Blue Eyed Sun

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Card Industry News

  • 14 Things I've learned on The Greeting Card Project

    #TGCPDespite my best efforts to focus on the journey rather than the outcome of my YouTube channel (The Greeting Card Project) I have found myself distracted by the numbers of late.

    Whether you set up a Facebook page, Twitter Account, YouTube channel or add Google Analytics to your Website, those cunning geeks from silicon valley provide you with a raft of information on how your particular digital poison of choice is performing. In the case of YouTube, you get to see the number of views, minutes watched, average view duration, likes, dislikes, shares and subscribers. The list goes on.

    I guess the idea of this is to have some KPI’s (key performance indicators) that will help you measure the success or failure of your channel. Which is fine, so long as you define the success or failure of your particular project in those terms. Last month, my dashboard was full of red downward pointing arrows (with the exception of my dislikes which has a perky little green arrow pointing upwards). As a result, I have been doing some real soul searching with regards to my project.

    Here are things I’ve learned personally whilst producing The Greeting Card Project so far this year:

    1. My fears have indeed been realised: A weekly video visiting different card shops is time consuming to make, load up to YouTube and share on social media (4-8hrs per video on average - even if all done on your phone). Don’t do it. Seriously. You have to be nuts to add this to your workload. Especially when the jury is still out on adoption rates of new tech by our industry (I still cannot get over how many business don’t have a simple web page).

    2. Your friends will only watch so many of your videos to support you. I have been paying it forward in our industry for a number of years now and have helped a lot of people. I’ve been speaking at the Ladder Club since 2004 and serve on committees for the GCA and the Giftware Association. Even with an army of support you cannot expect people to stay and engage without quality content that’s relevant to them or their friends and followers.

    3. Going into shops and choosing cards and talking about who you are sending them to might not be interesting enough to get more than 200 views per video on average. I need to accept this or evolve. It’s enough that I personally find it interesting visiting different retailers, selecting and buying different greeting cards, and working on my relationships. Numbers are not the only thing that matters to me.

    4. Weekly watching is as much of an ask for people as weekly video making. Peoples’ time is more precious than ever. The videos must be really good as they compete with so many other things vying for attention (content that’s funny, cute, weird or emotional). Note to self: I must get more kittens into my videos.

    5. I need to truly understand my 'why' on this project and project it even more clearly than I do. I believe card sending can help us to feel closer to one another. I do feel that the message I am broadcasting is important.

    6. Let’s face it, card sending is a pain in the backside compared with the ease of social media and texting. Honestly. If you don’t believe me, join me and send more greeting cards every week. You’ll see. Don’t be cheating with franking machines either. Buy stamps every time. Card sending is time consuming, expensive and laborious and you often don't even know if your card arrived safely through the post.

    7. When the card does arrive, it can feel really wonderful for the recipient, perhaps because we all know it's not easy to choose, buy, write and post a card (the feeling the recipient has is what keeps me going).

    8. Expecting positive reactions to a card, gift or video makes it all about me. The true purpose of a gift is that it is about the recipient, not the sender. You need to let yourself go and focus purely on the other to truly give. True love is a love of giving.

    9. I'm stubbornly sticking to my New Year's Resolution to do one video a week for the project this year. This is despite my better judgement at this stage. I feel that quitting this goal is a bigger personal failure for me. Discipline is key to success.

    10. It is unhelpful to me to measure the success of The Greeting Card Project in terms of views. If views plummet to next to nothing then it can seem like failure. Having said that, failure can be an important part of what builds our experience. Experience helps us make better judgements in the future.

    11. I'm seriously doubting the concept of being Open, Random and Supportive (ORS) at this stage. This is a driving principle for me in doing my project and something I am testing. The project is not about my business. Every week I promote my competitors cards by choosing them in the shops I visit. I’m also giving my competitors a free sales lead by promoting retailers to them each week. It might seem a little crazy, but it also feels incredibly liberating not worrying about this. Control is fear based. I refuse to live in fear. I have to let it go.

    12. Interestingly, people that I promote in my videos won't necessarily share the videos online. I don't understand why this is... yet. So far I’ve been assuming it's because they are just too busy or haven’t seen them (despite my emails and tagging on social media). It may be that they don’t trust my intentions, they don’t understand what I’m doing or they don't see the bigger picture. i.e. We are all in this together.

