Blue Eyed Sun

Blue Eyed Sun - gorgeous greetings cards

Greetings Today

  • Greetings Today Magazine features Blue Eyed Sun

    Greetings Today Magazine - Blue Eyed Sun

    Greetings Today magazine just featured us in their latest issue. Here's what they wrote:

    Back in 2000, Greetings Today magazine featured a newcomer to the industry in the shape of Jo Corner and her handmade glass enamel cards. Three premises moves later, Blue Eyed Sun’s recent expansion into significantly larger offices and warehousing shows how they’re still growing strongly. Moving into the cloud is this year’s ambition for Blue Eyed Sun MD Jeremy Corner as he’s determined to keep the publishers one step ahead as they look to the future.

    The Blue Eyed Sun team have just moved physically, taking up residence in their lovely new factory at 56 Victoria Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, just up the road from their old industrial units in Hove. And now Jeremy is aiming to move everything digitally too: “My goal is to get digital on most of our paperwork and do the full shift over to the cloud. Paperwork takes up space and most of it I only ever look at when I’m trying to clear out the office!

    “In preparation for the move, we’ve done a lot of clearing, sorting and so on. It’s my least favourite job in the whole world. I get side-tracked with the detail of it and then despondent that I can’t get through it all fast enough. “Despite the distractions I got most of it done when we were moving and I’ve photographed or scanned the paperwork I want to keep and recycled the rest.

    “I kept discovering interesting old bits of paperwork. Like our very first order, our original brochure and a load of rejection letters from top retailers that now stock us. The letters were a good reminder that persistence is one of the things that has really kept us growing all these years.”

    The Blue Eyed Sun story started back in 1999 when Jo Kirby, as she was then, specialised in glass enamel greetings cards that she hand-fired on to small pieces of hand-sanded copper in her childhood hobby kiln at 900°C. The glass pieces were then mounted on to GF Smith boards which Jo sold through her own small shop in York where they were one of her best-sellers.

    When she moved to Brighton, Jo decided to make the cards her new business and sold them into leading retailers such as Paperchase, Harrods and Fenwick as well as design-led independent gift and card shops and galleries. “It was a different time back then,” Jo said, “handmade was really taking off and those with something different to offer really started to do well.”

    Despite making a small profit on her first year’s sales of £10,000, Jo considered giving it all up to become a web designer as the internet was growing rapidly and she wasn’t making enough to live off. She added: “It was difficult to generate enough sales. When I could get in front of retailers, most wanted to buy the cards. I just couldn’t see enough customers on my own and I had no sales agents. “I decided to focus on getting sales agents at Home & Gift in 2001. I was approached by 15 at the show, went with six – and overnight the business blossomed.”

    Soon after, Blue Eyed Sun were shortlisted for a Henries Award in the Best Art Cards category, agents’ sales were booming and the business started to grow rapidly. Another year later and their hand-painted Suncatcher cards won a Gift Of The Year award for Best Cards For Design-Led Shops and, with Jo’s partner Jeremy now on board, they moved the company into their first rented premises.

    Having also got married, the couple soon found they were taking business home with them. “Balance was a big challenge for us,” Jo added, “as the business grew rapidly, doubling in size each year for several years, we found ourselves being all consumed with it. “Even with taking on staff to help and finding bigger premises it was very difficult for us as life partners to prevent it taking over our lives.”

    In 2004 things came to a head when a family friend asked Jo how the business was going and she and Jeremy both realised they weren’t happy with things. Luckily the friend was an experienced business coach and managed to help them work through a personal development exercise that helped them find the work-life balance they were after.

    Jeremy said: “Understanding why you are in business, what you want from it and what your goals are has been so important for us. This is something we have to assess regularly to make sure we are still on track and that the business is suiting our needs.”

    Now with 15 in-house staff and a host of home-based craftworkers, agents across the UK and distributors in more than 15 countries worldwide, BES were recently shortlisted for a Queen’s Award For Enterprise for their export success, have been nominated 11 times in the Henries Awards and been finalists in several small business awards.

    “We’ve been very lucky to have had such success in this wonderful industry,” added Jeremy, “my real passion is helping others. Our blog, social media and speaking at events have all been a big part of this for me.” Since 2004 he has been a keynote speaker at the annual Ladder Club seminars for new publishers organised by fellow publisher and retailer Lynn Tait in Leigh-on-Sea.

