Statistics

I love statistics don't you? I find they help drive a business as long as you aren't slavish to them. Anyway, I've been doing our end of months stats and here is a snapshot of where we are against current targets and over last year's numbers:

So far this year we have sold 16% more Trails directly to the public than overall last year and we have sold 9% more over the internet - using the www.treasuretrails.co.uk website.

We have achieved 70% of our annual target and the next three months are our busiest in terms of sales in the run up to Christmas, so there is no reason that I can see why we shouldn't achieve 100% + of our annual sales target.

We have had a steady increase in the number of hits to our website and compared to January of this year, August had 47% more hits than in January! September numbers look as though they might a record for us and that's before the Superhero Challenge drives people into the website - which should start next week when the leaflets and posters are distributed.

Its all looking OK!

The Prince's Trust Superhero Challenge

So busy with getting stuff done for the Superhero Challenge taking place on November 1st in Worcester that there is no time for anything else, including blog writing!!

The posters are ready to print and the leaflets are organised and the little business cards are almost done, so we can now move onto the next steps which is to ensure the activities are all lined up and the booklet is ready to have the artwork created by our super duper designer - Aaron! If you need any artwork done, then let him know - he is fab at it and we are delighted with all that he has done so far.

Have updated the web page and are now ready for the first lot of cheques to arrive. Take a look : www.treasuretrails.co.uk/trails/worcestershire/theprincestrust/

Quite a mouthful!

No time to stop and pontificate - back soon......

Hit Counter

Writing a blog is a weird thing to do isn't it when you think about it - why on earth would anyone be interested in the musings of a 50 something, self employed mum of grown up sons?

Seems one or two are though as the hit counter that David installed on the blog site is up to 321 today! A significant number -> 3 2 1 Thunderbirds are go!! But because it is rare to get comments on the blog entries, I really don't know who reads it; whether they read it regularly or if it is one of those that people stumble across, are bored by and stagger on!

Anyway, I've decided to watch the hit counter and see how many hits I get on average per day/week and go from there! But if you do have a comment, then I'd love to hear it! Meantime, 3 2 1 Treasure Trails Are Go!!

Twitter

I've decided I really like Twitter and we are starting to get some benefit from it.

Successes we have had with Twitter are:

1) Had an opportunity to give a prize to the organisers of the http://www.mumpreneurconference.com/, and an invite from them to send 100 leaflets to go into their goodie bags + our logo will go on their web page soon. I would never have known about them and for the price of a stamp I get all that "free" advertising - fantastic.

2) Had a local hotel contact us recently asking how they can get involved with the Trails - followed up with an email which I now need to follow up with a phone call. To get a hotel contact us rather than the other way round gives me much more confidence that they are interested in what I've got to say/sell!

3) I know more about what Treasure Trails Hampshire is up to than any other area of the TT business as they are the only other part of the Treasure Trails business that uses Twitter.

Small but satisfying.

There are lots of websites giving advice on how to get the best of out of it and what the point of it is, but in a nutshell, I think as a follower it is a way to get bite sized bits of information from an organisation or person you find interesting and as a twitterer you can give interesting snippets of information to your followers, bearing in mind that people buy people! More on this to come.

Treasure Trails Newsletter

Just finished writing the Treasure Trails newsletter that goes out to all customers that have signed up for it....purpose is to remind them about us and drive them to the website to buy another Trail. Got to keep in mind the purpose! Not sure I achieved that, but anyway - this is what went into it this time:

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Shopping Days 'til Christmas
Amazing how the days and weeks whip past at this time of year in the run up to Christmas isn't it. However fast or slow it comes everyone's thoughts start to turn to what presents they need to send and we'd like to let you know that Treasure Trails make fantastic gifts!

They are good for those hard to buy for people in your life.....husbands, brothers, sons, uncles, grandparents, in-laws, like to cousins, neighbours.....

They are also great as stocking fillers and tree pressies, because they are such a reasonable cost at just £5.00. In our house, £5 is the limit on items that go into the stockings or hang off the tree.

They make a brilliant and unusual secret santa gift because they suit all ages and both sexes!

Finally, they are a fab standby to have in the house ready wrapped for the person you forgot to buy for and who appears with a pressie on Christmas Eve and if you don't use it, then just unwrap it and give yourselves a walk on Boxing Day!

