How would you advertise

I am going to be at a consignment sale with a booth set up for four days. It is a kids clothing and item sale, so my hope was to be able to reach a lot of local (potential) clients.

I have postcards and business cards to hand out and was wondering if it would be a good marketing idea to offer a discount to potential clients that see me there.
Right now, I plan to set up my paints and demo on those interested. And have my books out for people to look through my photos.

Any other suggestions?
TIA
Liz Caswell

Good idea. My friend was just telling me about a fundraiser/consignment sale she is taking part in, and how busy it is. Moms as far as the eye can see! She said not many kids, so having it in mind as a day of marketing is probably good.

I'm just thinking out loud (so to speak) because I have no experience with this, but do you want to give the discount to Everyone who would show up (and maybe calls you a year later), or just those who decide to book you that day? Or different levels of discount so you can do both? It'd be pretty great to walk away from an event like that with a calendar stocked full of confirmed parties... maybe a smaller deposit since people didn't come there to book a FP, but you want something to hold them to keeping the day?

Be sure to have all the good talking points prepared... think business, not just your artistic talent. All the stuff the wise ones here talk about when we are selling ourselves.

Good luck, and let us know how it went!

Most people aren't ready to book their child's party on the spot like that.. most won't be prepared. I would think that a discount (even a small one like 10%) would be a good thing and you can put an expiry date on them booking it.

It is a good idea to be ready to do some stuff, but you may want to specify that it would be cheek art only, you don't want to suddenly have the one mom that brought 12 kids with her over there getting all of them painted for nothing. JMO

If you are wanting to offer a discount to those who stop by your booth at that event, then just print the discount info on your postcards, or on a sticker and stick it to the postcards for that event only. Make sure you have an "offer good through xx/xx/xx" date on it as well. Then make sure they know that in order to receive the discount, they must send in the card with their deposit, or present the card to you at the event (that way it can't be used twice--you can always give that person another card so they will have your info for future use).

Good points. Thank you.

I was thinking to write on the postcards a discount amount and expiration date.
Getting into marketing mode is the hard part for me. I am terrible at self promotion.

In all my years of studying marketing/biz, I've learned, don't lower your price/discount, but give VALUE ADDED. Say for example for the price of fp a party @ say (for example) $125/hr, instead of giving a discount of 10% (which is $12.50), why not throw in "each child painted gets a free glitter tattoo too". The value there might be a little more time that you might charge @ $125/hr and actual cost of tattoos (say for 12 kids) is only about $6/tattoo (@ .50/tat). The value there is MUCH MORE than just a 10% off. With that kind of value added, I would think you'd book a lot more. Could do the same with balloons. Best part about the balloons is that you could pre-make them before you even get to the party.

What do you all think abou that? I'm interested in your opinions.

I've been thinking about a discount idea. The balloon offer would cost me $25 instead of $12.50, so it wouldn't work for me(I charge $25 extra for balloons & it's a 2nd entertainer... my amazing balloon twisting teen daughter).

I wouldn't offer a free service instead of a discount, because in the end you are out not just materials, but a lot of extra time for the service. While materials may be cheaper than what the discount end up being, you would have to haul extra stuff with you, have extra setup time, extra time performing the extra service, extra tear down time, and having to haul it back out.
It is much easier to just print a coupon on your postcard or on a select amount of business cards for a set $ discount amount or % of a discount.

looks like those are two thoughts I hadn't thought of. I stand corrected. Guess I have to put some more thought into it. I'll let you know when I think of it!

hmmm.... something to think about anyway.

"Thinking" out loud again....
The point of being there is to get your existence known to as many families as possible. So, the goal is to have them remember you when it is time for the family to plan their event. So, how do we do that? I'd like to think otherwise, but I wonder how many of my business cards end up in the trash. And I know my site doesn't rank highly on Google (don't think it ranks at all, lol, someone can PM me if they know how to fix that).

So does a discount or special offer get a family to hang on to your advertising? Anyone have any experiences?

First, google... mine's not super high ranking either, but it does have a 2/10 rather than "no data avail." .... find all the free entertainer listing services online and submit your listing. The more sites link to your site, the better your rank will be. So search "face painter" and your city or service area and see what listing sites show up in the first few pages. Get yourself on all of them. Also, if you can find a few other entertainers in your area that would be willing to do a link exchange (you put their link on your site in exchange for them putting your link on theirs).

Second, for them to KEEP your info... I have little colouring books that I give out at parties (single pages for larger events) and little 3 packs of crayola crayons. These are definitely kept for a little while and may end up on the fridge too. The other thing I do is have some of my business cards with a magnet on the back (not all as some people do prefer just a regular card) and I've had several people tell me that it's going straight to the fridge.