Trophies2Go Blog

Yesterday at the end of the day, I wrote my blog on Corporate Gifts, as scheduled on my social media calendar.  I wrote the draft, let is simmer and percolate overnight, like I usually do.  But then as I was getting ready for bed, inspiration hit.  What I REALLY want to write about this week is business, and in particular what Cyber Monday has taught me.

CYBER MONDAY.

Now that we are officially an eCommerce company, no more showroom, it's time to do cyberspace marketing, no?  Well Cyber Monday wasn't even on my radar. But one day I was browsing the Awards and Personalization Association forum (that's our trophy trade group), and I read a thread about Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  A competitor, also an eCommerce awards company, shared how his sales spiked last year on Cyber Monday.  It got my wheels turning that we should try a Cyber Monday promotion this year.  I shared the idea with my business partner Tom and we decided to go for it.

I put together a quickly crafted email campaign for my customers, just letting them know about our sale.  I sent the emails out of Sunday and then the next day on Cyber Monday.

The Results?  Pretty good.  It was a busy day, we had 25% more sales than the same day the previous year.  Our Google conversion rate was up over 6%.  Pages per visit were also up, people hung around the site longer than usual.  However, because of the discount, the average order amount was slightly lower than the previous year.

My Take Aways

1. 1. People like good deals and they will convert if you have a promotion.
2. 2. Customers also convert when a promotion is short-term and they know it will go away.
3. 3. Its nice to get on the bandwagon with a nation-wide promotion, this saves marketing dollars since everyone already knows about it.
4. 4. Some marketing ideas are flops, but once an awhile they are good.  Its fun when they work out well and make money.  It's always a gamble but it's good to try new things because they could pay off.

In a nutshell, those are my business lessons from Cyber Monday.  Thank you to all the customers who ordered from Trophies2Go.  And a special shout out to my developers Ben and Duncan who speedily made my website promotional banner on the fly Sunday night.

Did your business try a holiday promotion?  How did it work out for you?  Share it in the comments!

Cheers!
Jessica

Looking for a fun event?  Consider hosting a chili cook-off! Whether big or small, cook offs are fun to participate in, whether as a contestant, a judge, or an eater.  With all of the popularity of cooking competitions, why not put your skills to the test and enter your favorite chili recipe!

When hosting a cookoff at your home, church or office, check out my past post ‘Top 8 tips for a Chili Cook-Off”.  Tips include using crock pots for serving, taster cups for trying each chili entry and judging strategies.

Today’s blog is about the fun stuff, Awards and Prizes, our specialty.  Add hype to your competition with hardware for your judges, participants, AND winners!

Participants:

Many hosts give each participant a momento of the event. Popular inexpensive gifts include Participation Ribbons, Chili Cookoff Medal, and our best-selling lapel pins, Chili Pot or Chili Pepper.

Judges: 

Acknowledge your judges with a ribbon.  We offer two different styles of judge ribbons, the Chili Judge Rosette Pin or the Chili Cook Off Judge ribbon.  When pinned on the judge, it gives them the authority to make the ultimate decision on the cook off winner!

Champions: 

Trophies2Go offers a huge range of trophies and awards for your winners, from a one-time award, to a trophy that can be passed around from year to year.  For a more traditional award, it doesn’t get any better than a blue ribbon. The popular Chili Cookoff Ribbon comes in Blue for 1st place, Red for 2nd place, White for 3rd place, and Purple for any special awards categories you may have.

Trophies: 

We offer a wide range of chili trophy styles in all price ranges.

- One time trophies: Our new Red Chili Pepper Trophy is a bright and fun trophy; it's gotten great feedback from customers.  Our Flaming Hot Chili Pot Trophy is over the top, 80's style, but is sure to be talked about! Resin chili trophies are extremely popular with my favorite being the Hefty Black Cauldron Trophy.

- Perpetual (Ongoing) Trophies: If you have an annual cookoff like we do, you may want to award a perpetual trophy for your cookoff. This is great for bragging rights, as the winner's name can be engraved on the side and the trophy is passed around from year to year.

- Unusual awards:  Consider our new Chili Cookoff Championship Award Belt.  This impressive belt with make a huge impact on your participants and winner!

Other Gifts:

If trophies, ribbons and medals aren’t really your style, maybe you’d like a more functional gift for your winners.  Great items include our engraved cutting boards, engraved ladles, chili pepper aprons.  One cute hostess gift idea is a hot sauce and engraved wooden spoon inside.   We offer many personalized kitchen accessories that will impress your winner or hostess.

We love chili cookoffs, as they are the perfect fall and winter activity to connect with friends and family.  I hope your cook off is a huge success!

Cheers,
Jessica

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Our new promotional products website, check it out!

We had a big summer, closing our Issaquah showroom and consolidating in our Renton production facility.  Now that we are all settled in our space, it's time to focus on growing our business!

Tom and I decided to launch a new website for promotional products, full of great personalized items for businesses, schools, and organizations.  To get to our new site, just click the top box on our navigation banner that says "Promo Products" and you'll be directed there!

We recently completed an order of these beautiful journals for EO Seattle.

