Craft Connections, Drive Sales: Experiential Strategies for Curated Hampers

Hello and welcome to the show. We are still on the curated hampers and gift giving industry. We're using them as a case study to try and solve the business problems that they face in particular and that a whole host of us face in a universal sense. So previously we had looked at problems that were unique to them. And I also tried to make a case that even though these problems are unique to this, OK, well, not unique. But even though they face the problems in these industry, the problems are also general to those of us who are in other sectors, whether it's wedding photography, business consultancy or whether you sell catfish.

And the first problem that we're trying to solve that people in the curated hampers and gift giving industry face is the problem of differentiation or the problem of commoditization. So players in this space might be able to make the argument that it's easy to get into the space because all you need to do is to buy a basket, buy some fancy wrapping, buy some fancy. What do you call those things? Things that used to tie up presents.

And then you buy some gift items, you buy some soap, you buy some cereal, you buy some coffee, you buy some whatever. And then that's it. You are in the hamper space and you can call yourself a gift giving specialist, but this is not a problem that is unique to them in this space. Because really the advent of technology has meant information. Technology in particular has meant that people can stay in their homes, do research on YouTube, and pretty much join whatever industry that they wish to join because the information is out there.

So anybody can call themselves a journalist, A consultant, a wedding photographer, a gift giving specialist, a whatever. So every single industry has been commoditized. So the commoditization problem is not just a problem for them, but it's a problem for us all. Then we looked at ideas about how to solve the problem and one of the ideas that I came up with over here on the show was the idea of focusing on a niche to search up yourself apart from the crowd.

Because most people are going to try and gather as much business as possible. They'll try and they'll try and appeal to the widest crowd that they can find. And so by default, if you come into a business and you decide to focus on a specific niche, then from the get go you're already setting yourself apart from the crowd. Everybody's going to look the same. You're going to have a different look and feel because you are niche focused and the aim with doing a niche focusing strategy is to help us to develop expertise and a reputation around certain core ideas.

So that when people think of a certain thing, they call you. And the example that I gave was someone who decides to niche down into the Yoruba traditional wedding space that is providing hampers for that particular industry. The goal is also to develop a strong value proposition because if you have a strong value prop, then when people think about certain things you're you're the only person to call, you're one of a very limited number of opportunities.

Also we looked at the side effect about how that can give you the opportunity to charge premium pricing and also give them premium perceptions. That's because you happen to be the top guy or top girl in the space. And then we also look at how it leads to effective targeting and marketing. That's because when you niche, you are looking at a specific set of customer segments. So your, your marketing, your advertising, whatever it is that you want to do is going to be much more, is going to be much more targeted because you're only speaking to a limited set of circumstances and to a particular set of people.

And then the second thing that we looked at was personalization, Yes. That is where you tailor your product or your service to particular people. And the aim of that is so that we can have targeted messages and offers that leads to a customized customer experience. What does that I say, OK, deeper relationships, yes. So with that, you have deeper relationships with your customers. You seem to be much more empathetic. And then overall that boosts revenue because once you have a customized or a particular customer experience and people have fun doing that, then they come back with you, come back to you rather for repeat business and referrals.

So that's if we're able to build memorable experiences around our products, our service and that's what personalization is about. So today we're going to look at the 3rd way to search yourself apart from the crowd if you happen to be in the curated hampers and gift giving space. And remember that even though we're using people who do hampers as a case study, some of these principles and practices apply universally. So just take it and apply it to your own situation.

So don't say because you're a brain surgeon or because you're on a dental clinic that you can't look at ways of focusing in on in on niche markets or ways of personalization. So look at the principal, think about it. See how it applies to your surgery business or to your dental practice or to whatever it is that you do. Before I continue, apologies, I'm at home making this recording and it's a call to prayer right now.

So that's the sound that is bleeding in through the microphone. That's in case it's bleeding through. All right. So today we're going to look at using experiential elements and activities to make yourself stand apart from the crowd. Just stuff that you can use to make your business much more memorable from the competition. So if we're thinking of experiential elements, stuff that we can do includes in store workshops.

