Who has a birthday coming up in your life? These days I feel that one of the most heartfelt things you can do is send a birthday card snail mail style to your friend or family member. Why not stock up now so you always have one ready? I guarantee they stand out more than a Facebook wall post! Here's a few favorite designs you can find in the online shop!
Today I wanted to highlight two new designs that share a similar theme: lots and lots of hand-drawn flowers. Believe it or not, the inspiration for these designs was an ornament I created as a fifth grader. I remember creating a design of colorful overlapping flowers using paint pens on a circular metal ornament.
For the birthday card, I developed an unstructured border of irises, hydrangeas, roses, daisies, and other flowers from my imagination. "Happy Birthday" is hand-lettered in a deep blue-purple.
I really liked the finished look of the birthday card and decided to try for a second card with a similar look, this time for a thank you card. The flowers in this design have a more tropical feel and I used a pastel color palette. "Thanks" was hand-lettered with my trusty brush pen.
You can shop both designs here.
I'm happy to share that Happy Cactus' Gold Foil Balloon birthday card was featured in last month's issue of Gifts and Decorative Accessories magazine. This is probably my most favorite card that I debuted at the National Stationery Show this year, so I was very excited to see it on the pages of this popular trade magazine read by thousands of gift shop owners worldwide.
The Happy Birthday Floral Script card pairs quite nicely with these floral paper straws from Waiting on Martha.
I've shared my tips for using Facebook to promote your business and interact with your supporters on this blog before.
If you are a Facebook user, you may know that Facebook is always changing the way the site operates and how users interact with one another. One more recent change that direct affects how any small business owner uses Facebook is the introduction of the promoted post.
Now when you create a post through your business page, you have the option to select "Promote" at the bottom of the post and, for a certain dollar amount, Facebook will promote your post in others' news feeds. What exactly does this mean? According to Facebook: "Every day, News Feed delivers the stories you post to your friends and followers. Promote important posts to help people notice them. Promoted posts appear higher in News Feed, so there's a better chance your audience will see them."
So what's the deal? Why choose to promote a post? If you share a regular post, due to Facebook's algorithm that decides who sees what, people who like your page still may not see your post as it may fleetingly appear buried in your followers' news feeds. Pay to promote your post and the number of people who see your post will grow exponentially - not just your current page followers (people who have "liked" your page, but their friends who have no connection to your page.
This is somewhat of a game changer for small businesses who use Facebook as one of their main sources of free advertising and promotion. I have experimented a few times with promoted posts to see what happens when Facebook prioritizes my posts over others.
The post below is an example from the Happy Cactus Designs' Facebook page of a non-promoted post. I shared a photo of my cards on display at one of the retailers I work with in Dallas. According to Facebook Insights, 98 people saw this post.
Last week, I shared a picture of and link to one of my new birthday card designs that I had just added to the online shop. I chose to promote the post, setting a budget of $5.00.
Because I paid to promote it, 1,295 people saw the post. That is hundreds of more people than I actually have following my page, so clearly it was hitting the feeds of friends of my page's followers. I saw a slight uptick in new likes and visits to the site after this promoted post, but nothing truly significant. That said, it did seem slightly exciting that over a thousand people were seeing an image of my cards on Facebook.
This change by Facebook certainly causes dilemmas for small business. How do you decide what to promote? Is it annoying to your non-followers to see a sponsored post by your company appearing in their news feeds? Does it make a significant difference - in terms of number of likes, visits to your site, purchases made, etc. - when you promote a post?
It's not surprising to me that Facebook is making new attempts to monetize the news feed and generate revenue from small businesses like my own wanting to get my name out there. At the same time, it's irritating that for my posts to be seen I need to pay to promote them. While $1 to $10 per post may not seem like a lot, it adds up over time! What are your thoughts on promoted posts?
I'm excited to share a sneak preview of our new releases for Spring 2013. There are cards for Easter, graduation, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, as well as new love, birthday, and thank you cards. I'm so excited for the launch of this collection and worked really hard to come up with unique, whimsical, bold designs that jump off the paper.
The new releases will be online soon. Retailers can view a digital lookbook of the new collection here.
This week's card of the week is one of the cards from our very first collection - Happy Birthday Blue Blooms.
This birthday card features a hand drawn floral motif in a repeat pattern. The original motif drawing is below:
I chose various shades of blue for the flowers and a playful font perfect for sending birthday wishes. You can pick it up in the shop here.
Happy Cactus Designs is celebrating its one year anniversary this month, so what better doodle to celebrate than a fun birthday cake! I fell in love with a cake I saw on Pinterest and used it as inspiration for this little celebratory doodle!
