Prom, Spring Brides, and More Media (Part 7)
Spring came and it was prom and wedding season. A common prom theme this year was old Hollywood and vintage. Because of our concept we were THE place to shop for prom. Also, we quickly became a popular place for brides to shop.
We had a customer from Los Angeles stop in and told us an interesting story. She was in LA planning a trip to New Mexico when she saw a travel show on TV, or a travel segment on a show, not sure which it was. She saw our store featured on the show and was so intrigued that she made a side trip through Arizona just so she could stop by the store. I have no clue! But I got a customer out of it! I did a search on the internet and couldn't find anything on it, so to this day I have no idea how that came to be or what program it was.
In the early spring it was tradeshow time again. While we were out of town I got a call on my cell phone from a producer from local Channel 15. They said the Oscar's were coming up the following weekend and they wanted to do a segment on the store on their Smart Shopper segment. This was on Friday and they needed to do the segment by the following Tuesday. We got back Sunday night and a TV crew was at the store on Tuesday morning to tape the segment. Yaaay! FINALLY, we get to have our beautiful store on camera! All the other TV spots we did were out of the store.
So the anchor women, a lighting man and camera man show up with all of their gear on Tuesday morning, the store was open but it was pretty quiet. We oriented them to the concept and products and all brainstormed a way to do the segment. Then the anchor woman did the "lead in", which was the part they used to tell viewers the segment was coming up later in the show. Afterwards she interviewed Laurin. Now you think it would be easier to do a taped segment, rather than live. You get to do re-takes if you mess up. It was actually harder because it's not natural conversation. When you don't like what you said you keep starting over until it's more like acting than normal conversation. It was a new experience for us. The segment aired a few days later early in the morning. Erin had a link to this in one of my previous posts. I'm sure she'll hook you up with another link here : )
We were only home for a week and then back out of town again for another tradeshow. The Oscars were aired on a weekend night, while we were away. That night we got a few phone calls from friends and family warning us....THAT THEY REPLAYED THAT SEGMENT ALL THROUGH THE OSCARS AND ON THE NEWS AFTERWARDS. GEEZ....COULD YOU GIVE THE GIRL A LITTLE WARNING!
They took clips of the segment and put a teaser during the commercial breaks of the Oscars. After the Oscars Channel 15 news focused their entire broadcast on the Oscars. Through out the entire news they kept viewers watching by continuously mentioning that our segment was coming up, then they replayed the entire Smart Shopper segment.
WE GOT SLAMMED! It was like Christmas sales again for nearly two weeks after that broadcast. We were out of town and didn't have enough warning to stock up on product. We didn't have our order books, etc. to place orders from where we were. We no longer had our seasonal workers, just two employees who had to handle it all by themselves for almost a week. They were great employees and did a fabulous job. I no longer have those girls, one had to go off to army boot camp and the other got a really great position with a credit card call center, it was a better fit for her and her family. We miss them both very much but they keep in touch with us.
Evidently, all of the TV segments we did get replayed over and over again because we still get new customers from then who tell us that they just saw a show recently. Very cool! By the way...Smart Shopper (Daphne) heard about us from the anchor woman who interviewed us on Sonoran Living (Kayly). They were in their morning meeting brainstorming ideas for the Oscars news broadcast and Kayly suggested our store to the Daphne and the producer. After that Oscars airing I sent a Thank you card to Daphne, Kayly and the producer.
Then summer came. For those of you not from Arizona, no one wants to be here when it's 200 degrees outside, okay 115 but it feels like 200! We were never able to keep any of our carts open long enough to experience a summer in business. It started mid July and we expected it to go on until September, which is when we opened last year and September was a great month....last year.