Sep
2015

September

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autumn cards

September

Aye up Chumps! September is almost over and for that I cannot believe how quickly the year has flown. We’re already hurtling into my most favourite time of the year – Autumn! Everything from the crisp cool air, the golden russet leaves, cinnamon and pumpkin spice, harvest goodness from my garden. I really love it all.

I also happen to absolutely love that we have Halloween, Bonfire Night, Mix up Sunday, Advent, Christmas and New Year to start to look to. Of course doing what I do I’m already printing Christmas cards and boxing up sets that are now being ordered daily!

I have toyed with the idea of creating a range of Halloween cards, filthy fun thrown in for good measure but I don’t think they’ll be as well received here in the Uk. Which is a shame because Halloween and Old Mischievous night are British traditions, or at least their roots are based here. I just happen to think the American’s do a fabulous job at making it into such a brilliant occasion!

Things here have been pretty hectic since the kids went back to school; from my previous blog post you can watch where I talked about the business accelerator (Entrepreneurial Spark) that I’m part of has really got underway. I decided to Vlog about my experience of that journey as I try to raise the profile of DYP and access a wider audience and look to scale up what I do.

Ultimately my dream is to make DYP a commercial success, where you can find my cards in shops across the UK, even worldwide. I want to employ people and I want to drive my business to be successful but I want to make you laugh and piss your pants along the way. That is who I am and I believe I can do it because I’ve got laughter and I don’t happen to take myself too seriously!

The hardest part of this journey to date has been the emotional rollercoaster of whether I have a good enough business, whether I can make it super successful, how do I do it? Am I good enough? I think they’re all important questions and a natural part of this amazing process but it’s bloody hard to try to keep positive when your self doubt is gnawing at you.

write that down

It hasn’t helped that I’ve had a pretty bad flu virus on top of a touch of laryngitis which has meant I haven’t recorded a recent vlog. So you’ll have to make do with one I recorded earlier in the month. Which is here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNTZPcwDvwA

I have regular meetings with my brilliant enabler Melinda, who has made me ask myself some pretty tough questions. One of these has been to understand how to scale DYP, my problem is that I am like a magpie and I am easily distracted to want to try everything new. The hardest bit has been to really ask myself where I see myself in five years, what can I do to really scale up, so that I can have a business that is recognised and products are available nationally and globally. (That bit scares me shitless!)

The most useful thing I’ve done of recent is to properly manage my social media. I’ve got a proper plan, I know my most successful outlets, I know how to find my customers and I know how best to advertise. The problem? Hours in the day! So I’ve become pretty strict at time management, less time fucking about and a clear and precise plan everyday that I’ve been sticking to. In my up coming blogs I’ll post up my social media plan to give you an idea how it’s all working out. Right now though, I feel like I’ve achieved so much already but just simply planning time and how I’m using it. Sounds simple doesn’t it? The best plans always are!

Check out my next post for the fab competition and money off voucher to celebrate the third birthday of DYP.

Bec x

 

 


Aug
2015

DYP first Vlog about the Espark Journey

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DYP First Vlog about the Espark Journey

DYP First Vlog about the Espark Journey! Back in April I applied to the Entrepreneurial spark in the hope that I would get accepted and be made to look at DYP and how I could move my business forward. Today was my first day of Bootcamp and it has been an amazing experience, trepidation, team work and a firm shove out of my comfort zone.

Whilst speaking to one of the fab enablers, I started to explain that I’m a bit shit at blogging and tbh I am! Though I’m not going to moan or complain, it’s just something I know I should do but other things get in the way. Anyway they suggested I create a podcast or a Vlog, to which I immediately resisted but then realised if I’m going to grow you’ve got to embrace this in order to move forward. So here it is DYP First Vlog about the Espark Journey!

So in this video you will find me (don’t laugh!) rambling over the days events, in my Pj’s late at night talking about the awesome rollercoaster day I’ve had. If you like my video give me a like and subscribe. I’m going to vlog my Espark journey and try to be as candid and open as I can because I think it will be a great insight to understanding my process and journey.

Anyway, enjoy! And don’t worry the filth and debauchery will return!

Bec x

#GoDo #GoDobootcamp

ESpark Vlog


Jul
2015

DYP has a new advert

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DYP has a new advert

DYP has a new advert to show case the awesomeness of what I do!

For a while I’ve toyed with the idea of creating a small advert that I could place here on the blog and use in my social media to showcase a quick look at what I do.

So here it is, it’s my first attempt at stop motion all done through an iphone 6 plus, I had some rendering issues with the app so it’s not the highest quality it could be but I am quite happy with what I managed to achieve in an evening. I love stop motion and I feel with the way my work is that it fits the medium really well as it’s all photos and text images. I love the idea of the flip motion and though it’s something I probably need to work on if I try this process again it is still a medium I’d love to explore more.

Are there any apps or programmes you use to create adverts? I tried imovie but since I use my phone to take my photos I wanted to use an IOS based app and then back up to the cloud. I currently use Afterlight as an app to process my photos and I used that here with these photos for the advert. Afterlight is great because it gives you lots of filters and settings without being over complicated, it’s very beautifully designed as well which makes it a pleasure to use when processing photography.

Since social media is now moving towards video content, it makes sense to try to adapt this into showing how the cards and our products at DYP look and work. It gives you the customer, a better appreciation of what we do. Since Instagram also lets you post longer videos now that is perfect for these short snappy videos.

