The pandemic has caused distress and loss. Despite these times of uncertainty, new business owners have established their energy directly toward social marketing while other brick and mortar businesses have had to redirect their marketing approach toward online ventures.
By Ruby Muñoz, Editorial Intern
Twenty-year-old Long Beach resident, Sam Bui, always wanted to start a small business. Interestingly enough, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that gave her the opening and the push to finally start her business.
Online shoppers spent their time purchasing products during the pandemic, while Bui utilized her time and energy social marketing her business on various social media platforms.
Bui works on handmade and animal-cruelty free, vegan products such as lip glosses, body oils, candles, incense, body scrubs, bath soakers and ethically sourced crystals.
For Bui it is important that she conveys the message that she uses ethically sourced, synthetic mica on her products because fair trade and ethics are important aspects to her business. She said she wants her business to be unique and different and not like other businesses.
With being a spiritual individual, for Bui her products are meant to be more than business, but they are a reflection of her personality and what she believes in. Bui said her products are based on spirituality, which she believes that everyone’s bodies are a spirit and vessel. She believes that there is a divine creator, spirit guides and purpose for all.
“My business promotes the use of holistic care and the use of spirituality that is used in a positive way and not in a negative one,” she said. “I want people to use it as a way to educate others that spirituality is so much more than preconceived stereotypes. Spirituality comes a lot with being connected and knowing we’re all one, that is why I named mine a Cubbie’s Coven because I wanted it to be a very inclusive space.”
Bui would like to have more boys and transgender men and women as her models. She wants to include the LGBTQ community in her business. She said she wants her business to be a safe space for everyone.
She is also inspired to create more eco-friendly packaging and ideas because she wants there to be less waste production.
“That’s something that’s very big to me, I try to reuse every last thing that I have so I’m trying to come up with new ideas and less waste production as well. I wanted to make something different, personal and something you don’t see everyday,” she said.
Like many flourishing business owners that are growing online during the pandemic, Bui utilized her time to work on several of her handmade products and was able to create her own social media platforms to market her business.
“I feel that promoting my business on social media such as Instagram or TikTok, is very beneficial because rather than paying like hundreds of dollars and extensive amounts of money for other people to advertise my business,” Bui said. “It is much easier for me to advertise it myself knowing that things will come out the way I want it to look; it will be explained the way I want it to be explained, and no one else is better to promote my business than myself because it comes more personal. Using social media widely, spreads very fast, just by the use of hashtags or just by the use of people sharing it to their stories or to their friends.”
Her customers view the hard work and effort that she places on her products as an essential part of their purchases.
“You can just tell Sam makes all her products with love,” said 21-year-old customer, Alyanna De Vera who is from Ewa Beach, HI. “Her packaging was also very cute. I am excited for her upcoming new products. I definitely will be purchasing more in the future.”
Marketing Professor at California State University Long Beach, Ingrid M. Martin, Ph.D. works with the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the university, which helps small businesses through the pandemic and process of pivoting to survive.
“Given all the restrictions created by the pandemic, small businesses have been forced to rethink their marketing approach,” Martin said. “Businesses that were primarily brick and mortar, realized that to survive, they would need to create an online presence (website). This meant that a business such as Cubbie’s Coven, starting from scratch, can avoid the costs of a brick-and-mortar store and move directly into the online space. Other businesses have had to pivot to stay in business and survive.”
Because Bui established her new business directly toward an online space, she was able to start fresh and avoid the challenges of losing money and customers during the pandemic.
“It was a perfect time because I didn’t have anything else to do, but just focus on my small business and that’s something that kept me motivated to keep working on it and keep going for it,” Bui said.
A recent Forbes (https://tinyurl.com/ypw5dvd3) survey found that 37% of respondents said they intended to spend more online during the holidays in 2020 than they did in 2019. The report, which surveyed 3,500 holiday shoppers in September from the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany and France, also found that only 10% said they intended to increase their time in physical stores.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, customers during the holiday season navigated new shopping behaviors. According to Forbes, “More than 60 percent of global consumers have changed their shopping habits, and they intend to stick with them.”
“The great thing about online stores is it opens up your opportunities to reach customers beyond your regional market and using social media requires an understanding of which platform can best reach your target audience.” Martin said. “For entrepreneurs like Cubbie’s Coven, it makes it easy to start a business with a small investment in marketing. The great thing is that now the world is your oyster.”
The Forbes survey also found that businesses that focus on social marketing will grow their customer base and online community. Responding to users, cultivating conversations and building authentic brand-consumer relationships are all great elements that will encourage repeat customers and increased engagement.
“I didn’t know where to start. I thought that to start a small business, I needed to have money,” Bui explained. “Yes, I wasn’t wrong. I needed to have money, but I didn’t need as much as I thought I needed. I thought I needed billions of millions of dollars. I learned that things start small and this is where being self-made comes from.”