    Jeremy is also an active member and current treasurer of the Greeting Card Association council and has also served for several years on the Giftware Association’s national committee where he starts his two-year term as vice-chairman in June before moving on to replace Greetings Today magazine columnist Henri Davis in the top job. Blue Eyed Sun's blog helps retailers and other publishers to improve their businesses and understanding of social media. He also regularly talks at industry events on subjects like export, trends, digital marketing and personal development.

    While licensing with other companies for gift products and card ideas that don’t fit the BES look, an important part of the company’s success has been their strong focus on handmade and hand-finished greetings cards. Jo added: “If there’s one word I like to think of to sum up Blue Eyed Sun’s work it’s ‘crafted.’ I love crafts like enamelling, painting, sewing, knitting and crochet. “As our product range develops this theme will remain at the core of what we do. I’m excited about the potential we have going forward.”

    Having bought their 4,000 sq ft Hove premises in 2006, one of their biggest challenges recently has been finding space to expand. They decided to take the plunge with the acquisition of the new building that’s more than four times the size at 17,000 sq ft instead of outsourcing to a third party warehousing company.

    “Our new premises feel a long way from our tiny bedsit in Brighton where I started our business all those years ago,” Jo said. “It’s a wonderful new environment for our team and is well lit with a good amount of space to grow – plus it has sections that we can rent out in the short term and then expand into when we’re ready. “There are so many new product ideas that we’ve wanted to pursue and just not had the space. It’s exciting now that we’ve finally got it.”

    As Jeremy summed up: “Despite the ups and downs of our journey I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s amazing to create products that are shared at such important occasions in people’s lives. “It’s also a privilege to work with our wonderful team of staff, many of whom have been with us for years and have helped the company to grow. It feels incredible to have a business that now contributes to paying several mortgages rather than just our own."

    See what's new from Blue Eyed Sun

    See more photos of our new premises

    How to get started with Digital Marketing

  • Social Media for retailers - How to get started

    Greetings Today - June2013

    This post is adapted from my Greetings Today Column on Social Media for Retailers published in the June 2013 issue

    In May's issue of Greetings Today we looked at why social media is so important for businesses looking to engage their customers and to grow, this time we’re going to be looking at how to get started on the three biggest social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. We’ll discuss how to set up your accounts, what you will need, things to look out for and a strategy going forward.

    Before you get started, make sure that your website is up and running and focussed on what your customers want from you and what you’d like from them. I suggest having a blog that focuses on your customers interests, but only if you have the time to contribute it to it on a regular basis. Weekly is ideal, but monthly is fine too. The main thing is to be consistent. It's also worth reading through my 10 business basics to get right before you start using social media.

    I think the most important thing to do before you start is to get Google Analytics set up on your website. This is a free tool that you can sign up for at www.google.co.uk/analytics/. Google send you a short piece of hidden code that you can have your website developer add to your website (this should not cost you more than £30 to do). This fantastic tool will provide you with an incredible amount of data on how many people come to your site, how they navigate through it and where the come from to find you.

    It’s the last piece of info that is most useful to your social media efforts. You want to know whether what you are doing is working and which social media platforms are most successful for you. For example last month I know that we had 72 referrals from Facebook who spent an average of 2.5 minutes on our site and two users ordered from us. Google Analytics will also tell you which keywords users are typing into google to find you.

    The last thing you will need before you get started are some images for all of these social media accounts. To keep it simple you will need a square image of your logo (180x180 pixels is sufficient) and a landscape image of your shop or products. It’s also drafting a 50 words about you and your business as a consistent, keyword rich, bio for your accounts.

    To a large extent these networks are what you make of them. Like going to a party, you can have a good time or not, it’s up to you. It’s also worth considering how they will best fit with your marketing strategy. For example, with our wedding business we use @IvyEllen to engage and interact with other wedding suppliers and with www.FB.com/IvyEllen we engage with our brides and customers who leave feedback and message us through the page.

    The key thing to bear in mind with social media is that it is very much about engagement. Being available to engage and being referable to boost your business. As Oscar Wilde famously said, “There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.” If you are not on Facebook or Twitter you are very much not allowing your business to be talked about.

    Click on the link below to read about...

