Hi Emma
thank you for your email last night - have found this thread now so will answer here if that is ok? I've seen your website which I like very much
I would suggest getting some customer testimonials on there - show potential buyers what the current buyers are saying, it goes a long way.
I started with small fairs (eg school or craft fairs) but have abandoned them now because I personally found that I was selling more online (after heaps of media that is) and it was something that I no longer had time for. Having said that I still support the schools that my 4 young children go to.. Yes, 4 little monkeys
I also have a disabled mum (MS and broken back) who suffers with dementia and a working smallholding to run so I reckon if I can do it anyone can
We've decided only to go to large music festivals now - my husband is a musician so it means we spend time together (and he can put my gazebo up that way for me!!) footfall at these is usually around 5000 people in 6 hours. In order to lure people to our stall we have a wooden milking goat that children insist on having a go on (it has water in her udder) and whilst the kids play on that the parents invariably decide to ask questions about the benefits of goat's milk soap.. quite often buying some
Media - in the past 4 years we have appeared on 'Escape to the country' (they approached us) and in the Daily Express, Worcestershire Life magazine, several local papers and many online blogs. The power of media has been amazing - after Escape to the country, I was working 20 hour days to meet orders and employed 2 full time staff (!)
On our FB page I use a few differents tactics, one is to promote each individual product from time to time - say what the virtues of the ingredients are, share some customer feedback etc
two - pop a funny video of goats on (this is relevant to my business obviously) and you get loads of people 'like' it or share it and then their friends are drawn to see the page...
three - something a bit random - eg. our friends manage an awesome local rock band, we might say "and this is Ronin performing at such and such festival..." - again this draws in new people but its still linked as we were selling soap at that festival and Ronin (bless them) will retweet us as our FB page feeds into our twitter....
when we hit 800 likes we did a little comp, sent selections to the winner.
On twitter - put a tweet out asking for bloggers to review some of your products - they jump at it!
Its taken 4 years but we have reached a place that I'm really happy with now business wise, a lot of it has involved giving out a few freebies in return for reviews, sitting in the pouring rain at a fair that's cost me £10 a table and I've only sold one bar of soap & dragging children to events and spending every penny of profit on food and toys to keep them out of mischief but its worth it
hope this helps a bit
lisa