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Personalised Trails
Thinking about pressies for people, we've created some personalised Trails this year that have gone down exceptionally well with both the givers and receivers and we'd like to quote some of the feedback we've been given.

"I have been extremely impressed with the organisation of the Treasure Trails, Amanda was very helpful and within a couple of days of placing my order a personalised trail came through the post. The photos and information I had given were cleverly woven into the trail and makes a fantastic gift" - Wendy, April 2009, Redditch

"The Trail for my friend has arrived in the post today ~ thank you for turning this around so quickly. I can't wait until Sunday when we give it to him; I just hope that we get to go on the walk with him! Yours has been such a personal and friendly service. It was so good to be able to make suggestions and that you were so kindly tolerant of the changes that were made. I will definitely buy more Trails for friends; they're like Cluedo for grown ups and you get fresh air and exercise too! My thanks to David too .." - Maggie, August 2009, Kidderminster

Its fab, fab, fab and I love it, thanks so much! - Claire, August 2009, Hereford

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The Prince's Trust Superhero Challenge
On November 1st, 2009 we are involved in an event in Worcester in aid of the Prince's Trust. It is aimed at primary school children, but all ages will get lots of fun from it and tickets go on sale at the beginning of October!

Not only are there clues to find answers to just like a normal Treasure Trail, but there are activities to do as well - like go karting, wall climbing, rugby and cricket skills, fire hose challenges and mask painting, to name a few!

To secure your ticket, which is £20 for a group of up to 5 people, click the link below to be taken to the coupon which you can download and print on your own printer.

Not too long and not too boring hopefully!

Treasure Trails Website

Today the plan is to continue work I started yesterday, which is to refresh and update the Treasure Trails Herefordshire and Worcestershire website pages.

I've just had a browse through them and they are in fairly good order, but there are some pages that could do with updating - like the ones where we quote our customers' comments and the ones where we show what articles we've had in the news. In fact, we've had lots of articles published but we only have the ones up to September 08 on the site - can't believe a whole year has passed since we added to those pages!

I also spent a while yesterday adding all the logos of the organisations that are sponsoring the Prince's Trust Superhero Challenge event we are working on and today I need to add the links to their websites. Once that's done, I can email them all and ask them to add links to our site so we can get a flow of traffic and hopefully pick up some sales and increase the awareness of Treasure Trails.

Best get on with it!

Admin - Show - Admin

Another Monday spent sorting out after a show and generally getting on top of all the admin that piles up when you are out enjoying yourselves!

On Saturday we had a good day at the Droitwich Spa Salt Day. Salt Day celebrates the town’s historic association with salt, which can be traced back to the Iron Age. The Romans knew Droitwich as ‘Salinae’ and they were in Vines Park close to us with their bare legs and full armour marching around importantly!!

We proved the importance of a good pitch too on Saturday because we started off behind the Statue in Vines Park and next to the band stand, with the Guides on one side of us and a lot of nothing on the other side. Three stands up from us was a corner spot which was empty as the exhibitors hadn't turned up and after a couple of hours when we had only sold less than a handful of Trails, the organisers asked us if we would mind moving to the corner spot - which we did and our sales went up from there! In the end we had a really good day and beat our average sales which is always a good thing!!

Sunday, we spent checking on some Trail Trouble. We'd had some feedback from a customer about the Hay on Wye Trail. I quote verbatim "Clue no 17 seemed impossible to find! We looked several times and came to the conclusion that the notice/plaque has been removed and therefore was impossible to find the answer. Might need checking from your pointof view! Great entertainment - a granny, a mum, an aunt and two teenage lads all enjoyed it. Brilliant entertainment." So any excuse to go to Hay and we set off to see if the clue had been moved.... but no, there it was albeit a little overgrown and maybe you had to know it was there, but there it was anyway in all its glory!

Had a minor problem on Sunday though, I knocked my breakfast smoothie over the laptop and consequently the w sticks a bit now... I was lucky though, it could have been more than just a sticky w!!

To Grade for Difficulty or Not !`

There has been much discussion internally in Treasure Trails this week about whether we should grade the Trails for difficulty or not.