    How to set up a Facebook page for your retail business

    How to set up a Twitter Page for your retail business

    How to get started on LinkedIn 

  • Greetings Today Magazine - May 2013 - Jeremy's Corner

    Greetings Today Magazine May 2013

    Welcome to the first of my monthly columns for Greetings Today magazine where I will be talking about issues affecting retailers, publishers and businesses in the greeting card trade. The next few months will have a distinctly digital flavour as I take you through the nitty gritty of how to make social media, the internet and digital marketing work for your business.

    Last month I spoke on Social Media Strategy at a seminar organized by the Greeting Card Association (@GCAUK) and held at at Birkbeck in London. It was well attended with delegates including many well known greeting card businesses @The_Art_Group, @Woodmansterne, @Paperlinkcards, @LensIdeas and @Gemma_Int. Soula Zavacopoulos from @TheLondonStudio spoke on her experience using Twitter and James Mace told us about the success @TheArtFile were having on Facebook. Here are some of the key points from the day:

    The first thing to be aware of is that social media is relatively young, but not used exclusively by the young. The following are some examples of social media tools and when they were launched: LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006), Pinterest (2009), Instagram (2010), Google+ (2011). Facebook is used by 1 in every 7 people in the world they spend 15hrs a month on it. It’s used by people across all ages, creeds and colours. 57% are female, 43% are male. Incredibly, one of every five web page views online is on Facebook. Twitter has over 30 million users in the UK and the following age groups 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 each make up around 20% of tweeters so it’s not just our youth that are babbling on about what they had for their lunch. In fact many of top politicians, journalists and business people have twitter accounts and they are increasingly valuable tools for them.

    So what does this all mean for you and your business? Well, there is one of the largest social gatherings in history going on right now and if you are not involved you could be missing out. It’s not enough for us to have a website for our business anymore, our customers are spending more and more time online and they want to interact with us using tools they are familiar with. More and more people are choosing Facebook messaging over email. We recently took our first order via Facebook instead of email! When we look for new restaurants to go to, we are asking our friends online rather than just searching Google ourselves. Even search engine optimization is being influenced by these tools, so if you want to show up on Google searches you can’t ignore them.

    Social media is really about engaging with your customers in the digital age. For example, do you remember a shop keeper whose store you have always enjoyed going to? Let’s call him Bob. Bob’s probably friendly, chatty and always willing to help you get what you need. He takes care of his shop, his stock, his staff and his customers without you ever feeling like you’ve been sold to. Bob’s personality is a large part of your enjoyment of your retail experience of that shop. In effect he is a living embodiment of his brand and his brand has personality. Well, social media is the transferal of this into an online presence.

    How do you make the most of using social media? Let’s talk about Bob for a moment again. He is a great guy to invite to parties as he’s interesting and fun. He never spends any time button holing people and trying to sell them anything or coax them down to his shop. He’s helpful and considerate, he is also good at putting you in touch with people who can help you with your needs. “Bad back? Give my friend Anne a call, she’s a great chiropractor,” Bob will say. Bob is in it for the good of the community and not just out for himself. This is how to best practice using social media. Be helpful, be fun, be interesting and spend more time on others than on yourself.

    One of the things I find most useful using social media tools is that it’s like being able to go to a social gathering at any time that suits you and instantly find like minded people who are interacting about subjects that you are interested in. Social etiquette still applies. You wouldn’t interrupt a conversation to sell something and one should always be polite. You can find yourself engaging with some interesting people, learning new things, developing new ideas and finding new opportunities. With our wedding business @IvyEllen I have been able to grow our network of business contacts ten times faster than if I had attended hundreds of networking events in person

    Social media is also really useful for market testing your wares and getting customer feedback. This engagement can help grow sales. Even bad feedback is useful. It’s important that customers let Bob know when something goes wrong so he can sort it out for them and keep their loyal custom. Good customer feedback is reassuring and can help you focus on what to do to get and keep happy customers.

    The seminar was incredibly useful for everyone who came and I am sure the @GCAUK will be doing more in the future so do follow them on Twitter. If you are still not convinced by the importance of social media in our lives, I overheard the word Facebook over a dozen times in different conversations on tubes and trains as I headed home from London that day. And the importance for businesses? I also overheard a girl on her mobile phone on the train home saying that she had just been on Facebook and seen an offer on a new chocolate at @Tesco so she was heading down there to try it out. I’m not making this up, these tools really can drive customers to your door.


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