    13. Up to half of the shops I visit have zero web presence. Not even a simple website, never mind social media profiles (i.e. free websites). This is making each video harder to share to the niche greeting card audience that might be most interested. Websites and digital marketing are a must for small businesses.

    14. I'm becoming obsessed with post boxes. I love them. I love their bright red colour and the variety of types of them. What’s that all about? I'm working on a special post box episode for later in the year. A love of something so mundane is a source of genuine surprise and amusement to me. It’ll be postage stamps next!

    This month, the numbers on my YouTube analytics have really been challenging my reasons for doing this project. Yet the numbers are arbitrary in many respects. They don’t really matter. For some strange reason The Greeting Card Project is all I want to do right now. Making these little videos about cards. I feel it in every part of me, compelling me forward. Like it’s bigger than my company, bigger than myself.

    I’m so grateful to you for reading my blog. If you’ve watched even one of my videos or taken the time to offer feedback - thank you so much. I love what I’m doing. It really is the journey and the interaction with people along the way that makes all the difference to me. Do watch the videos though. Seriously. I’d be lying if I said the number of views didn’t matter at all.

    Watch all the videos on Jeremy’s blog at www.blueeyedsun.co.uk/blog/tgcp

    Subscribe to The Greeting Card Project on YouTube

    Discover why I started The Greeting Card Project

    Five ways to improve your retail business

  • The Greeting Card Project - April Review

    The Greeting Card Project - April ReviewThe Greeting Card Project is my year of sending more greeting cards and recording a video diary of my experiences, the shops I visit, the cards I send and my own personal journey.

    This month I experimented with shorter videos and have trying to group the occasions that I'm exploring and buying cards for. Click on the images to watch April's videos.

    I have quite a few friends with birthdays at this time of year, so I visited the Southampton Row branch of Cards Galore in London to see if I could find some nice birthday cards.

    As part of National Stationery Week I shopped at First Stop Stationers in Reigate for New Home cards this week. There was a good selection of great publishers in this shop.

    Thanks to The Greeting Card Project I visited the gift shop at RHS Wisley and bought and sent my first ever Easter Cards. They had an egg-cellent greeting card selection!

    Sadly, I had three separate friends suffer the loss of a loved one this week and I found myself making a video about sympathy cards, the most difficult and yet the most important cards to send.

    This week I visited an independent shop in Greenwich called Postmark. I love it when shops have space for customers to write cards and this shop even has a little letter box for posting them.

    The fourth month of the channel had 896 views with viewers watching over 24 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 1:37 per video. The channel gained 13 more subscribers,  34 shares and accumulated 47 likes and 3 dislikes. The total lifetime channel views is now 4,391.

    If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to YouTube and subscribe, as I need 11 more subscribers to get to 100 and get a specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner and my new personal Instagram @JeremyCorner.

    Where possible there are hyperlinks to all of the featured companies beneath each YouTube video.

    March Review of #TGCP

    February Review of #TGCP

    January review of #TGCP

    Learn why I started #TGCP

  • 5 Ways to Improve Your Retail Business

    5 Ways To Improve Your Retail BusinessI'm now a quarter of the way into The Greeting Card Project, my YouTube channel where I’m sending more cards each week to try and feel closer to my friends and loved ones. I’ve visited a different shop for each video and have been learning a lot about retail with each visit.

    Here are five ways you can improve your retail business:

    1. Websites

    People are already talking about your shop online so you have to make it easy for them to share and recommend you digitally. Most customers that visit your shop will connect to the internet every day. You need to be there for them too.

    Under each video that I post, I add hyperlinks to all the retailers and publishers that are included so that viewers can easily click through and visit from them. Unfortunately I have not been able to do this for all I have visited as some don’t have websites nor any social media presence.

    If you don’t have a website, people like me can’t hyperlink to your business and you aren’t able to maximise your business presence online. Remember that these links add value to your website over time. They’re like road signs on the digital information super highway, all pointing to your business.

    You need these signs and you need a website. You can keep it really simple and it doesn’t have to cost more than a couple of hundred pounds. Using software like Wordpress you can use templates that are predesigned to be mobile friendly. You can always add shopping functionality later. For now you just need a web presence, even if it’s simply a single page with nice photos of your store saying who you are, where you are and links to any social media accounts you use.

    2. Your Brand

    Shops with their logo on their bags have benefited most because their brand features prominently in the videos when I pay for the cards. I love being able to share the shop brands and so do your happy customers. For instance, the other day I overheard a lady on her phone nearby telling her friend that she was in a lovely coffee shop and didn’t know the name. What a missed opportunity that may be happening countless times a day. To be honest, I still don’t know the name of that coffee shop either. Don’t assume that all of your customers know the name of your shop.

