Pop-Up Shop Success Story with Jen Tomecek
Oct 22, 2021
Jen Tomecek uses social media to drive fans of her premium ice cream to, well, wherever she decides. She is the owner of Bowl of Cream in Chatham, Ontario and her pop-up shop strategy has been a huge success because of social media. In this episode of Cash In On Camera, Jen shares how she's using social to drive sales of her delectable creations.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear…
▶️ [1:28] I thought, “Okay, I'm going to be in the park every weekend.” When people would want to buy ice cream, that was sort of like my main thing. And then I learned very early on that, because the nature of my business is a lot of fresh local foods and baked goods. That it was better to market when I was going to be there and have a concentrated time than sit there for eight hours or six hours. That I could keep things fresher, that I could do sort of be more efficient, by creating a pop-up and not being there necessarily every single day and over-saturating, but when I was there, I was busy.
▶️ [3:24] So that gives me a little bit of flexibility. But before, when I was just primarily in Kingston park, I was running on a generator. So, when I started this, I had two young kids and one on the way, and I wanted something that would fit with our lifestyle. I don't want all our memories of the summer to be ice cream.
▶️ [6:01] Yeah. So, one thing I would really recommend is I have a library of really nice pictures. I learned Instagram is such a visual app for social media and Facebook too. That for me, trying to get a picture of when I was about to go for a pop-up or when I was at a pop-up, either I had a line and the last thing I wanted to do was be taking a picture of the ice creams that were going through.
▶️ [8:22] When I was first starting out, there are some quotes for me saying like, "Busy ants telling bees how to make honey", where like, that was just sort of a quote where that resonated with me, that when you have your business, nobody's going to understand your business except for you. And people can give you great ideas, but sometimes you're like, "But that doesn't work for me."
▶️ [10:19] For me, I just do what feels good. In my main sort of model, you can get lost down the algorithm or what is right and what is wrong. You can find experts that will tell you whatever, "You should post at this time and you should do 20% business and 20% personal." And I can't be bothered with that. I couldn't even be bothered with a personal account and a bowl of cream. I am bowl cream and I'm right now, I'm happy to share, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the really good.
▶️[13:23] You are showing behind the scenes which people love. People love behind the scenes. I know when I was a TV broadcaster, those were the pieces of content that people really gravitated to. They want to see the innards and they want to see the background and how things are made. And so the BTS is the behind-the-scenes part that is really key. And then another part that you've just mentioned, that's helpful for all of us to consider is, and something I'm a big fan of is the authority building, right?
▶️ [15:09] So every time I have a pop-up, I am always amazed that anybody shows up cause I'm like, "They're all here because of the advertising I have done." So, whether a friend has said, "Hey, this is what I've seen online, or look at the picture of this." They've tagged other friends, or they follow along themselves. Yeah, it never gets old. When anybody shows up, especially when the weather is not so great.
▶️ [18:53] So great tip. Yeah. And it's funny, I've seen that and it doesn't stop me from it. It's not the thing that's going to necessarily stop me from posting, but it's an intriguing number to take account of. And I think that you're absolutely right. Don't let it be the thing, that's like, "Oh, there's not enough people watching", so therefore I'm not posting. No, do it. Post. You can't post too much, in my opinion, right?
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