There are a lot of good reasons to work with other businesses in your community, either through organized programs or informal connections. That was one of the key points made by the panelists on NCA’s webinar on Tuesday evening.
The event featured two NCA members who know how to bring customers in the door: Janine Caufield of Caufield’s Novelty in Louisville, and Annemarie Aldrich of Rose Costumes in Denton, Texas. (You can watch a recording of the webinar at the bottom of this article.)
Here are five examples of how these two members capitalize on good relations with other businesses in their communities:
Customers lined up to get into Caufields' Creepfest
Creepfest
Two years ago, Janine launched an event that profoundly links her store with scores of nearby businesses: Creepfest. This two-day event, located on the second floor of the store, features the booths of other businesses that are somehow related to horror, Halloween, make-up, etc.
“The first year we did it, we had over 5,000 people walk through the door,” she said during the webinar. “This year we had almost 8,000 people walk through the door.”
In addition to the vendors’ booths, Caufields provides entertainment such as photo-taking opportunities, haunts, and kid-friendly activities.
“It’s like a kickoff to Halloween,” she says.
Shared Discounts
Annemarie Aldrich works out discounts with other area businesses – if customers shop in one store, they can get a discount at her store, and vice versa.
“It's really important to be out in your city, introduce yourself,” she said during the webinar. “You need to know your fellow business owners, have those lunches, have that coffee, just bop in and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing? I just wanted to see what your merchandise was.’ Just so everybody feels more of a family than competitors. If we approach it from that standpoint, I think everybody can win.”
Witch’s Brew
In the first Saturday of October, Caufields will welcome a local coffee store – The Witch’s Brew Coffee – into their store to serve coffee and sponsor some kind of event, perhaps a best witch hat contest.
“She’s serving her coffee, and they’ll get like a 10 percent off or something when they go to her store,” Janine said. “It does work to cross reference with other businesses.”
Halloween Capital of Texas
This past July, the Texas Legislature officially named Denton, where Rose Costumes is located, the Halloween Capital of Texas. The legislation recognizes that the city has done a great job encouraging the celebration of the season by sponsoring 31 days of events leading up to Halloween. Naturally, the events attract customers to local businesses – especially Rose Costumes!
“They’re paying people to walk around the square in costumes that they get from us,” Annemarie said. “Last year it brought in 126,000 people to our square, which for us is a lot.”
This is an example of government helping businesses work together, but nearly any community with a strong group of businesses that work well together could pull off a month-long Halloweenfest. And who benefits the most from that celebration?
Drive-In Movie Connection
Sometimes Caufields’ good relations with other businesses means they leave their own turf. Janine told us that on Friday and Saturday nights she goes to a nearby drive-in theater and sells merchandise from a trailer.
“Bill [the owner of the theater] has been buying props and stuff from us when they show a horror movie, and he came and said, ‘Hey, do you want to set a booth up and sell stuff out of it?’ And we said, sure, we’ll do that,” Janine explains.
She sells hoodies, t-shirts, cozies with horror themes, and other merchandise related to the horror movies at the theater.
“I sold a ton of hoodies this past weekend, because it got real cold here,” she said. “It was like 50 degrees…I mean, they would buy them left and right.”
This is just a sample of what Janine and Annemarie shared with us during the webinar. Please click on the image below to watch the recording of the webinar.