    Make it easy for your customers to know your brand so they can share it. Have it up on the walls, on your bags and even on your pricing labels. Add your web address to your till receipts and to your bags so your fans can rave about you online to their friends.

    3. Get Social

    You don’t have to be on every single social media platform that’s out there. Not all your customers will be using these tools. A lot are though and the majority of the next generations of consumers will be using them in some form or another. We all need to plan for the future of our business.

    I recommend Facebook, Instagram and Twitter primarily for strong engagement on social media. I’m also getting a lot of shares on LinkedIn at the moment due to my large network of over 1,300 connections there; people from diverse careers that I’ve met over the years.

    The people who get the best results tend to post daily and have a planned schedule of what they are sharing and how they are engaging. They are not just blasting out their sales messages. They are helping and engaging with others. Always listen first before posting on social media. Choose the right type of engagement for your followers and your fans before starting.

    Initially you’ll benefit most on social media from improved relationships with suppliers. Most of your card publishers are using these platforms and want to share you with their followers. Tag your suppliers in relevant posts so that they can help you to leverage and grow your presence online with their fans. Make sure you allow yourself to be tagged. Some businesses don’t do this and I think they are missing out too.

    Encourage your employees, friends and family to follow and engage with your brand online to help get it going in the digital domain. Each like, share and follow adds to the importance of your business to the Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram algorithms that favour the most active businesses online.

    I have to say that businesses with a website and active social media presence are a lot more attractive to me when choosing who to visit and promote for The Greeting Card Project. I spend a lot of my time and energy on each video, so I’d much rather visit shops that will help my YouTube channel reach a wider audience and get more people around the world sending greeting cards.

    4. The Customer Experience

    Having said that, I’m glad I’m staying open, random and supportive when visiting retailers for this project. That’s because some of the most interesting shops have not had any digital presence. Ironically, these are the ones that I think would benefit most from being online as their back stories are so interesting and their shops are so marvellous. I’m not going to embarrass anyone by mentioning names, if you watch the videos you can probably guess.

    My favourite shops have a mixture of cards and gifts. I prefer trade shows that mix these categories up too as I think you can zone out if looking at too many of the same type of thing. Some supermarkets can feel a bit like this for example. Personally, I prefer the Aladdin’s cave experience, where you feel like you can hunt out treasures for yourself or your loved ones.

    One of the most interesting retail experiences for me was at the Tate Modern which has several different shops that all work in different ways. For example, they have Tate Edit, in which they sell fine art prints and home accessories. As an art collector myself, it was so lovely to be met be a well trained staff member who talked me through the various items with a soft sales approach. Given that purchases in this shop are hundreds if not thousands of pounds, a more refined lifestyle, interiors type of space with a knowledgable sales assistant worked well. It felt more special, exclusive and nurturing.

    Having a mix of products and price points zoned in the right way appears to be a strong way of maximising sales in retail, as are well trained staff who can help customers enjoy their experience.

    5. Be Open Online

    The people who are thriving online are those that aren’t hung up on protecting their own interests and just looking out for themselves. Marketing is different in the digital domain. You are more likely to be following and engaging with everyone in your digital community these days, including your competitors.

    For some this is hard to get their heads around, yet in our industry we all have an interest in encouraging people to send more greeting cards. It doesn’t matter if you are a publisher, supplier, retailer or employee for one of these businesses. It’s one of the reasons organisations like the Greeting Card Association and Giftware Association have been working so hard to include retailers.

    If you are not a member of these associations, I’d encourage you to have a look at joining them. It’s relatively inexpensive for retailers to get involved and they are doing some fantastic work online. Look out for the video I shot of the recent GCA Dragon’s Den style pitching event as a great example of what lovely things we can do if we work together to help one another.

    I’d love your support for The Greeting Card Project too. I need 24 more subscribers to get the vanity URL, which makes the channel easier to share online. Please click here to subscribe.

