In the Netherlands, there is a sentence that is always said immediately after financial advice or the promotion of a financial product. I paraphrase: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Usually, this means something like: "things will not always be this good; be careful". Today, we experienced that the opposite can also be true.
This weekend, we're selling our Thais Tafelen cooking kits for the second year at the Winter Fair in Hardenberg. It's the first multi-day fair at which we are present for the second year in a row. Naturally, we looked at last year's results to predict how things will go this year. Things are totally different.
The first day of the event starts at 10.00 and ends at 22.00. An unusually long day for a fair. Last year, it was our worst day out of three days, despite being the longest day by far. This year, we almost doubled last year's first day revenue.
Two things we didn't think of in advance. First, the audience seems different than last year. More people are willing to taste our samples. The samples are vital for sales. Last year, people had all kinds of excuses why they didn't want to taste. "Just had coffee", "Just had lunch", "I don't like spicy", etc. If people are not willing to taste, it's almost impossible to convince them that our product is really good and unique. This year, the audience either wanted to taste or walked by. From the ones who tasted, my guess is that the conversion rate might be as high as 50%. I think that's amazing.
The second difference we hadn't foreseen is that people already know us. There were a lot of customers who had bought something from us last year. Some became online customers. But because we're present for the second year, some simply had a reminder that we exist. They didn't need to be convinced. They recognize, they taste, they buy. So simple. Here, the compounding effect in branding and marketing becomes visible.
I hope that this unforeseen success on the first day is a sign of what's to come in the next two days. Hopefully, we're on track to break our three-day fair revenue record. In a couple of days, we'll know for sure. To be continued...