The focus of the sales push was on relationships with retailers. “I wondered what I could do to get volumes up,” says Ms. Cymbol, “to get more retailers to order and sell more product.”
She had worked with IRAP industrial technology advisor Scott Montgomery to identify suitable materials for her baby products. Impressed by her rapid progress and ambitious goals, he recommended the IRAP-CMC management advisory service.
Pauline Patenaude, CMC, of the Calgary consulting firm Marketing Directions, conducted a full review of Goo-Goo Baby’s marketing program. The resulting 30-page report surveyed many marketing opportunities, reviewed existing vendors, collected vendor recommendations and offered a variety of marketing suggestions including retail initiatives, product and packaging alterations, pricing considerations and promotional ideas. It also provided a thorough listing of North American trade shows to consider, as well as a marketing budget.
“Some of the areas addressed jump out at you when you have been in marketing a long time,” says Ms. Patenaude. She recommended regular contact with retailers, for example – email “blasts” with discount offers, more in-person calls from agents to ask for the sale and follow-up to ask for their suggestions or concerns. She also suggested new product displays and point-of-purchase materials to go in the shopping bag with Goo-Goo items, and regular website promotions to clear out stock and promote turnover.
On the strategic side, she recommended pulling back from efforts to break into U.S. markets and that Rea perfect her product and marketing in Canada, where mistakes would not be nearly so expensive. “One of the biggest and best pieces of advice was to pull out of the U.S. and concentrate on Canada,” says Ms. Cymbol. “I was spending a lot but the Americans were not ‘getting’ what we do.”
Rea pulled back on her U.S. initiatives, hired three new sales agents to cover Canada, and assigned a part-time assistant to contact retailers every six weeks to seek feedback and prompt new orders. Ms. Cymbol went to work on many of the report’s other suggestions as well. She selected some of the recommended trade shows, including the Canadian Gift and Tableware Association trade show in Toronto, and created sufficient presence for Goo-Goo Baby with a newly redesigned booth to win the award for best new exhibitor.
The changes have brought considerable success amidst an otherwise bleak economy. First quarter sales for 2009 exceeded all of 2008. “The advice she got really helped her with her marketing strategy,” says IRAP’s Scott Montgomery. “It helped her gain exposure in existing channels and in new venues as well. Now, as a result, her volumes are going up. Her next challenge is to decide whether to stay at a level where she can manage it herself or take it to the next level and hire someone else.”
Ms. Patenaude says that for an energetic entrepreneur such as Ms. Cymbol, the ultimate value she could get from an expert was in identifying areas where she could get the maximum return. “Rea had many ideas and initiatives already, so the danger was in spreading herself too thin. We were able to identify a lot of areas where she could improve what she had already started and get her started on a few really high-return areas such as specific trade shows.”
Ms. Cymbol says in retrospect that she may have been ahead of herself in worrying about sales and volume at such an early stage. “You have to be out there for a certain length of time until people know you and have heard about you,” she says.
But she says the advice she received was invaluable and came at a crucial time.
“Every entrepreneur reaches a point where they feel they have reached the end of their expertise,” says Ms. Cymbol. “You start looking around for the best advice you can get. Through this program, I was able to get top-level marketing assistance that will allow Goo-Goo Baby to reach a new level.”