    Marketing Then vs Now

    What consumers want from retailers

    Seven habits of highly effective retailers

  • The Greeting Card Project - March Review

    The Greeting Card Project - March Review

    The Greeting Card Project is my year of sending more greeting cards and recording a video diary of my experiences, the shops I visit, the cards I send and my own personal and emotional journey. I've had a lot of fun making The Greeting Card Project during March and I'm really enjoying sending more cards. I feel that the short films are gradually improving. I'm also feeling a lot more comfortable in front of the camera. Mind you, it's still a challenge to stay composed when there are other people watching me talk at my phone in public. Here's a quick update on what I've been up to on YouTube this month. Click on the images below to watch the videos:

    I recently attended a GCA industry event and asked different card publishers what their mothers meant to them and why Mother's Day still matters. It was really interesting to hear the different responses. I decided to mix the format up a little bit and experiment on a shorter video that's more shareable, so I didn't visit any shops in this one.

    I enjoyed shopping for Mother's Day cards at Carly's in the lovely historic village of Knowle. I also interviewed neuroscientist Dr Lynda Shaw to find out why it feels so good to use my new Lamy fountain pen to write my greeting cards. This week I created my personal Instagram account to promote The Greeting Card Project and gathered over 150 followers in 24 hours before I posted my first post! Click here to follow me here on Instagram.

    I have written most of the cards I've bought on The Greeting Card Project in capital letters. This is primarily because I feel self conscious about how terrible my cursive handwriting is. Capital letters are very 'shouty' though. Whilst it might work for the words 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY', it's not great for feeling connected as it's a little aggressive and is not a very gentle way of writing. I decided to try and get to grips with my handwriting by talking to Pen to Paper, a specialist independent shop in the North Lanes of Brighton. I also send birthday cards to three friends that inspire me.

    I love visiting the Tate Modern. It is a spectacular building with great views of London and four different shops within. They have an eclectic mix of unusual cards and some from their in-house set up which feature their artists. This week's focus is on cards for friends I haven't seen for a long time. It felt so lovely to reach out to them with a greeting card for their birthdays. I also decided to revamp all of the thumbnails for my videos as I wasn't particularly happy with them. The new ones look much better and will hopefully attract more click throughs.

    I'm not getting as much feedback on my videos this month, so I've started to look further afield to see if I can join more groups of people who like cards and might be interested in my project. I need all the comments I can get so that I can keep making better videos.

    The third month of the channel had 1,008 views with viewers watching over 29 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 1:44 per video. The channel gained 11 more subscribers,  37 shares and accumulated 35 likes and 9 dislikes.

    If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to YouTube and subscribe, as I need to get to 100 subscribers in order to get the specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner and my new personal Instagram @JeremyCorner.

    Where possible there are hyperlinks to all of the featured companies beneath each YouTube video.

    My February Review of The Greeting Card Project

    Read my January review of The Greeting Card Project

    Learn why I started The Greeting Card Project

  • The Greeting Card Project - February Review

    TGCP - February Review

    The Greeting Card Project has been a challenge to fit in this last month, with all of the trade shows I've been at and it being the busiest time of year at Blue Eyed Sun. Here's a quick update on what I've been up to on YouTube this February. Please click on the images to watch the videos.

    I loved visiting Arrowsmiths in Broadstairs, Kent. It is an amazing shop which was a Chemist for the first sixty years of it's life after it opened 1911. It's been a gift shop ever since and the owner cleverly kept all the original fixtures. They make beautiful display cases for the goods on sale. They also have a wonderful selection of unusual cards. I learnt that the experience of shopping for cards is an important part of feeling connected with those that I'm buying them for.

    Good cards for men are notoriously hard to find. I found myself going for humour cards in the end. I also got some lovely reactions from my recipients, which I was able to share in this video filmed at The Card Collection in Bath. I'm a little disappointed that this video hasn't had more views. The responses from my friends were really lovely.

    This week I roped a load of card publishers at Spring Fair into sharing what they like to write in their Valentines cards as well as what messages they like to read in them. It's a fun episode and features a lovely independent gift shop in Birmingham called Smithsonia near the newly revamped New Street Station. Thanks to feedback from viewers I also start using a better pen.

    We recently visited our Italian distributor at a Fiera Milano to support his official launch of Blue Eyed Sun cards in Italy. He has been having great success with a soft launch of our products there over the past few months. I picked up some useful marketing tips from him and hunt down three birthday cards for friends in Milan.

    I've been soliciting a lot of brutally honest feedback from my different groups on social media. It's so useful to hear all of the ideas for improvements as well as the things people don't like. For example, one or two didn't like seeing me lick the envelopes of the cards, so I was able to drop these shots after week three. I'm also using better pens and am working on improving sound quality and overall presentation. All useful stuff and small things I could easily change.

