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Day 28 Assignement Bootcamp Survey

PillowThrowDecor


Posts: 1096


« on: July 28, 2009, 04:12:23 am »

Yay…. Schools out for summer!!! Relax and enjoy but before you kick your shoes off and jump in the pool please take some time to fill our this Bootcamp feedback survey. Respond in the forum or  send me a private email if you prefer to keep your answers private. Thanks gang, it’s been a blast

1)How often should Bootcamp be held in a year? If at all?

2)Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.

3)Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?

4)Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views.

5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Bootcamp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc

6)How can we keep bootcampers more involved right through to the end.

7)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Bootcamp?

8)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?

9)What else can we  as sellers or icraft do to make Bootcamp a more productive experience for you.

10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Bootcamp experience.

Any other comments?
 :idea:  :idea:
GalleriaLinda


Administrator
Posts: 442


« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2009, 12:18:17 pm »

I had both hands tied behind my back this session due to illness but I did keep up with reading assignments, although not able to do much of the assignments. I am amazed at those who did!

My answers:

1)How often should Bootcamp be held in a year? If at all?
    Fall, close to holidays
    Spring,  close to mother's & father's day
2)Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.
    I think assignments every day is good discipline for those who do this full time. For those of us that work a day job, monday/wed/fri would be great so we don't feel like failures all the time! lol!
3)Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?
    I think they are ALL valuable and work together. The more different types of marketing you do, the better off you are.
4)Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views.
    Tweeting, blogging
5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Bootcamp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc.
    I like a variety but appreciate any way it is presented.
6)How can we keep bootcampers more involved right through to the end.
    It would be great if icraft admin sent out several member-wide "newsletters" during the camp - maybe offering a tip or two from the camp. We could forward them on to other sellers we know online. That might peak interest and bring back those that fall through the cracks. I don't think dwindling participation is because of content - I think it is because of busy lives, health issues, family issues, etc.... and-oh yes, the full moon...lol!
7)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Bootcamp?
    Again, a couple of anouncements sent to all the membership is needed to remind people. In addition, this camp can go worldwide by inviting everyone (not just icraft sellers) to participate. Positioning this as a non-threatening environment of just solid marketing sense for everyone who sells online, regardless of venue, may bring in outsiders that we could welcome. Invites can go out through twitter, blogs, facebook, etc....
8)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?
    See above - providing seller training to everyone.
9)What else can we as sellers or icraft do to make Bootcamp a more productive experience for you.
    Will have to think about that.
10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Bootcamp experience.
    10, for sure!
designsbydebra


Posts: 144


« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2009, 11:30:29 pm »

1)How often should Bootcamp be held in a year? If at all?

At the very least twice per year

2)Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.

I like the assignments every day

3)Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?

Twitter more like TweetDeck! and tweeting about products.

4)Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views.

Twitter and tweeting about the items brought the most views.

5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Bootcamp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc

I like the mixing up more than focusing on one.
 
6)How can we keep bootcampers more involved right through to the end.

That I'm not too sure.
 
7)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Bootcamp?

I think it's a good opportunity and don't know why more shops don't join.

8)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?

Free stuff. I honestly don't know why my people don't take advantage of  iCraft. The cost of having a shop on iCraft is so much less.      


9)What else can we as sellers or icraft do to make Bootcamp a more productive experience for you.

I think that the active sellers and iCraft are very supportive of the Bootcamp experience.

10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Bootcamp experience.

I see my Bootcamp experience as a 10+

Any other comments?

Thanks to Christine and crew who work so hard to make Bootcamp a success! I'm so glad that I participated in both bootcamp 1 and 2. I learned a lot and found out how important cross promotion can be to an online shop. I look forward to the next bootcamp!
Thanks for the survey!
Deb  Cheesy
icraftgifts.com/designsbydebra
PillowThrowDecor


Posts: 1096


« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2009, 12:49:20 am »

Wow... excellent information.  I know that  both of you are super keeners and dedicated to your craft. Your comments are so enthusiastic and it is such a pleasure working and sharing with you.  Hugs to both of you Smiley
Zs Knees


Posts: 114


« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2009, 03:24:59 am »

eek, already past midnight... i'll post tomorrow re survey:)
BeauMonde


Posts: 35


« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2009, 08:53:17 am »

1)How often should Bootcamp be held in a year? If at all?

I would like to see 2-3 bootcamps per year, maybe something closer to the build up for Christmas shopping.

2)Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.

I was struggling to keep up with daily assignments, I just don't have a lot of time for marketing, so I would like to see a couple of assignments per week.

3)Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?

I liked Kaboodle and Indiepublic the best, because it is more target market specific. Did not like Twitter at all or find it very useful - I'm just not interested in randomly following people who don't have anything interesting to say, most days I don't have anything interesting to say either  Cheesy  Everyone is tweeting about "buy my stuff" and I think it is just casting a very wide net.  (running away now and ducking for cover)

4)Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views.

