Most of you already know that 99% of our business has come from word-of-mouth…and we have nothing to complain about since our business has pretty much doubled each year for the last three years.  However, from time to time we have dabbled with small newspapers, some print and even google adwords with basically no success.

That is until we found HARO.  If you’ve never heard of it, help-a-reporter-out is the recent creation of Peter Shankman.  It’s a simple email list that connects reporters to potential sources for articles, for free.  We’ve been subscribed since there were only a couple of thousand readers, and now Peter’s got more than 35,000 readers and a ton of high profile reporters and bloggers use it to find sources.  We’ve benefited by getting some quality press through connections we’ve made on HARO.

Peter offers one short text sponsorship at the top of each of his emails.  We figured we’d give it a try since the price was reasonable and we’ve never had a chance to put AllyZabba in more than 35,000 people’s inbox.  It turns out, it was the best advertising choice we’ve ever made.

Let’s get specific.  We were having a decent month of December–especially considering the general state of the economy.  Here’s an excerpt from the ad that Peter ran for us on December 16th:

I love HARO sponsors because they send me the coolest (warmest, and softest, technically,) things. This HARO is thanks to AllyZabba, the worlds softest blankie…order today for guaranteed Christmas delivery for only 1 cent!. http://www.AllyZabba.com/

And you can see the response from this graph showing our site visitors:

And here is what happened to our sales that day. This graph shows the approximate gross income:

Even with our niche product of high-end, handmade baby blankets, the results were terrific.  It’s a little hard to tell from these charts how good the rest of our month actually was.  We always have a couple hundred visitors in our store and at least a few orders each day.  But, by comparison to “HARO day” the rest of the month looks like nothing.  The graphs also don’t tell the whole story because a lot of the discussions we have been exchanging with people all over are from the HARO connection. We anticipate good things from these new relationships.

In short, advertising that works. You should subscribe to the HARO list and see what you think. What a great way to end the AllyZabba year.

AllyZabba blankets were featured in houston b.a.b.y. magazine’s October issue.  They said,

These quality hand-made baby blankets are luxurious to the touch.

Check us out on page 25.

AllyZabba is all over the place today!  It is an exciting day.

AllyZabba was featured on Baby Wears Prada.  Shanna says,

We have tons of blankets. Big ones, little ones, stroller size, lovey size, thick and thin. Nothing compares to our AllyZabba! These are the softest, plushest, most cuddly blankets I’ve ever felt!

The MegaZabba was also featured in the online magazines, Tot Trends Weekly and Kids Trends Weekly.   They say,

Gorgeous chocolate plush fabric on one side and your choice of blue aloha or choco-dot as the reverse side print. Cover up the whole family while watching the tube…ya, it’s that big!

The popuar review blog, We Covet, gave their thoughts on AllyZabba.  We are thrilled with their opinion!

OMG, this blankie is so soft that I often consider snatching it out of my child’s chubby sweet fingers and bleating “MINE!”  Which begs the question: Is 33 too old to have a lovey?

Pregnancy Magazine picked AllyZabba blankets (our Chocolate-Pink Aloha blanket) as one of 5 “Crazy Cozy blankies for your little princess”.  Go check it out.  Pick up the October issue and flip to page 81.  Enjoy!

With the help of BigZabba we have a winner to the “Help AllyZabba Out” contest. She picked a number from 1-6, (the number of comments posted), and she chose number 6. Let’s take a look at who won…

Congratulations Susan! Now let’s see what fabulous prize you have won…

This custom made shirt is from my lil tees, is size 0-3 months, and is embroidered with “neatostuff”. So this guarantees that your new baby will be Neato! Look for your prize in the mail soon.

Thanks for playing everyone.

Change is always good, right? It was time for a makeover on the AllyZabba blog. Thanks DaddyZabba for making it happen. Enjoy the new look!

Who would have thought that teeth could cause so many problems? This week BigZabba has had several strange symptoms. Tuesday she had a really bad headache along with a small stomach ache. Wednesday the headache & stomach ache were worse in the morning, then suddenly disappeared in the afternoon, followed by a 103.3 fever at bedtime. This morning the fever was gone and she has only had a very small headache, not really much to even complain about. She has her 6 year molars coming in, so I am guessing that all these weird things are from her teeth. Those things are not small, so I can only imagine that her body is trying to cope.

On to other things, thanks to those that gave their input on the MegaZabba style of choice. I am going to wait a little longer to see in anyone else wants to throw in their thoughts. I want to know which style you would choose to turn into a MegaZabba. Pick anything from the site and let me know! Help me out.

Things are getting crazy around the AllyZabba offices. We just got in our new order of blankets and we have run out of room for all of them! Which is a good problem to have. We are gearing up for two features in October. The first is in Pregnancy Magazine, which comes out September 23. The second feature is in Tot Trends Weekly, a weekly online magazine, which will post on October 12.

Reader participation time….of the styles on AllyZabba, which would you like to see turned into a MegaZabba? Would you like a Candy/Camo Mega? Candy/Pastel-dot? Kiwi/Choco-dot? Comment and let me know what your first choice would be for a new MegaZabba style. Just to make it fun I will choose a winner at random to receive..well something cool. I know the editor of NeatoStuff, so I think I can find a cool thing to give away.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Want an AllyZabba of your own…for free!? Head over to A List Baby and enter to win a free AllyZabba.

The giveaway ends at noon on Friday.

Good luck!!

By popular demand…drum roll please….the dots are back! After nearly one year we have gotten a supply of the pastel dot and choco dot fabric and the blankets are currently in production. We hope that this will create many happy customers! By August 15 the blankets will be ready to ship. We are so excited to have these popular styles back in the store.

In other exciting news, our AllyZabba Aloha (chocolate-pink) blanket is scheduled to be featured in the October issue of Pregnancy Magazine! They are doing a spread on stroller blankets and AllyZabba was selected as one of the blankets for the photos. It will be available September 23.