As for our regular weekends in Oliver at the Indoor Flea Market, George finished designing a business card sized ad for us to use in the Osoyoos Times newspaper. I left it up to him to decide where we would promote ourselves in print media and he liked the options available from that particular newspaper. We decided to run a weekly ad from mid-May to late September.
George did indicate a level of enjoyment in designing the ad, although he still hasn’t unboxed all of the tools he used to use at the newspaper. Still, the ad appeared twice and suddenly two more vendors wanted to participate. Both George and I expected this to happen and he got to design their ads for the now two business card sized ads that are in a section promoting the market.
Additional Local Marketing
Considering we have chosen to keep the Oliver Indoor Flea Market as our ‘home base away from home’ it got us interested in community involvement. George and I spent a few months researching the tourist info centre servicing the Oliver region and chose to become members. What you would know as a Chamber of Commerce is called the Oliver Tourism Association.
We became members May 19th and with an additional fee we have rack card space to use at the facility, which happens to be located about two blocks away from the Oliver Indoor Flea Market and on the same street. George will be designing the rack cards we will be providing OTA to use to promote us and the market. We are convinced this exposure is going to be beneficial.
Additionally, one of our new vendor neighbours in the market, The Chase Gallery, is working with us to cross promote the market and build an image for the “Yellow Room” where we are located at the Oliver site. We have started to develop a friendship with all the relatively new vendors in our part of the building and George is forever befriending others at the site.
More Traffic Is On The Way
Although there has been a dip in foot traffic recently at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market, other long-term vendors have shared an interesting fact with us. Now that the November to April ‘snowbirds’ have all gone home, the May to September ‘summer tourists’ are starting to arrive. The May long weekend was a good indication of that with us selling very well over those days.
I’m starting to find it enjoyable to drive the 100-minutes to get to Oliver again. There were a few weeks I was not really looking forward to it but now I think I’ve been bitten by the spring bug. I can’t wait to see the vendors we share the yellow room with now. George has always enjoyed going to and vending at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market and likes marketing our brand there.
By the time he finishes designing our rack cards for OTA I am sure we will see a consistent increase in foot traffic and business in the yellow room. In fact, that’s how we see the advertising – it’s not going to just benefit us, it’ll benefit other vendors as well. Fortunately it only took a couple weeks before more vendors decided to participate in the marketing program.