The arguments for include the fact that some areas get a few people responding on their feedback that they found Trails easier/harder than other Trails they’ve done and it’s definitely put them off. It confuses our customers as they don’t have that sense of consistency. But it only surfaces for people that try Trails in different counties. Putting a difficulty rating not only gives the customer some level of comfort that they’re choosing the right Trail (and if you think about it, a defence from criticism ala “well you did choose the difficult one!”) but actually also forces us to develop some consistency between us. This becomes the impetus to get there. We’ve had some Dorset customers who thought the Hampshire Trails were too easy and some of Hampshire's repeat customers love the Trails but want something harder now. A difficulty rating backed up with some simple defined standards solves this very easily. It wouldn't be too difficult to develop some guidelines between us that define what makes Trails difficult/medium or easy. For example, cryptic clues or clues that require prior cultural/educational knowledge should be only set on difficult/extreme/expert trails. We can agree that all between us and then that immediately improves our consistency. It will provide fresh new challenges to our regular customers, who may have done lots of Trails and may start to get a bit jaded.

And the arguments against are that part of our marketing spiel and the TT ethos is that the trails really are suitable for all ages – Devon TT met recently FOUR generations (included Great Grandma!) of one family who had all been out trailing at the same time. We've also had a comment through the Trail rating process recently which said -> "Great entertainment - a granny, a mum, an aunt and two teenage lads all enjoyed it. Brilliant entertainment."

We try to mix the level of difficulty of clues within each Trail, including a few easier clues for kids and to get a novice Trailer started, and some harder ones to provide more of a challenge as well. From the numerous returning customers we have, and from the feedback we receive via the answer submission and directly at shows, we think we’ve got the mix of difficulty about right. People like the fact that they are able to get the right answer - eventually!

So, in conclusion, the feedback rating already proves that everybody’s Trailing experience is different, which makes the rating somewhat meaningless. If the majority give a Trail a rating of between 8 and 10, and then one person gives it a 5, do we rush out and change the Trail? Likewise, we could run into the same problems with levels of difficulty.

There is of course nothing to stop a couple of lines being added in the About The Trail bit in the booklet itself or on the Trail home page, indicating the level of difficulty.

What do you think?

Stourport Carnival

Off to Stourport Carnival in the morning. The weather forecast is suggesting that it will cloudy and windy tomorrow which is great news because we always do better when its not raining!!

Apparently the carnival includes a big parade with floats and marching bands, an evening river carnival, plus a host of activities and entertainment for the whole family to enjoy over two days!

Stourport itself is "a unique Georgian canal town in the heart of the Severn Valley" and of course Treasure Trails has a really great Trail around the town for just £5.00. Like all our Trails, it can downloaded from the website www.treasuretrails.co.uk or come and find us on Saturday on the carnival field and we'll sell you the booklet.

Hope to see you there!

Other People's Blogs

Found a blog entry talking about Treasure Trails today which was very heartwarming to see. I do love it that people always seem to have a wonderful day out with friends and family when they do one of the Treasure Trails.

Have a read for yourselves : http://amidesignsjewellery.blogspot.com/2009/09/treasure-trails.html#comment-form

It really is fantastic to get independent views and this one of the best type of testimonials to get because there is nothing in it for her! We also get feedback and comments from customers when they submit their answers onto our website and here is a selection from the last couple of week's comments :

"Excellent trail. Very good for all ages and dogs! With regard to refreshments on route, please be aware that some of the pubs are not open all day"

"Took longer than stated. Everything else great. Looking forward to doing next one"

"Very enjoyable"

"I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was for me one of the best days of my summer holiday! Thank you so much!"

Bargains Work

Interesting tale.... in today's post was a completed Hereford Trail together with the answer and a cheque for £6 and a request for the Ross Trail. On examination of the Hereford Trail, we realised it was one we had sold at half price ie £2.50 because it was an old version of the Hereford Trail which had "Trail Trouble". In other words, one of the clues was missing and we'd written the answer on the booklet itself and because one of the clues was missing and we didn't want to just chuck the booklet, we made a decision recently to sell them off to cover the printing and prize fund costs.

This lady obviously enjoyed the Hereford Trail so much, she decided to buy the Ross one at full price plus P & P..... so David was right all along, bargains work!!