I rec'd the most views from sites that were target market specific, like Kaboodle, Stumbleupon and Indiepublic.

5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Bootcamp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc

I would like to mix it up with many different areas of marketing.

6)How can we keep bootcampers more involved right through to the end.

I think mixing it up and also having only one thread to post in would keep people involved to the end. I found it distracting to have to find and post in several threads every day.

7)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Bootcamp?

A lot of sellers have signed up, but I don't see many of them posting in the forum threads.

8)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?

In order to get more sellers to iCraft, the site needs more buyers!! iCraft really needs more brand recognition and a larger customer base. It is a great site, but if the sales are not here, then sellers will not come here.
I have been quite successful with sales without ANY promo or marketing on other sites that already have a large built in customer base.
Customers, customers, customers.

9)What else can we as sellers or icraft do to make Bootcamp a more productive experience for you.

I think it already was a productive experience for me  Cheesy  I did a lot of marketing, was featured on several blogs, got some free advertising from Foundhandmade.com and sent a promo item to Indiepublic for their August raffle/promo campaign.

10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Bootcamp experience.

Christine, you get a perfect 10/10 from me!! I learned a lot and had much fun with the assignments.

Any other comments?

I have 8 shops on 5 sites in 3 languages, so I'm pretty busy and don't have much time for promo .......... so I would like to stick to marketing ideas that target the people who might buy something from me and not just click on a link to have a look. Views are nice, but sales are what keep me going.
mountaindreamers


Posts: 71


« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2009, 07:30:12 pm »

I am straggling in sorry, I am having problems with my hearing from the wreck and associated papers, insurance companies etc.

I think Bootcamp is great, a 10 on the scale, I learned a lot and wait with baited breath for tweetdeck to have a secure site rating, will continue to tweet, I am blogging regularly, keeping up 4 sites in one language ( Beaumonde I am so jealous of your language skills )

I think the timing of bootcamp before Mother /fathers day and fall for xmas prep is great.

Mon wed fri would work for me as I spend 50 to 60 hours a week doing boring stuff to pay the bills.

Does icraft have name recognition in Canada?  like etsy does ? Maybe we could get Good Morning America to do a segment on it. or the Canadian news equivalent , which I know nothing about.

I will probably sign up again , since each time I get a little bit farther, thanks for leaving up the posts and links so we can go back and read .

thanks Laura  http://www.mountaindreamers.blogspot.com
Zs Knees


Posts: 114


« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2009, 11:55:25 pm »

1)How often should Bootcamp be held in a year? If at all?
Although I like the PermaCamp idea best of all, I just can't fit it into my schedule, so next best I'd say is twice a year, leading up to the biggest shopping seasons.

2)Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.
How about every day, but the brain-twisters only on M/W/F. Tues & Thurs would be routine stuff we already know, just to keep in the spirit of doing something Every Day.

3)Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?
Cross-promotion activities I liked the best. And being introduced to new sites, and things like Google Analytics. And the eBooks.

4)Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views.
My views are so low, I don't even know :roll: , although on GA I do see Twitter and Kaboodle- but they bounced right back out still.

5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Bootcamp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc
A bit of a mix, but if there's too much jumping around, we might not absorb enough before we've moved on.

6)How can we keep bootcampers more involved right through to the end.
You could require that we post daily, even if it's just to check in. Or incentives, like more than 5 free items for daily, active campers.

7)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Bootcamp?
8)How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?
If I knew how to "encourage" people to do what I want them to do, I don't think I'd need bootcamp anymore!  :lol:

9)What else can we as sellers or icraft do to make Bootcamp a more productive experience for you.
I like the idea of partnering/grouping up. It could be groupings for the duration, or rotating. I think it would make each person more active because it would be more intimate, and you'd have people counting on you.

10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Bootcamp experience. 10 for the first one, and a 9 for the 2nd.

Any other comments?
 Cheesy
iCraft Admin


Posts: 394


« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2009, 01:35:01 am »

Great feedback, everyone! A lot to take in.

Thank you to those who faithfully participated and followed daily assignments.

Special thank you to Christine for putting so much work into each Bootcamp. You are making a HUGE difference in the iCraft world. Smiley

Even though not everybody, who signed up, participated (which is unfortunate), we consider this program a success (10+).
I am sure many Creators on iCraft read Message Board posts and learned a lot from the shared experiences. And we are planning to keep all the posts from previous Bootcamps on the Message Board, so people could always go back and review assignments that they’ve missed. This is also good for the new Creators joining iCraft.

Yes, I agree with GalleriaLinda about reminders to Bootcamp members.
We’ll definitely try to improve and do things differently next time.

