Marketing at the Harvest Festival

We participated in the Clayton Harvest & Music Festival on September 18. What an event that was. Our booth was set up with a demo table, a table displaying the products we use in the salon, and our pedi station (wingback chair and portable tub). It was a very hot day. The weatherman said it was supposed to be in the mid to upper 80s...it ended up being mid 90s. But we had plenty of water and survived the day. We met so many people. I don't know the official attendance number, but I know it was huge — with so many people that you could barely walk the streets. Lucy came out for part of the day and jumped right in handing out flyers and talking to people. We were originally going to offer free hand massages but most attendees had their hands full of goody bags and items they'd purchased. We became more of an informational booth. We met many people who were interested in our pedicure services (including the Dia-Pedi for diabetics), plus the fact that we use Footsie Bath with disposable liners seemed to attract many people. The gift basket we were giving away at the booth generated a lot of interest as well. We're still trying to contact the winner. The basket includes more than $140 in retail products and service gift certificates.

The teamwork displayed by my fellow MUBA (Mosaic Unlimited Beauty Alliance) members was absolutely awesome. There were many visitors coming to our booth who were sent over by other MUBA vendors (and we sent many people to other MUBA vendors’ booths as well).  There were 32 MUBA vendors all in a row at the festival, and we worked together to help each other. This just shows how important it is to network with other merchants in your area. We’ve received many calls and scheduled several appointments from the festival. All in all it was a great day and an event we don’t want to miss next year.

Once the event was over we got the salon back into shape and geared up for the next week. The week to follow also proved to be an amazing week. We had several walk-ins, online bookings, and call-in appointments that were a direct result of the Harvest Festival. And had I not hired Lucy the week before I would have had to turn business away or try desperately to get some clients to reschedule to another day. It was so busy one day I sent Lucy on a towel run as we ran out of towels from doing so many manis and pedis. This was a pleasant surprise though.

—Melodie, Tickled Pink Salon & Nail Spa, Clayton, N.C.