest-cost-per-lead-and-highest-con-
version-rate/
Discount Dance Supply. 17 Sep. 2007. Discount Dance Supply, http://www.discountdance.com
Donnelly, K. (2016, April 1). How to Use Niche Marketing to Build a Business from the Ground Up
– Shopify. Retrieved May 01, 2016, from https://www.shopify.com/blog/114592069-how-to-use-niche-
marketing-to-build-a-business-from-the-ground-up
“NEA Announces Latest Arts Participation Survey Results.” 26 Sep. 2007. American Music
Teacher. August-September 2004. Music Teachers National Association, Inc.
NPS Benchmarks. (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://www.netpromoter.com/nps-bench-
marks/
“Pointe Shoe Buyer’s Guide.” The Ballet Life. Sep. 2006. http://www.geocities.com/pointe2me/pointe-
buy.html
“Tuition for the 2008-2009 Season.” Augusta Ballet School. 20 Mar. 2008.
http://www.augustaballetschool.com/tuition.html
Works Cited

Michael Caston - Marketing Plan2

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