Tuesdays with Tammy: How to promote new dies

Posted by Tammy Miller

As you're bringing new dies into your die cutting center, don't forget to promote them as much as you can. We have had many successful stores tell us that by keeping the display projects up to date with the latest dies that their customers will be more interested in taking advantage of the die cutting center... which means more paper and other product that they will need to buy from you. 

How else can you promote new dies? Here's a list that I always go through with retailers and if you have any more ideas I'd like to hear about them.

1. Feature a new die a week: Show multiple projects using the die, including scrapbook pages, cards and other paper crafts.
2. List the new dies in your e-mail or printed newsletter. If you locate your die on the AccuCut site you can right-click on the die image and copy it so you can use it in your newsletter.
3. Go to the Ideas area on the AccuCut site. You can enter your die number in the search box to show all of the AccuCut project ideas using that die. Print off your favorites and keep a binder in your die cutting center to provide free inspiration for your customers!
4. Have a contest: Pick a die or group of new dies and have a contest in your store for the most creative project. This provides projects that you can display during the contest period (have people vote on their favorites) and gets people excited about what they can participate in.   
5. Create samples, samples and more samples.
6. Have a class featuring projects made with new dies.

If you have any other creative ways to promote new dies in a store, please post your ideas.

Before I go I want to share a wonderful Spring Flowers scrapbook page that showcases the new Apricot alphabet in the 2" size as well as our Creative Cafe Ribbon-11 1/2" die, which was one of our best sellers at the show. Click here to view the project page on our site.

I like the nontraditional use of the big ribbon shape. Here is what the actual Ribbon-11 1/2" die looks like:

For the scrapbook page, the designer used two different papers to cut two shapes using just the ribbon edge. Then she pieced them together to form a narrower ribbon shape than the original shape on the die. That's just one more way to get more out of a single die. I hope you liked the project and the tip!