The #marchmeetthemaker for March 4th is Human Touch. I instantly thought that I would talk about how each of our products is handmade in our little kitchen using our recipes but then something came to me which changed how I related to the prompt.
Last year when we were rebranding the business, we revisited our company ethos, and we rewrote our company values. One of the ones we added was “be human”. It was clear to us that we didn’t just want to be an online business we wanted to add the “human touch” too. It is easy to slip into the online business mindset where everything is focused on sales and marketing. The human touch is much more important. We decided to dial everything back, to look at how we can have an online business and be human as well.
Our social media has changed, we are striving to show the humans behind the business, our journey, and what makes us tick. We are swapping regular market dates for Meet The Maker events and popup events which allows us to take time to chat with people about our products and our business. We are launching a series of workshops to help us connect with customers on a different level and add a fun element to the business. We have launched a larger retail space in the Emporium M33 to give our local customers a chance to pop in and try our products. As the year goes on, we plan to turn our retail space into a destination for gifts, workshops, and much more, giving us a chance to add more of the “human touch” to our business.
Today, when we look at our business, we don’t look at it from just one perspective. Yes, we want it to be a thriving online business and we are working hard to make that side of the business work, but we also want it to feel human. We want to be able to have that face-to-face retail experience with our customers. We are seeing the effects that online shopping has had on our high streets and we want to change that. Retail has to have the human touch too… do you agree?