    Other suggestions included a short title sequence that explains what The Greeting Card Project is at the front of each video. I'm working on this and thinking about a logo which was also suggested. One of the most important things about this project is to try and get clear on what I am doing with it and why people should watch it. That is still evolving. I started it because I wanted to explore what cards really mean to us and how simply sending cards can affect our relationships and how we feel.

    The second month of the channel had 1,127 views with viewers watching over 48 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 2:32 per video. The channel gained 25 more subscribers,  31 shares and accumulated 47 likes. I also got my first dislike (thumb down), which is exciting because it means that it's not just friends and family watching now.

    If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to YouTube and subscribe as I need to get to 100 subscribers in order to get the specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner

    Read my January review of The Greeting Card Project

    Why I started The Greeting Card Project

    My first ever video for The Greeting Card Project

  • The Greeting Card Project - January Review

    TGCP - January Review

    I can't believe I made a New Year's Resolution to film, edit and produce a short video about greeting cards each week for The Greeting Card Project on YouTube. I've now made 5 videos and I'm amazed at how easy it is to find reasons to send cards each week. I thought I'd just be buying one card a week, but most weeks I'm purchasing at least three. It's been really fun visiting different card shops and buying greeting cards for friends and loved ones. Here's a summary of the videos I've made this month. Click on the images to watch them.

    In my latest video I learned to get specific about why viewers should watch my videos. I'd come from a business lunch in London with the Department for International trade and a small group of diverse businesses where I'd been asking them how they connected with their customers. Did they send cards for instance? I really do feel like businesses miss a trick just sending emails at Christmas time. These days greeting cards stand out more than ever and are a powerful way of connecting on a personal level with clients. We all prefer to buy from people rather than companies.

    The week before, I explored a shop in London and visited Top Drawer Spring at Olympia trying to track down a tenth birthday card for my son. I created a homemade card for him which he loved. After watching the video of it he he said he wanted to keep it private, so I've removed, edited and reposted the clip. One of the things I've had to get good at is remembering to take nice thumbnail photos before I write and send the cards. It's one of the top tips I picked up from YouTubers Tomohawk and NettyPlays: Spend time making good thumbnails.

    My son often helps me to film The Greeting Card Project and we had a lot of fun making Week Three together. The out-takes were amusing, so I thought it would be interesting to include them to see if they generated more engagement and more shares. It's still early days, so it's hard to know for sure, but those that did watch the video enjoyed it. It is fun. I also noticed that the simple act of sending the cards for three weeks has had a positive effect on my well being.

    It's been 17 years since Jo created Blue Eyed Sun and took her first range of Glass Enamel greeting cards into Malarkey's on Bond Street. The owner at the time ordered her largest special offer and the journey of the business began. You never forget your first customer and it was great to include them in The Greeting Card project this week. I was also reminded that there's something really exciting about popping a greeting card into a post box.

    I've been wanting to do The Greeting Card Project for a couple of years and I kept putting it off because I wasn't sure if people would be interested. I've decided that it's going to be a personal exploration and that what others think of it isn't my primary goal. The simple truth is I want to send more cards.  I want to spend more time focussing on my friends and loved ones. I also want to see if the simple act of sending more cards will change how I feel and how I engage with the world. I do love sending cards. I have done since I was a child. Spending time being grateful and thanking people for Christmas gifts was really lovely and I feel closer to my friends and loved ones doing this. It was also exciting and nerve wracking to make the first video.

    The first month of the channel had 1,232 views with viewers watching over 50 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 2:26 per video. The channel gained 39 subscribers and accumulated 40 likes.

    If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to my YouTube Channel and subscribe. I need to get to 100 subscribers in order to get the specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner

    Read more about my year of video here

    My February Review of The Greeting Card Project

    What is ORS Network thinking?

  • The Greeting Card Project on YouTube

    I'm really excited to present the first video from The Greeting Card Project, my personal exploration into the buying and sending of greeting cards.

    I love people and I love greeting cards, the trouble is I really don't send as many as I'd like to.

    Despite actively engaging with friends on social media, I'd like to feel closer to some of them. So this year I have resolved to buy and send greeting cards and to post a video on YouTube each week talking about my experience to see if the simple act of sending cards can enhance and improve my relationships.

    Please click on the image above to watch my first video.