So of course from the get this is only going to be available to people like Celebrations here in Abuja. Celebrations have stores in Abuja and I think in Lagos. They are a How do I describe them? They're like a gift, a card and a gift. Franchise. Yeah, OK, let's say franchise. Yeah, like a card and gift franchise. So you go into their stores and they have birthday cards, cards around birthdays, all kinds of celebrations and promotions.

What else? Certain kinds of toys, gift items, ties, cufflinks, wines, chocolates, all kinds of things. So basically you want to give someone a gift because they're celebrating personal circumstances or maybe a gift for professional reasons, you know, promotion, opening up a new store or something like that. Celebrations is one of the places that you can go to. Now, I'm not recommending celebrations, I'm just using them as an example that I can remember from the top of my head.

But I remember that while I was lived in Lagos in Ekeja, there was also one of those places on at at a twin roundabout, a twin roundabout. The I can't remember the name of the shop but the whole building was owned by that business, the ground floor. You could find cards and as you went up you would find different gift items to buy. So there are those businesses that are available in Abuja and in Lagos. I'm not sure about the eastern part of the country, North Central and where else and the east.

But those stores do exist. So this is the kind of strategy that would be available for celebrations and those folks. And you can have in store workshops that are built around certain themes. Like you could talk to an office, maybe you talk to Zenith Zenith Bank for instance, and they have their staff coming on a team building exercise where they're going to do DIY and maybe self-care. And then people get to build their own hampers.

All the while the instructor is teaching them skills on how you do gift wrapping, how you do flower arranging, how you do selecting gift items, you know, things like that. So it can be one of those opportunities that is a 2IN1 or is that a three in one. So people get to design hampers and that they get to use themselves or to take away and they get to learn certain skills and the pitch that you're making to the other organization.

So if you're celebrations and you're pitching to Zenith Bank, the pitch is going to be that the team is going to bond together as a result of this. So you see that this is a highly experiential, all I call it experiential activity. Well, anyway, whatever it is we're going to call it, you can see that it's highly experiential because there is an experience with people coming into the store. Then there's also in store consultations or maybe online consultations where people come in, they sit down, they have a chat with the specialist so they can build custom hampers based on the recipients, the final recipients budget and also their preferences.

So that can also be something that you offer instead of folks like me who think want to buy a hamper for someone and then you just go to Fox Supermarket and then pick whatever hamper that you see over there on the floor. So it would help to be able to personalize it because if someone is going to receive, if you're going to send gifts to someone like me, it should be manifestly different than if you're going to send gifts to someone like my wife.

Because we have different preferences, different priorities. So some things will work with folks who have sensibilities like my wife, then I'm not going to work with going to work with me. So yeah, that's also something that people like that can offer. So in store consultations or online consultations, then you can also partner with local businesses. Yes, we can partner with local businesses and local artisans to come up with unique offerings.

So for instance, Celebrations could partner with the Baggy Arts and Crafts Village. Sorry, apologies for those of you who are Baggy or Gwari, I'm not sure which is which. So I think Baggy is the people and then Gwari is the language or the other way around the people. I mean, the language is Gwari and then the people are Baggy, so I'm not sure which is which, but I've heard both terms used interchangeably. So celebrations, again, I'm using celebrations not because I'm promoting them, but it's just because it's one store that I can remember off the top of my head that has branches in Abuja and Lagos.

So my Abuja listeners, my Lagos business, sorry, my Lagos listeners, you guys should be familiar with it. OK yeah. So they partner with the Baggy Arts and Crafts village where they have local artisans and artists and things like that. There's also another artisan community along the Expressway that runs from, I think Galadima roundabout all the way through to Guarimpa close to Guarimpa and past the the what's it called?

Well, anyway, you Abuja listeners, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. So Celebrations could partner with those sorts of communities, and they have hampers that are carefully curated, showcasing the best or showcasing the variety of local cultural talent and things like that. I include those in the hampers. Now some of you might wonder, what's the point of doing things like this? There's a reason why I picked out Abuja for this kind of activity, because Abuja is a OK

Lagos is the business hub, Abuja is the political hub. Let's say Abuja is the political hub. But either way, we have a large diplomatic community here in Abuja. So this is the kind of thing that might tickle the fancy of those, you know, people who are members of the expatriate business class and things like that. So they might. I mean, the average Nigerian maybe is not interested in these sorts of things. Maybe they just want a hamper,

Give me my hamper, let me eat and go, and they don't want to know about baggy art and customs and things like that. But it's something that could work if it's tailored to if the recipients are members of the diplomatic community, you know, British High Commission, American High Commission, blah blah blah, Finland High Commission and members of the expatriate business class. So celebrations, businesses like this can partner with these kinds of local talent and you put together and stuff like that.

