As I began the process of creating this site, I received a ton of input that helped to mold it into what it is today. One piece that was an idea early on was to include Merchants (artists, writers, photographers, podcasts, or anyone who tabled conventions) as discoverable enteties within the site. Many events would not exist without them and I wanted to offer something in addition to a convention discovery tool.
A Merchant Profile is a Digital Snapshot of your business. Now a lot of people will say that they have social media, full fledge web sites, WordPress sites, YouTube channels etc. to promote their business online and these are all wonderful tools but they all have one similar problem, Traffic. Just like a retail store that doesn’t have customers, the same reality exists in the digital world. There is so much competition as well as static on the web, standing out becomes a real challenge as a small business. We decided to tackle this problem head on and our solution is the Merchant Profile.
Now, this is the part where I mention price, yes, we do charge for the Merchant Profile but it is only $40/year. How much did you spend on your last batch of Business Cards? How many people kept it, used it, and came to your site. Did your business cards show the customer your most up to date convention Itinerary? Did the convention you just bought a table at do anything more than include you in their convention directory? Wouldn’t it be nice if your business could be discovered in multiple ways? It can, with the Merchant Profile.
- Direct Name Search – Someone mentions your name, or they remember it from a conversation, they can type it in and instantly find your business within the Merchant Tab of our Homepage
- Merchant Categories – When someone wants to find your products or services but doesn’t know the name of your business this alows them to begin to find you.
- Convention Cross Linking- When you enter your Convention Itinerary it displays on your Merchant Profile and a link to your Merchant Profile is also added to the Convention’s listing! People can discover you as they research the convention they are interested in attending and it’s all controlled by you. Merchant Profiles are 100% Self Managed! People can discover you, see the shows you are attending, and suddenly you become a destination purchase. How many times do people say they wish they had known you were going to be at a con as they would have planned to buy something from you? Chasing after Con Sales? How about we make them Pre-Con Sales?
- Four – Four is one of the most important things about the Merchant Profile. The idea of four is that people are within or under 4 clicks away from being on your web site, Etsy shop, YouTube channel, Facebook Page, etc. from the second they hit our site.
- A picture and video and social media links are worth a thousand words - You get all of those included, no hidden fees or surpises! Check out The Comic Book Cast's Merchant Profile
At the beginning of the article I mentioned a challenge all businesses face, that challenge being Traffic. Well our site has No Pop-Ups & No Clickbait, yet, as of today, 1/03/2017 we have over 20K Unique Users and over 76K Pageviews. We have traffic, and it is traffic that wants to discover conventions as well as the amazing individuals who table them, they want to discover you! No other convention discovery tool offers such a unique package. No one else is offering you a target audience of customers for the low price of $40/year – just us, Cosplay Convention Center. Get your own Merchant Profile
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