advertising on Facebook

We just started advertising on Facebook. Visa is currently running a promotion and if you sign up to be a part of their business platform they give you $100 towards Facebook advertising. I jumped at the chance to get some free advertising. Setting up an ad on Facebook is easy enough. It is similar to advertising on Google Adwords, but Google lets you prepay - so you can kind of beat the system when it comes to getting the optimum ad viewing without really having to spend your "monthly" budget. You can prepay $10 and when that runs out they stop running your ad even though you said your budget was $150 for the month. Facebook gives you an option for a daily budget, and I still haven't figured out how to cancel my ad when the free $100 from Visa runs out. We have had over 50 clicks so far. The nice part about advertising on Facebook and Google is that you only pay when people click on your ad versus advertising in the newspaper when you have no guarantee that anyone will even go to your site. I did like that on Facebook we were able to target our customer properly - we were able to have only women over the age of 21 see our ad - which is nice being that we sell a product for women that features spirits. Crossing my fingers that we find some women who see the fun in our shirts!

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

getting results

We finally are seeing some results from our promotion running at T-Bones. One of the managers that works for my partner's husband saw our shirts hanging up in T-Bones and he was so excited that he came home and ordered five of our shirts. Yesterday, a woman from Hudson ordered two shirts after seeing us at the Hudson location. We are so excited that more women will be wearing our shirts out there. If we could only get the word out outside of New Hampshire!

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

new t-shirt design

We have made a new design for the cyclist. We should be ordering her today. We will go with our top selling shirt the raspberry basic tee. We only have four left in the "Jarah" design and thanks to Molly saying that was the color she would want to buy - we ordered it and everyone seems to really like it. We will order her in at least one other color top - the v-neck in the Ladies' size for women who like a roomier fit. Hopefully, these will sell at the velodrome. The more people wearing our shirts the more people will hear about us.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

finding new ways to sell

We are always looking for ways other than hitting up our friends, to sell our shirts. We ran an ad on Google and after having 340 views of our site we still did not get a sale. We are currently displaying our "Cosmopoli-tan" shirts and bags in the lobby of all T-Bones and Cactus Jack restaurants. They are also featuring the image on their "Summerfest" menu, and it's a drink you can order and enjoy. The menus came out on June 1st, the display went up on June 10th, and we still have not had a sale. We just printed out 1000 recipe cards that tell you how to make the drink and also our web address. We are hoping to have 100 of these in each of the seven locations. The promotion ends at the end of July- we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will get some sales when people catch on to what exactly we do. Yesterday, a very happy client of ours, Tracey, took a size run of all of our shirts and bags to the New England velodrome in Londonderry, NH. They normally don't sell things there, but are trying this out. 20% of the sales will go back to the programs they run there for the cyclists. She sold one shirt yesterday and had some good feedback about our latest shirt that is due out in a few weeks - "Draft Beer" - which features a cyclist drafting another cyclist while drinking a big foamy beer. You can see a sneak preview of her on the "Meet the Girls" page on our website. Tracey will continue to offer the shirts at the velodrome, on a weekly basis, as long as they are getting noticed.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

thank our friends

I just want to take a second to thank our friends who have all been supportive. Whether it be by sharing our website with their friends or buying the shirts themselves. With the help of them and the people who haven't heard of us before, but like our idea, we have sold almost 130 shirts since mid-February.

Thanks everyone!
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

first negative feedback

Since we started our company, which was officially back in February, we have had tons of positive feedback. We recently put a social ad on Facebook and it went out to people in a news feed. Shortlythereafter we got an email from a woman who was questioning why we were teaming up health and alcohol and wanted to know if we sold things in children sizes. When I first read the email I wanted to go off and defend what we are doing and where we are coming from and make this woman understand what we are all about. Thankfully, I spoke with my partner and she calmed me down (without her there would be no balance- and like I always say "two mommies together make one functioning brain) She told me no matter what I said I wasn't going to change this woman's mind or her way of thinking. She was right - this woman was looking to make some kind of point with her question and truly did not want an answer to her questions. Would you like to hear them?
We do not sell children sizes and if we did they would never feature a cocktail on them. Why put a drink with an activity we do for our health like yoga, hiking, cycling, running or tennis? Well, most of us women over the age of twenty-one do have a cocktail every now and then and do enjoy taking care of our minds and bodies as well. She also wanted to know if we were sending a subliminal message to teens that we need to drink to relax. I say what better message to teach about alcohol - I mean I am a mom of two, and I want my children to understand that alcohol is not something you use to the extreme or go to to solve your problems. It is something we have to relax and unwind. That is what we do at our house. Anyway, that is what we are doing at Mind Body 'N Spirits - trying to remind women to take that time for themselves, and raise a glass in good cheer. We are all strong women who need to celebrate ourselves. When we can do that then we are able to deal better with all the stresses that we encounter.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

about Mind Body 'N Spirits

Maybe I should have started with some information about our company. That is if you didn't get here via our website which is http://www.mindbodynspirits.com Our company sells t-shirts and bags with different images of women doing things for their minds and bodies while drinking a cocktail. We started with yoga and we are branching out to other activities. We have one for the sun bather, and have two more headed to the presses as we speak - the cyclist and the hiker.
Our images are fun, colorful and feminine. We do offer one style of shirt that does not feature an alcoholic beverage which is our "Nama Stay" shirt - this of course, is a play on the word "Namaste." It features a woman telling her dog "Nama" to stay - get it? - I sold one of these to a five year old. I'm sorry, let me correct that, she's five and three quarters and her mother did purchase the shirt for her. We do not sell our shirts in children sizes, but she desperately wanted one of our shirts and since (of course) her mother would not let her wear her own because she has one sporting a beverage. Anyway, if you'd like to find out more about our company - please check out the website.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

getting the word out

OK - I am new to this whole blogging thing so bare with me. My business partner and I are both stay at home moms trying to get the word out about our new t-shirt business. We have very little time and are looking for any kind of free or low cost ways to spread the word. I had put a bunch of postcards out in the locker room at my gym and just recently received an email from a woman who picked one up a few months ago. She told me that she is no longer going to that gym, but would be more than happy to post some up in her new gym. It was so great to hear from her and we will be sending her a small stack for her to post and pass out.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com