Promotion, advertising, newsletters, new product launches, blah blah

That's easy we haven't done any! I was reminded recently by Craig our web guy that our last on-line newsletter was back in March, oop's 9 month's, and they were supposed to be quarterly! We backed out of paper advertising (classic rags, owners club mags, bar the Club Triumph mag) a couple of years ago for reasons explained on here before, and to be honest we haven't missed that bit of promo at all. New product launches usually via our on-line newsletter, or via trade flyers have also been found lacking. It's not that we haven't been beavering away developing new parts. We have probably sourced, developed, or produced more this year than we ever have in one year, it's just that we haven't told anyone about it! The main log jam in this information process is me, sometimes when you are busy you can't see the 'wood from trees', or the 'bigger picture', and we/I have had a busy old year. As a result of the complete lack of promo retail sales this year have been pretty static, and much the same as the year previously. Trade sale however have been very good with a marked rise in volume into other traders/retailers. The doom and gloom prophesised by some quarters out there in trade land of a few years back seems to have been premature if our experiance of selling into the trade is anything to go by. Of course it's all to easy to settle back into the easy life of selling into the volume buyers, OK so the margin's are smaller, but it requires far less infastructure. Bigger consignments (as against lots of small ones) requires less input from us, and we have been running with fewer staff this past year or so. Also the trade don't need technical help lines, and you never get 'postage issues' with the trade, the couriers always find the trade in when they call! As things settle down however as Christmas rushes towards us it's time to put some of the above to right's. This weekend I started loading in some of those new products onto the website, and the basis for the next on-line newsletter is formulated in my head. A small revamp of the website might also be on the cards as it's starting to look a little staid and unloved, again down to my lack of input. I can blame 'technical difficulties' (dodgy digital camera's, disappearing scanners, missplaced software) no longer, all it takes is more time in front of one of these things!