This is the picture that got 9,500 likes on Facebook in 2014 – the Sea Goddess bra and belt set
We’re in a tight spot and could use your help. Read on for a how you can do that, and help yourself to a great deal as well.
Our business model is changing but our cash flow has not caught up. In the past months we’ve invested a lot of time and money into our new website and developing new products. We’re shifting our focus from commissions (currently about 80% of what we do) to our shop products and teaching. Lots of internal changes, combined with fewer people seeing our work on Facebook, is making it harder to make ends meet.
There has been a steady decline in Facebook’s organic reach over the last two years. If you don’t know the term, the organic reach of a page means the people who see your posts in their feed without you paying for it. With over 300K fans, we used to routinely get over a thousand likes on a good photo. We even had one picture that got 9.5K likes (see above). Wow. Now we are lucky to get 200. Likes don’t pay the rent, but what they represent is people seeing our work. Fewer eyeballs equals fewer people contacting us to say “I want something like that!”. And fewer inquiries equals fewer commissions.
We’ve taken many steps to make up for this: putting energy into instagram, pinterest, twitter, our mailing list and, yes, even trying out FB ads (it was a big dud). This generates a few more eyeballs, but doesn’t make up for the loss.
I don’t want to complain too much, running a small business always means adjusting to changes as they come. I want to tell you about how you can help us, by helping yourself!
We are about to head to one of the biggest cons in the world – DragonCon. 60K people will be celebrating all things geeky, while wearing awesome costumes and filling up the streets and hotels of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Paul is going to be an official guest and will be speaking on two of the costuming track panels (please come see us there if you are attending!). The event is a great way for us to connect with new and old fans of our work. But it ain’t cheap! So in order to raise some extra dough to help us pay for the hotel, travel, food, promotional materials etc. we’ve come up with a deal for our loyal supporters.
We now offer Gift Certificates. They can be used for anything in the shop, including the online course. A Gift Certificate would be a memorable gift for the costume geek, crafty bellydancer or cosplayer in your life. Or for yourself! Because you are going to want to take advantage of this limited time opportunity.
Buy a gift certificate and get 20% off. Yup, that means if you buy a 100.00 certificate, you only pay 80.00 but you can use it to buy something that costs 100.00. The 200.00 certificates are only 160.00, but still worth 200.00. There’s a 50.00 certificate too, buy it for 40.00 with this special.
Holy cow, that’s a good deal. Get a few for holiday gifts now. We’re only going to run this special through the weekend. It ends Monday, August 22nd at midnight EST. Use the code DragonConBoost in the check out process.
We’re a mom and pop studio. The two of us do it all, with occasional part time assistance. We’ve thought about making a Patreon page or running a Kickstarter but they take a lot of effort and time. We’ve got a Widowmaker and Cleopatra to finish! Dragoncon is in TWO WEEKS.
You guys have come through for us before (remember the #giveitback campaign?). I know you’ll do what you can. 🙂