I hope you enjoy it, I love the music, it is exactly what I had in mind when I found it.

Bec

 

 


Jun
2015

Outrageously Rude Fathers Day Cards

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Dad bloody fantastic Cards

Outrageously Rude Fathers Day Cards are now available in the shop! For the most you can’t find these cards on the high street because they are in poor taste and vulgar and very rude. Except I think they’re the best cards to send as it makes people properly laugh!  Of course there are tamer cards too, we don’t want your Dad having a heart attack from shock! 😉  (more…)


Jun
2015

In poor taste, pornographic and foul language

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derriere greetings card

In poor taste, pornographic and foul language were how my range of cards were described recently. Of course they are, they border sexually inappropriate, are full of profanity and are designed to make people with a particular sense of humour, laugh. Are they intended to cause offence, humiliate or belittle people? No, they are purely intended for fun and laughter. If you are offended then you maybe need to go visit a lovely card shop and you know what? That is ok because that is what is brilliant about the world we live in. CHOICE.

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May
2015

The 100 Days Project up to day 29

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camel toe cards

The 100 Days project up to day 29 has been a really great experience, one where I’ve explored hundreds of rude and vulgar swear words, discovered the etymology of these words and then rewrote them to have a humorous slant. The idea was to create a body of work that would eventually be tweaked then put into production as greetings card, prints and t-shirts.

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Mar
2015

Non religious Easter Greetings Cards

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calories non religious easter greetings cards

Non Religious Easter Greetings Cards – sounds completely ironic doesn’t it? Being a non religious person but living in a country that has lots of religious festivals and Bank Holidays, it’s quite difficult to avoid them. However, I do quite enjoy the gathering of friends and family for an Easter Sunday feast! I love the rustle and garish foil covered chocolate eggs. I guess I really enjoy the pagan side of the festival as apposed to the Christian side of things. And that’s ok.

So with that in mind, I’ve created three cards based on chocolate consumption and the dreaded lactose intolerance! (more…)


Mar
2015

What stops you from buying at an online shop?

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Father's Day greetings card

What stops you from buying at an online shop? Well it is a question I’ve asked myself quite a lot recently, since I’ve wanted to understand shopping habits of my customers. I have access to the information of customer click-through from my own sites, to understand how customers experience and use my shop. Which is very useful information and helps me try to improve my shop and make it easier for you to use.

The part I can’t work out is how it makes you feel – I want you to have an amazing experience and of course purchase outrageously naughty cards. (I know my work makes many of of you chuckle!)

I’ve read an awful lot about buying online and of ways to entice your customers, improve traffic and sales but it all feels wrong. I don’t want to bombard you with lots of messages, promotions, sales and gimmicks because I don’t want to experience that myself when I’m shopping online.

I get frustrated when I come to a new site and I’m met with pop-ups every twenty seconds, where sites seem to offer perpetual discounts. It devalues your product and makes me feel like you don’t value me as a customer. The biggest culprit for this is Gap, I love their clothes but I now refuse to buy anything at full price because there is likely to be a sale on in a couple of weeks time. My argument is that if they made their products lower in price in the first place, would they need to keep offering discounts to gain more customers?

As a small business it’s quite difficult to offer sales as every penny counts but I also understand we love to feel that we’re getting our moneys worth too. It’s very tempting to offer sales and discounts but really are we just kidding ourselves?

It seems a lot of the online business advice wants shops to push towards these gimmicks and yet I bet they’re equally frustrated when they visit sites that do this back. Frustration is not an emotion I want you to experience when shopping with me, I want to make the process as smooth and easy as possible, so I’ve stripped it back and made it as simple as I could. (Though website building is not my forte! Remember I’m just a printer!) Yes I offer an incentive to sign up to the newsletter, where you can get 5% off of your order and I also have a pop up to share DYP via social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

I would love you to share my work with your friends and family, I wouldn’t be able to do this job without so many of you supporting me. But I also understand that it’s a massive ask on the part of your visitor and impedes your online shopping experience. I’ve tried to use plugins to let customers sign in from social media, or to integrate my shop within Facebook for example. Though if I’m honest I felt they were gimmicky and causes further dilution of the excitement of using the shop – another barrier to enjoying being online.

Do I have the answer? No not yet, I’m still relatively new to this and so I’m just blogging about my findings and musings about online shopping. I use a lot of my own gut instinct but I won’t lie that there are times it feels like I’m shouting into a void of noise known as the internet! The hardest part is trying to get awareness and raise my brand so that people find me. I don’t have a massive marketing budget, in fact it’s incredibly tiny and so that is why I find myself spending hours scheduling posts, or reading up on marketing so that I can find my audience.

So what does stop me purchasing online? Hidden postage charges, added taxes, page after page of checkout processes and pop ups. All of these things I’ve tried to address as best as I could with what I have available to me through my Shopify theme. Postage for example, is determined on the price of your shopping cart and country, as opposed to weight. I don’t add extra charges in and I limited the number of check out pages. Hopefully these things help make the experience smoother.

Ultimately though, you have to like what you’re buying and I need to be fulfilling a need you as the customer have, otherwise you wouldn’t have found me in the first place! So that feeds back into brand awareness and people being able to see you…I think I’m going to be some time at this game yet or win the lottery to have a larger marketing budget to gain a wider audience!

So on that note I shall go and mull some more!

Bec