    I'm looking forward to visiting over fifty different retailers selling cards this year, so do let me know if you'd like your shop to be involved. I'm also hoping to interview a variety of people about greeting card sending, particularly on special occasions. I start this journey at a lovely shop called Quest in Holt, North Norfolk looking for thank you cards to thank those that sent me Christmas presents.

    Please comment on the videos and let me know what you think so that I can improve the videos each week. I'm keen to hear your feedback.

    If you'd like to support the project please subscribe to The Greeting Card Project channel on YouTube and via Google+. I need to get to 100 subscribers in order to get the specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner

    Follow the greeting card project using the #TGCP on social media.

    Read more about my Year of Video here

    #TGCP - January Review

    #TGCP - February Review

    Why New Year's Resolutions don't work

  • 14 Reasons to attend the GCA AGM

    GCA AGM 2016For years I didn’t often attend the GCA AGM. Life was always so busy with the business and one thing or another that I just didn’t prioritise it. I made excuses to myself that it was too far to travel or that the speakers didn’t seem that relevant to me. In the early days I might also have felt like an outsider that didn't know anyone.

    These days I don’t like to miss the GCA AGM and I’ve been thinking a lot about why this is. Last month’s was an especially good one and so I wanted to share some of my thoughts on what makes the annual meeting so special and why you might like to consider attending next year. It’s not just for card publishers, so if you’re a retailer or supplier you may also benefit from reading further.

    1. The Venues

    One of the things I like most about the GCA AGM is the wonderful locations Sharon Little (GCA CEO) discovers for us to all meet in. They are always an adventure in themselves. Recent venues have included the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Design Museum, the Ironmonger’s Hall and the National Space Centre. The 2016 venue was the magnificent Royal Horseguards in London. It’s an incredible Grade I listed building modelled on a French Chateau and steeped in history and opulence.

    2. The Speakers

    If you really want to get to the heart of what we are as an industry, whether you are a retailer, a publisher or supplier the speakers bring it all. I love hearing from leading retailers like Timothy Melgund (Paperchase), John Procter (Scribbler) and James Daunt (Waterstones). Publishers like Andrew Brownsword (Forever Friends) and others who’ve spoken are so inspiring to all of us. I’m always hugely grateful that they have made the time to share their stories, thoughts and experience with us.

    3. The Passion

    The passion in our unique industry is infectious. Hearing Dominique Schurman (Papyrus and Clintons) last year and more recently Giles Andreae (Purple Ronnie, Edward Monkton) really get to the essence of what we do in our business was really moving. Our industry is all about emotional connection. Cards are used to help people to feel more loved, more cared for, nurtured and supported in the world. It is a privilege to be a part of this and you can feel it in the air at the GCA AGM.

    4. The Community

    What other industry has such well attended break out groups in the afternoon where experienced publishers share advice on key subject areas like sales and marketing, product development, brokerage and business development? These are businesses helping competitors within their industry, both large and small. It really warmed my heart seeing these groups contributing to one another after lunch this year. They were all buzzing.

    5. Contribution

    Just by attending you are supporting and nurturing the industry. It’s also so important that our industry leaders attend this event, speak and share their stories and vision. If greeting cards are to survive and thrive it is essential that we nurture and support new generations coming through. It’s not just about the speakers though. It was so good to see retailers like Scribbler, Moonpig and Paperchase amongst the audience. Our association is for our whole industry and it’s vital we all work together to grow it successfully.

    6. The People

    Then I first attended I didn’t know people. It’s such a welcoming industry that it’s impossible not to meet one or two new people at the event. I’ve been fortunate enough to have made some lovely friends in this wonderful industry of ours; customers, suppliers and fellow publishers. It’s so nice to catch up with many of them at the AGM and hear how they are getting on. With my exploration into social media I have been using Facebook more and more for connecting with friends in business. It’s a great way of learning a little bit more about one another and for growing relationships.

    7. Networking

    It’s a word that puts the fear of God into some people and I’ve had an on/off relationship with the idea of it over the years. The truth is networks are important to all of us. The broader and more wide ranging, the more opportunities come to you. Studies have shown that it’s often the weaker links that are most valuable and bring us more opportunities. Although networking tends to be more suited to extroverts, I’d encourage everyone to talk to strangers at these events. You never know where it could lead and what opportunities may arise from a few words with someone new.