There are so many fun items on the site, all from the best vendors in the country.  Reusable bags for shopping, drawstring sports bags for schools or teams, every kind of personalized pen imaginable for your staff or customers, team spirit stuff for schools such as rally towels and pompoms, office supplies from notepads to mouse pads, lanyards for trade shows, and drink ware such as coffee mugs to BPA free water bottles are all on the site, plus so much more!

If you already order awards from us and need personalized products, please think of us. our same outstanding customer service team of Janice, Mika and Mike can help you choose the perfect product for your need, all within your budget.  We would love the opportunity to work with you.  Browse our new promo products site, there's so many fun things to see!

Cheers

Jessica

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Award the hero in your life this awesome bad-ass trophy!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is awesome because not only is it giving awareness to a great cause, but also my favorite color is everywhere – PINK! It’s fun to see the pro players in pink and our local athletes, both boys and girls, with pink socks and jerseys. Even my daughter Audrey’s cheer squad has pink pom poms and bows to participate.

Even though getting in the spirit of awareness is fun, it’s also a life or death cause that deserves serious attention. Cancer has touched my life with my mother, mother-in-law, aunt and grandmother-in-law. Luckily my MIL was able to catch her breast cancer early for a full recovery, we are very lucky and blessed!

If your organization is hosting a fundraiser, an event, or some other occasion for Breast Cancer Awareness, consider one of our personalized PINK products as a prize or participation give-away. We just added a new Cancer Awareness Gifts category which includes many pink personalized gifts, such as pink clipboards and pink tumblers, pink custom glitter medals, and even a Cancer Superhero Trophy for celebrating a survivor or top fundraiser!  Award someone special who is kicking Cancer's butt!

There’s no other way to say it - cancer totally sucks, so let’s find a cure!

Cheers!
Jessica

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Planning a chili cook off? Whether at your work, your church, or at home with family and friends, hosting a cook off can be a daunting task, believe me, I know.  Every year we host a chili cookoff for our group of college friends and we even did a chili cook-off for our holiday party here at Trophies2Go one year!

Below I've shared my favorite tricks I've learned from hosting chili cook-offs.  I hope they help you with planning your competition.  It starts with a little preparation ahead of time and then having the right tools at the event.

Top 8 Tips For A Chili Cook Off

Make it easy by serving in crock pots.

1. Serve Chili In Crockpots. Have your contestants bring their chili entry in a crock pot, then plug in the pot to reheat. You can use cute numbers to label each entry so that it's a blind tasting.

2. Extension cords. It's helpful to have a couple of extension cords handy in case you don’t have enough power outlets. Also, with all of the crock pots plugged in, be aware of blowing a fuse. We haven't had this problem at our events, but it's good to have a plan just in case.

3. Dish Up The Chili For Your Judges. In my experience, it gets quite busy in the kitchen, with guests or judges dishing up their chili and everyone milling around. My solution is to create a plate of numbered taster cups and dish up the entries ahead of time (see below).

4. Use Taster Cups. Before guests arrive, I prepare my "taster cups". I tape small plastic or paper cups onto a paper plate with the entry number written in sharpie on each cup. At the event, I fill each taster cup with the correct entry, leaving a spot in the middle of the plate for a palate cleanser, such as crackers, cornbread, or corn chips.

Small tasting cups attached to paper plates are a great way to serve chili for judging.

Also, be sure to judge the chili with the correct accompaniments. For example, if the chef wants cheese added to the top of his/her chili, by all means add it when filling the cups.

After filling with chili, I hand out the plates to the judges. This not only eliminates chaos in the kitchen, but it also disguises whos chili is whos. After judging is over, everyone can go back for a bowl (or two) of their favorite.

5. Have Enough Serving Utensils. Each chili entry needs its own ladle and spoon. Ladles work great to dish up bowls of chili, but are too big to fill taster cups. Instead use a smaller teaspoon for that task.

6. Create An Easy Way to Judge. For our cookoff, we give each person 2 poker chips. They have 2 votes for their favorite chili. Adults get one color of chip, the kids get a different color. Then votes are counted and prizes are awarded. I've also seen score sheets used. They can be found online at Chica and Jo's website.

An engraved cutting board makes the perfect prize for your chili champ!

7. Ad Hype With Prizes and Awards. That’s where we come in! We offer chili cook off awards in every price range, from blue ribbons to engraved cutting boards. Browse the chili section of our website to see all the choices. My favorite is the Annual Chili Cook-Off Trophy; that's what I will give the winners at our chili cookoff later this month.

8. Don't Forget The Decorations! This is what adds the extra touch to your competition. Ideas for chili cookoff decorations include chili peppers, stock pots and southwestern themed décor. Having an occasion to decorate for is always fun too - such as hosting on a football game day or someone's birthday. Check out our Trophies2Go Chili Cookoff pinterest page for even more ideas!

I hope these 8 tips help you plan the perfect event. Feel free to share what worked for you, or if you have other ideas, add them below. Wishing you a wonderful chili cook-off!

Cheers,
Jessica

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on October 10, 2014.  It has been updated for content.