As always, all your comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks again!
Unique Creations 2 C


Posts: 14


« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2009, 02:55:46 pm »

1) How often should Boot camp be held in a year? If at all?
I agree with Linda.  One month before industries highest retail sale days.

2) Do you like having assignments every day or should they be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday over 4 weeks.
I prefer to have the assignments scheduled 3 times per week.  I like to have time to think about it and decide what and how to use from the assignment. Benefit – yes/no?  Now or try at a future time?

3) Which marketing activities did you like doing the best? Ones that you disliked?
I like information from the marketing articles and resources made available on the message board. I like websites like Kaboodle that bring in window shoppers and shoppers with pocket money ready to spend. Not comfortable with tweeting and blogging, I noticed others are much better at this and they do increase visits to my store. Talking and socializing with strangers is very stressful.

4) Which marketing ideas were the most effective in increasing your views?
The soft sell approaches fits my personality.  I rather have my products speak for themselves.  I feel 25% of my potential consumers are interested in the making of my product (people with needlework knowledge and experience), the majority, 75% are just interested in the end result.  So, I think my best marketing approach is to concentrate on visualization marketing strategies to get the 75% of the potential customers interested. Constantly improving my exhibit and individual product descriptions with vivid photos are good marketing tools for me because most of my visitors view at least 2 products. Also using keywords and tags for replacement engines.  I do realize benefits of twitter and social networking— people have to know that my products exist, before they can see it.
Having the Google analytics information is a definite asset.

5)Would you rather focus on learning one form of marketing as we did this time with Twitter or would you rather have more of a mix like first Boot camp where we touched on blogging, kaboodling, store clean-ups, etc
I prefer the mix.  Then schedule Boot camps for specific topics – twitter, blogging, etc.   So vendors decide what works for them and their products.  Then collect all the information for each topic, and then divide the topics into sections to general a list from the assignments to have a category for twitter, how to use, applications, etc.  Then another category for Blogging, who and what are discussing? another category for .....Etc.  It eliminates repetition of information and all lessons, articles and websites are collected in one area for boot camp graduates.

6) How can we keep boot campers more involved right through to the end?
Yes, we all have busy lives, but if you truly want to make sales, learn new methods and improve your strategies then you would invest the time to boot camp, even if it is just a glance or postponing an assignment for another time.

7) How can we encourage more sellers to sign up for Boot camp?
This is a tough question.  Some people need incentives to do things.   If you truly want to learn about selling, then it is a person’s own self-discipline that will complete the boot camp. Self-motivated and self-discipline are the only skills needed to finish boot camp. If you don’t have those qualities, then I am completely clueless on ways to motivate or encourage someone to join.  This one needs to go into a big think tank  

Cool How can we encourage more sellers to sign up with icraft?
I was very hesitant to join a membership online selling forum.  The influential factor for me to join icraft was the free one year membership offer because I think an e-commerce website and a membership on sellers’ forum would relatively have same expense and no major beneficial differences.  Now, I feel it is valuable to be a icraft member because of the low membership cost, available resources and the easy access of information.  The information from the message boards is literally in front of you with a few simple clicks.  It is like having your own library and other people are pulling out the books that will help you in your business. Can it get any easier?

9) What else can we as sellers or icraft do to make Boot camp a more productive experience for you?
To simplify it, by using forms for the assignments which only requires,  a couple of phrases or words for answer.
For example in company’s they use progress reports and some of them are very detail and long, but within every progress report there are always mandatory key points summarizes that summaries the progress (or topic in our case).
Put 3 days assignment for that week on one sheet of paper.
For example Week 1
Topic 1
Read Article ABC
Response
Yes/No
Thoughts: I read it but, it doesn’t apply to my particular product because......but I thought of an idea from reading the article that might be useful.  My answer might be a bit wordy, but I think most people prefer to use a couple of phrases to answer the question
Topic 2
Tweeting
Response:
Yes/No
Yes about what ________, how many times this week?    Are you planning to tweet this week?
Topic 3
Joining Directories
Yes/No
Yes, which ones from the (above) list
This method might not get allot of information from vendors’ results, but at least it simplify the participation and it is a time flexible method for busy schedules.  The complexity for this method requires technician to make it available on the message board.  Forms are easy and quick.


10) On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being useless and 10 being extremely valuable, please rate your Boot camp experience.
I rate it as a 10 because although not all the information applies to all vendors, at least sellers can sift throw information that best benefits them.  Allot of information is compile into one website.

Any other comments?
I must stop commenting.  I have to save some brain power and creativity for my icraft store (lol).

Thank you Cheesy
PillowThrowDecor


Posts: 1096


« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2009, 09:22:00 pm »

Just got back from some holidays and am catching up on some really good ideas here.  Feedback is so valuable so keep it coming!

Cheers
Christine
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