So the hamper might have the regular, you know, milk, Milo, bon Vita, chocolate, blah, blah, blah. But maybe also some local, What are those things called Local confectionaries? You know, local sweets, you know, stuff like that. Because I've seen some hampers that have coolie, coolie and groundnuts in them. I guess for a decade ago, people would have said how can you put coolie coolie in a hamper? Like, that's just razz.

It's not classy, but you know now it happens. It's now acceptable to put kulikuli and groundnuts in hampers, so may be able to find baggy art and also baggy confectionery that can be put inside local hampers. Then you might also be able to organize tastings and demonstrations so that people can come and see and handle the kinds of goods and items that are going into the hampers life. Now let me pause here and make a comment about something I know some of you might look at these ideas and think, look, these ideas are too highfalutin,

they're not practical, you know, blah blah blah. But there's one thing that I want you guys to bear in mind that if none of all these things I'm saying resonates with you, then most likely you're not the kind of target audience that is going to this kind of thing is going to is going to appeal to. Because whether we like it or not, there is a segment that appeals that these sorts of people, these sorts of things appeal to.

Now, the example that I've given in the past is the difference between the sharp contrast rather between my wife and I now my wife's birthday party like well, there's no birthday party, but when she turned 40, her friends put together a hamper. It had some nice soaps, some small treats, and they put together a a package for, what's it called, spa, facial treatment, massage, stuff like that. And my wife saw it. My wife was really, really,

really impressed. You know, she shed the tears, She called everybody up. She was really thankful. You people are the best friends. And she was just really, she was really emotional about the whole thing. Actually, she liked it. She liked the whole thing. But I, on the other hand, I looked at the baskets, I looked at the gifts, the gift vouchers and everything. I did some rough math in my head and I thought, wow, like this thing is really expensive.

You guys would have just given us the money, you know, I would have would have used like 100K go out and go and eat and they would have used the balance to do something else with our lives, you know, so there's a there's. So if some of these ideas sound highfalutin and impractical to you guys, I don't understand because actually I'm that sort of person and that's why I think I can't get involved in this kind of business.

But there is a market for people who really like these sorts of things. There's a market for people who want the massages. They want the facial spark cream, they want the fancy towels and the new bathroom slippers and everything that goes into these hampers. And there are some people who are looking forward to it, forward to the experience of going and sitting and learning how to craft and learning about different cultures and things like that.

So there is a market for that sort of thing. If you think that all these ideas sound too, if you think if it sounds like it doesn't make sense for you or it's too fake or whatever, I understand perfectly because I'm not sort of person. If I look at the hamper and I run the math and it looks like the hamper cost 200 K, you know I'm the sort of person who would say, you know what? Instead of buying me a hamper worth 200K or 300K, why not just give me that 300K cash and I can use 50K do something.

I'll pray for you guys, you know, May God bless you for celebrate my birthday and then I pocket the remaining 250K and do something else with it. But anyway, there's a market for these sorts of things. I'm just letting you guys know, for those of you who are more practical minded, or maybe for those of you who are Bush, let me put it that way because my mom says I'm a bushman and my wife says I can be crude sometimes.

So for those of you who are Bush and for those of you who are crude, there is a market perhaps. Maybe we need to learn to refine our palates a bit and enjoy some of the finer things in life then other experiences that people can try. Can people in this space. In the hamper and gift giving space you can try collaborations with lifestyle influencers that have a similar target to your to your audience. You can also collaborate with charities and then come up with limited edition of charity hampers.