    8. Opportunities

    This year’s GCA AGM highlighted several business opportunities for Blue Eyed Sun as I am sure it will have done for others who attended. For some it might be a conversation wth a new supplier, a buyer, an agent or a broker. For others it might be hearing the CEO of Waterstones observe that the proportion of greeting card sales is lower in Waterstones than in his independent group of stores, signalling a focus on growing greeting card sales going forward. I’m looking forward to following our own opportunities up and am sure that the business generated will have been more than worth the time spent attending the event.

    9. Content

    Visiting the GCA AGM also gives me a great chance to discover and share some great greeting card focussed content on my blog and social media channels. My followers on Twitter love to keep up to date with what’s going on in our industry and I get likes, retweets and shares of my photos and posts from the event as well some insightful info from the speakers, which I can use on my blog.

    10. Video

    Recently I have helped the GCA out by videoing the keynote speakers at last year’s AGM and other events. If you missed any of them before I’d encourage you to visit www.youtube.com/GCAClips to watch them online. There are some fascinating insights from key industry figures. My preference is seeing the talks live and being able to ask the speakers questions or chat to them afterwards. If you can’t fit it in for some reason, the GCA YouTube channel is a great backup plan.

    11. Golden Nuggets

    Sometimes it’s one small nugget of information or a passing comment that shifts your thinking on something. This year I found it incredibly useful to hear how Nigel Willcock from Paper Rose analysed the cost of a sales agent visit to a shop versus a sales rep visit. Hearing how much this costs a company on average has shifted my perspective on field sales and the way I think about them going forward.

    12. Face to Face

    There is nothing like face to face meetings to grow your presence in a marketplace. If you want to be known within the industry the GCA AGM is a must. So many of the key players within our business attend and grow their relationships and businesses from there as  result.

    13. Bellwether

    The AGM is also a great opportunity to get a sense of where our industry is at and what to look out for on the horizon. You can see highlights from the GCA market report which is available to buy from £500 from the GCA (it’s free for members). I find it useful just to hear first hand from other companies as to how their businesses are doing and how they perceive the current economic climate.

    14. Attendance is growing

    What’s most exciting about the GCA AGM is that attendance is growing. More and more members are getting involved and engaging with our industry to improve it. This is great for all of us and exciting to be a part of.

    Blue Eyed Sun has been a member of the Greeting Card Association since 2003. Our membership has been invaluable to us over the years, not least for the support and help from CEO Sharon Little.

    What I love most about our membership, besides the great deals and benefits on offer, are the events. Moments in time where we stop working in our business and work on our business. Meetups where we look at the bigger picture and think carefully about the meaning of what we are doing. Places where we can carefully consider opportunities and threats to the card industry. Events where we can grow and learn. The GCA AGM has all of this and more. I hope to see you at the next AGM. Click here to book your place.

    Learn about GCA Initiatives like Festive Friday

    What is Thinking of You Week?

    Find out more about the Ladder Club for new greeting card publishers

    Watch Giles Andreae's great talk from the GCA AGM 2016 below:

     

  • Festive Friday 2016 at Blue Eyed Sun

    Festive Friday 2016 at Blue Eyed Sun

    It's Festive Friday 2016 this week, the day that kick starts UK Christmas card sending. A welcome antidote to Black Friday, when we take time to think of all those we care about and get busy writing and sending them Christmas cards.

    The UK Greeting Card Association launched the Festive Friday campaign three years ago to encourage card publishers and retailers to send their Christmas cards early to help remind everyone to remember to send theirs. There are around 100,000 people working directly and indirectly with the UK card industry. If each of us sends 10 Christmas cards to arrive in the first week of December it will have a fantastic ripple effect from those first million gestures. Last year had a fantastic effect on our industry and we hope that this fun initiative will continue for many years to come.

    At Blue Eyed Sun we've been getting into the Christmas spirit early and held a 'christmas card writing hour' for our team to write and send cards to their loved ones to support the Festive Friday 2016 campaign. We sponsored the cards, their time and the postage to support the GCA campaign. All our team had to do was to write as many cards as they wanted to in the hour. We managed over 200 Christmas cards between us, which will be making their way via Royal Mail over the weekend to their lucky recipients.

    Our team had a lot of fun on Festive Friday 2016 with Christmas jumpers and Santa hats to get us in the spirit. It's a wonderful feeling when we think about all of the love going out into the world from this short amount of time dedicated to card sending and we recommend it to anyone involved in the card industry.

    Even if you are not in the card industry, it is a special time of year to connect with your customers, friends and loved ones. Send them a nice Christmas card with a warm message in it expressing your gratitude and wishing them all the best for the New Year. We hope you enjoy spreading festive cheer around the world.

