At the Tartan Blanket Co, we have one question we keep coming back to; one question which is guiding our current efforts. That question is, "how can this change be an opportunity for us, and not simply an obstacle?" Many of us have heard it said that the best creativity is born out of constraints and being open to that mentality has helped us to adapt with optimism.
Thankfully, we were an online business before we opened a corner of our Leith warehouse as a physical shop, so we were already set up to serve our customers digitally. But we’ve outlined a few more ways we embraced change by asking questions below, and we hope you can see how they could work for you too.
As a small business doing our best to adapt to the times, we've revamped our gift boxes to be care packages suited to current themes. It's garnered a fantastic response, and we'd be lying if the gift notes we've been handwriting for our customers didn't make us a little misty-eyed: they're often about how they're sending a blanket as a hug until they can give one in person again.
We’ve just launched our brand new Father’s Day Gift Boxes for 21st June with choices of pre-curated care packages or the option to build your own! To help with social distancing measures, we’re offering free UK shipping & paying international duties. And you can read more about our co-founder's experience-based Father’s Day gift guide here.
With health at the forefront of everyone's minds, we're doing our best to educate our readers about wool as a tool for wellness, especially with babies. (Read more here.)
We've taken action for mental health too. In hopes of becoming a resource for our community during lockdown, we've created a special page called Stay Home. It's a safe space for community thinking, rest and inspiration that aims to turn isolation into hibernation through the ethos "now is the time to get close, no matter the distance." We've run a public blanket design competition and released custom illustrations created by our in-house design team to lift the spirits of our customers. It's the little things.
Earlier this year, we released our big 2020 pledge to be a Positive Impact Company and donate 2% of each purchase to environmental and humanitarian charities that champion slow fashion and ethical supply chains. Even in challenging times, this has not changed one bit and we love talking about how we’ve worked closely with our partners in this time.
More recently, as an extension of our pledge and in efforts to be useful in the fight for racial justice, we’re donating 1% of our revenue from the past three months to the NAACP and using our platform to funnel social justice resources and knowledge to our audience.
Another big thing is that brands often forget that as well as asking questions of themselves, they're allowed to ask their followers questions too. Why do we forget that? It’s such a useful tool!
We’ve been using our social media platforms, particularly Instagram, to ask our community questions like, "how can we support you right now? What do you need? What do you wish more brands were doing?" Ultimately, it's about being useful to our customers and our community.
Our advice? Give your community opportunities to speak and allow yourself to learn from them. See what they want or need and figure out if you’re able to help them on their journey. Asking really good questions often leads to really good answers.
Content Creator and professional babbler at The Tartan Blanket Co. Jumpsuit enthusiast. Aspiring crazy cat lady. Really into bad dance moves. Doing photo stuff over at @ameliaclaudia.
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