How to turn your business into a gift experience that customers will love: Rachel Marshall

It can help you to reach new customers by offering something different to your day-to-day business, create brand ambassadors, and gain a platform to tell your story, fostering future collaborations.

I often get asked what type of business works best as an experience.

We’re proud to work with businesses all over Yorkshire to offer a huge range of unique and exciting experiences, from outdoor pursuits, crafts and creative to food, drink and pampering.

You can show people how to keep bees, take photos at night, make chocolates, learn to paddle board or taste wine.

There’s also horse riding, mindfulness woodland walks and self-guided food tours.

One of our most popular gifts is run by a North Yorkshire farmer who offers alpaca walks.

Another of our partners is a butcher who runs bespoke walking stick making courses - not only does he get to teach his passion, but it’s a great side hustle to boost his income in quieter months.

As there’s no initial set up cost or minimum contract, there’s no financial risk to becoming a partner. We take a small percentage of the price and also offer support with marketing.

How can I turn my small business into an experience?

Most experiences fall into one of four categories:

Learn - teach your craft, or show what an average day or week looks like. Can you teach a new skill that people can take away and develop at home?

Play - can people be involved in the production of your product for a day? Can they design their own flavour or packaging, or decorate a product?

Indulge - our customers love to be pampered with an extra-special food and drink experience, a health or wellbeing treatment, or a unique tour. They also enjoy visiting businesses in beautiful or interesting locations.

Experience - do you have any specialist equipment to offer something people wouldn’t normally have access to? Or can they get a hands-on experience of exactly what you do?

When offering an experience, there are a few things to consider. You’ve got to be a people person as you’ll need to interact naturally with others, and talk passionately about what you do while representing your business.

You also need to think carefully about how to price your experience. Overheads might include gas, electricity or renting a space, or needing to buy special equipment or extra sets of items for large groups. There’s also business insurance, GDPR, booking and payment systems. We recommend researching what similar businesses are offering and charging.

Our customers want to support independent businesses in their local area – and they seek out quality experiences. We work with carefully-selected suppliers, artists and makers so we can offer unique and memorable experience days and gift vouchers.

If you’d like any ideas or advice around how you can turn your business into an experience, and create an extra income stream, please just get in touch via [email protected]

Rachel Marshall is the owner of Uniquely Local Experiences