How can entrepreneurs attract “alpha moms” as customers?
In “Attracting the alpha mom,” our experts offered advice to the founders of Jimmy Beans Wool. The former Silicon Valley techies behind this venture want to making knitting hip among high-income women. They sought a small-business makeover for their knitting store from our team of consultants. What advice would you offer on reaching out to this marketplace? Share your strategies here.
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Diggi just have to respond to the judgemental comments about $500 yarn.
We still need art in our lives, and our creativity and imaginations, even when there’s an insane war going on and global destruction and hunger and poverty. If you knit with fancy yarn, it doesn’t mean you don’t give a damn about what’s going on in the rest of the world. I spent twenty years as a community organizer working for peace and justice and an end to hunger. AND I like to knit.
Oil paints and canvas cost money. Computers for pure crappy web-surfing cost money. Skis and boots and poles cost money. Making art costs money. Hobbies can cost money. There’s gallons of unpublished screenplay writers out there who spend hundreds of dollars on fancy special software to write screenplays that no one will ever enjoy.
100% cashmere yarn costs about $50/skein. If you want to (and have the money to) make a sweater like nothing that exists in any store (and please remember, some gardeners spend a fortune just to grow that one wonderful delicious tomato in their backyard) — for your grandmother or you or whoever, then it’s not “blind consumerism” or insecure self-image.
If the high-end yarns, like cashmere, or hand-dyed organic cotton weren’t expensive, then the people growing it, dying it, and spinning it would not be getting paid enough to feed their families.
If these folks were spending money to make jewelry by hand, no one would be suggesting they were dumb consumers or neurotic egotists.
Jimmy Beans Wool is a rarity in the online commerce world. I do nearly ALL my shopping online and they are my very favorite retailer in any industry. And yes, their website needs a redesign.
We used a local Web design company for our site http://www.leantech.com and they do an awesome job.
$500 yarn = mindless consumerism.
I’d recommend that Jimmy Beans participates in knitting forums & blogs in order to get more free traffic to their site. Alternatively, they could start a small affiliate program with these sites.
They also need to really use their email list. The article didn’t talk about what or how often Jimmy Beans emails their customers, but I can see that they could probably get more email addresses by simply offering some kind of weekly or monthly drawing for those customers that do opt in.
I agree with the comment that Jimmy Beans probably doesn’t want to ignore the male market, as knitting is getting particularly popular with affluent gay men. I don’t think that necessarily means that the site needs to be urban and hip, but it does mean the images and language chosen shouldn’t exclude this market.
I would also recommend a web site redesign. There is so much on the home page to view that the eye doesn’t really know where to go first, and the secondary pages could use better organization. The advisors you used would understand the importance of drawing the visitor to those features which are most important first - new products, featured knitters, blogs, etc. Lots of opportunities to take a wonderful product and make it better.
This is when the company, needs to spend a little money for the experienced designer. We have a company the same size and it’s worth spending the money to invest in its future growth. Just make sure that the company you hire understands the importance of marketing and business, not just the latest “tricks of the trade.”
metro-mom, not alpha mom.
$500.00 wool is all about allowing the “judgement” of others to effect one’s self-image.
make it desirable & trendy and the herd will (predictably) stampede thu the door, just like they did for bennie babies, cabbage-patch dolls, & those truly stupid pokemon cards. we all know those stampedes had NOTHING to do w the kids, who could have just as much fun w some beat-up GI joe doll from the Goodwill.
PT Barnum noted that there’s a sucker born every minute…AND someone to sell something to ‘em.
speaking of selling…script-up some celib shoplifting scenario complete w police & photo actors.
meanwhile I gotta reconcile devoting this much mental energy to this while Iraq, the deficit, & our health-care problems continue.
I shop at jimmybeanswool.com regularly. The website is laid out well for the most part, although increasing the percentage of products with photos would help. Another big thing in the knitting community is blogging. If you or your employees are not blogging about store events, new patterns and yarn, you should start in order to generate more traffic to your page.
To the point of controlling your media coverage, the CNN article makes some sweeping generalizations that people at Jimmy Beans Wool may want to correct. The use of the term “alpha mom” may not be ideal. First, I understand that most knitters are women, but not all women are mothers. In fact, the women spending hundreds of dollars on yarn are most likely not mothers. Second, this term completely ignores men, who are a growing part of the affluent, crafty demographic.
Good luck!
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I enjoy shopping at Jimmy Bean’s on-line store, but the website says “bargain basement”, not upscale. It is crammed with stuff, boring graphics, and poor quality photos. A yarn store that wants to attract high end customers should be beautiful. The yarns should be presented in such a way that makes customers want to touch it. Purl Soho is a good example of a well designed on-line yarn store. The owner has a beautiful design esthetic that is in line with their price points. Jimmy Bean can beautiful too, yet still retain its quirkiness. If you want to attract a Barney’s consumer, you can’t present yourself like Walmart.