Don't know whether to carry on with princess parties

[blush09]

i have been trying to promote these for the last 4-5 months, appeared to be going well at first with at least 1 booking a week but have had no enquiries for the last 6 weeks, despite expensive advertising in school magazine etc

this is a sideline to my bridal makeup business, i was charging from £12 a head for makeup, nail paint, nail art, glitter tattoos, tiaras and wands, plus a special gift for the birthday girl - all products were high end, jane iredale, opi, orly etc .. im now wondering if perhaps im too expensive, although ive worked out my price according to my hourly rate

just wondered those who offered these types of parties were finding it slow, perhaps i was lucky with so many bookings when i first started out - how many should i realistically expect in a month?

i was all geared up to have a web site designed, now im not so sure .. perhaps i should stick to what i know and forget about the kids parties ?

 

[Blue Rose]

Well done you for getting so many bookings initially!

Have you been advertising in Primary Times or Raring2go? I had an advert in PT & got no bookings from it but have done much better with R2go. Don't forget that they don't come out that often & I've found the interest tails off after the mag has been out a while.

I don't know your circumstances but if you actually enjoy doing the children's pamper parties (and it seems not so many fellow geeks do, lo) then I'd say stick with it.

I've only actually done a few parties so far as a result of my adverts in R2go but I know from the stats on my salon website, that around here, it's a growing market. Through my research, it's definately big business in other parts of the country. Because of that, I'm in the process of getting a website up & running & I think it's worth speculating a bit on, as in the long run, I think it will pay dividends

Price wise I don't think you're being unreasonable. I charge £145 for up to 10 girls & our competitor charges £120 for 8. I include more things in my package so we're better value for money. I think you can charge a fair rate, as long as people think they are getting value for money, which sounds like thay do with your package. That is completely different than being the cheapest.

Perhaps someone else can say how many to expect to do in a month - this is still new for me so I'm as much in the dark. I'd be happy with 2-3 per month.

Having said that, our competitor (who have been going about 2-3 years) does several a week! I also went back up to Lancashire last weekend & had a back massage at a salon on the Sunday. They do Princess Parties in the salon & just used to do them on a Sunday. However, they got sooo popular, they do them on a Saturday now as well.

Like anything else, I guess it depends on how much promoting of it you do. Do you go to any networking events? Chances are, the woman there will have children