    Download a Free Toolkit for Festive Friday from the GCA website

    Cards can have valuable emotional impact in your loved ones' lives.

    There are only a few days left to get cards in the post though, so do get started this week. I've listed the Royal Mail's last posting dates below. Want to print this info out for your customers? Click here to download the dates in a PDF.

    Find out more about Blue Eyed Sun's Christmas cards for 2016 here. Available at all good card retailers.

    Festive Friday 2016

    Last Christmas Posting Dates 2016

  • The Ladder Club 2016

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 1

    The Ladder Club 2016 was one of the best I have attended in thirteen years of speaking at the event. This year's seminars for new and aspiring publishers were held at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend-on-Sea and featured a host of greeting card experts to help those starting out or seeking to grow their greeting card businesses.

    Founded by Lynn Tait and now organised by Jakki Brown, editor of Progressive Greetings Magazine the Ladder Club has been an incredible support for so many artists, creatives and newbies for the last 17 years helping them to save time, money and heartache. If you are new to the card industry and have never attended, I would highly recommend doing so.

    Here are some photos and a summary of the two days at the Ladder Club 2016:

    The Ladder Club 2016 - DinnerIf you ever attend the event it's worth staying over the night before and attending the delegates dinner at the Westcliff Hotel. Speakers are seated amongst delegates on every table. It's a great opportunity to network and pick up some informal tips from the experts.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 1

    Day 1 at the Ladder Club 2016 was for absolute beginners and those considering setting up a greeting card business. The day started at 9am sharp with an introduction from Lynn and  Jakki. After the speakers were introduced, Sharon Little the Chief Executive of the Greeting Card Association said a few words about the GCA and why it's worth being a member.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 1Karen Wilson and Claire Williams then gave a wonderful news reader style presentation of the highs and lows of their company Paper Salad. Then Jeremy Corner of Blue Eyed Sun (that's me) spoke on how to wear different hats within your greeting card business and the different ways of thinking needed to run a successful greeting card company.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Suppliers

    After a short break, Julie Brightley from Enveco talked us through the nitty gritty of envelopes. Mark Jessett from GF Smith gave an amusing talk on how to choose the right boards for printing your cards on. Bob Short from The Imaging Centre took us through printing digitally. His son Adam demonstrated their fantastic new online ordering and marketing system called Simplicity. Simon King from Sherwood Press spoke on litho printing. Sharon returned to wrap up the morning's session telling us what to include on the back of our greeting cards.

    The Ladder Club 2016 Day 1

    After lunch we learned about PG Live from co-founder Warren Lomax and Tracey Arnaud who runs the a section of the show called Springboard for new publishers. Jim Bullough then took us through the practical aspects of exhibiting at trade shows. I wrapped the section up with a short talk on how to evaluate the success of trade shows.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 1

    Midlands sales agent, Ian Bradley, showed us the inside a sales agent's brain. Miles Robinson from House of Cards shared the independent retailer's perspective. Finally, Ben Hickman and Mark Williams from Brainbox Candy talked about standing out from the crowd with effective marketing.

    Day 2 at the Ladder Club 2016 was for those who have already exhibited at a trade show or are turning over several thousand pounds. Day 2 is more about climbing the ladder once you are on it.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 2The day was filled with some fantastic talks from Ladder Club alumni. Jack and Hannah Dale of Wrendale Designs who have grown their business from £0 to £2.5 million in four years shared their story and insights. Tish Bas and Hazel Williams from Paperchase gave a large multiple retailer's perspective and answered loads of questions from an inquisitive audience. Jessica Hogarth spoke brilliantly on licensing and copying issues.

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 2

    I shared my experience of export, cash flow and financial growing pains. Mark Coulson from Coulson Macleod discussed warehousing and fulfilment options. Gale Astley, Warren Lomax and Jakki Brown spoke on PR and how to generate sales and leads through PG magazine. The day ended with a panel Q&A session with the speakers and an interesting discussion on price increases that are expected in 2017.

    The Ladder Club 2016 was a fantastic example of the wonderful and supportive nature of the greeting card industry. I loved speaking at it and am so grateful to Lynn and Jakki for starting it. It has helped so many publishers and creatives over the years. If you are thinking about setting up a greeting card business don't miss it next year.

    10 Top Climbers from the Ladder Club

    10 Ladder Cub Alumni on their way up

    The Ladder Club 2016 - Day 2

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