For instance, at the time of making this recording, the International Women's Day, International, Yeah, International Women's Day celebration is coming up on the, I think it's the 8th of March that is coming up. So some hamper entrepreneur or celebrations or whoever they can partner with any of the IDC camps. Now the IDC, those are people who are internally displaced. So IDP, internally displaced persons, Yeah, So they can partner with any of the IDP

communities over here, especially bodies that have a focus on women's entrepreneurship because of this idea that if you're going to liberate women from patriarchy, sorry, oppressive patriarchal. What's that term? Oppressive patriarchal something, something, something I can't remember. But the idea is if you're trying to free women there, you also have to increase their ending potential. So if a woman can take care of herself and for the kids, then she doesn't have to stay at home and suffer spousal abuse or whatever.

So if you can focus on charities that have those sorts of goals, then you might be able to put together practical hampers that have raw materials for making soap or raw materials for producing things that go into local confectionaries and foods and things like that. And maybe for those of us who are, what's the word for those of us who are Bush or for those of us who are unrefined? I guess these are much more practical ideas for hampers that we can throw our weight behind.

Because you can see that. OK, Yeah, it's a basket full of fancy stuff. Well, the fancy stuff are things that can be used by women in the IDP in in the IDP camps, they're internally displaced persons camp to promote their businesses and take care of their families and them stuff like that. So when it comes to experiential elements, the you're only limited by your creativity. So I've sat down and these are some things I've thought of.

And I'm sure that that those of you who are much more creative than I am, that, you know, given 30 minutes and a sheet of paper and a pen, you guys can come up with much more elaborate, much more useful and much more effective ideas. So, but these are the sorts of things that you can freestyle around, ideas you can come up with if you're in the hamper and the gift giving space. Now remember, the reason why we're using the hamper people is not just because we're trying to solve their own problems per SE,

but because this kind of brainstorming activity and these kind of ideas can also help solve our own business problems. So if you're a consultant or if you're a dentist for instance, you can ask yourself those sorts of questions. Now, what kind of experiential elements can I learn to boost my dental practice? So for those of you who run dental practices, is it possible to have a Friday school day where you partner with local primary school so that they bring people through your dental practice every month and you have a sample, you know those huge samples that we used to have in in secondary school,

those huge things where that you make a model of the human tooth? That you can cut open and show the pulp, the NML, the this, the that. And you know you have children, come in, look there, have them look around stuff, ask questions, play with these models, things like that. You know, the goal being that if you get children in here and they are interested in these sorts of things, then as they're leaving you give them a flower so they can hand to their parents.

You know, that might be a good way of drumming up business for your dental practice. So you've had the children in there, It's been experiential, it's been knowledgeable, it's been learning for them, hands on. And they go home, they're all excited and they go and talk to their parents, and then the parents bring them in. So even if you're not charging exorbitant prices, even if you're only charging 5000 for A tooth clean or something like that, you know, if you do these sorts of things and you notice that after you're done over the next three or four weeks, who knows, maybe out of a whole school, maybe 20 or or 30,

parents come through and each time they select services, tooth cleaning or or braces or whatever, and you're able to make maybe 5 to 10K per parents and you see that it's not a bad expense, It's something that you can run once a month. So think about it, Experiential elements. How can you add them to your business to distinguish yourself from the pack? If we sit down and we try to brainstorm, I'm sure we can come up for something.

For people who run schools, for people who are consultants, for people who are. Even if you run a security outfit, you know you provide security guards. And let's see what else? Solar lighting to protect estates and things like that with a pen and a paper and enough time. Also with the beauty of the Internet, checking ChatGPT and stuff like that, I'm sure we can come up with good ideas for experiential elements, promote our businesses.

So these are just more things I can think of how it would apply to folks who are in the hamper and the gift giving space. But if you think about it, just like I did right now with the dental people, I came up with one idea off the top of my head. If you think about it, I'm sure you can find ways that you can apply this to your business as well and help you stand apart from the pack. So we've been over 20 minutes. Let me bring this to a close.

Please connect with me on WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are hitting me up outside the shores of Nigeria, I'd love to connect and chat with you guys. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show. Don't worry about the spelling of my strange name. You can confirm it from the link. We are currently listening to this episode. Thanks for your time and attention.

I'll catch you guys at the next episode.