You can use a hot air balloon, balloon animals, party balloons, or something totally different to run a balloon service. But you should know that the market for party balloons is projected to grow by almost 34% by 2026, making it the fastest-growing market. You could learn how to plan and deliver your own unique party inflatables and, surprisingly, become a sure expand artist. You could start a balloon business out of your home and sell balloons for local events, or you could open a mobile balloon stand. There is no limit to what could happen.
But before you start your new business, you’ll need to know how to send a business off. This step-by-step guide has all the information you need to cut through the routine noise and run an effective inflatable business.
Step 1: Find Out if this is the Right Business for You?
Positives Vs Negative
| You can start working from home and set your own hours. Balloons have large profit margins. Make amazing floats by using your imagination. Bring smiles—everyone loves balloons. | Market Saturation: You have to compete with a lot of other balloon companies. Needed Skills: To stand out, you need patterns that are appealing. |
Industry Trends
- Size of the industry and how it has grown in the past: In 2020, the global market for party inflatables was worth $647,3 million.
- By 2026, the global market for party balloons is projected to grow by 34% and hit $865 million.
Cost of Starting Balloon Business
Starting costs for a balloon business range from $6,000 to $12,000. Some of the costs include buying balloons, a gas tank, and putting down money on a car to move the balloons.
You can become a certified inflatable craftsperson through Qualatex by signing up, taking their online classes, and passing a test. It only takes a few weeks.
Investment Items:
- Helium storage box
- Glue, ropes, and weights
- Material for decorating
Is Balloon Business Profitable?
Usually, it costs about $20 per foot of inflatables for an expand style theme. About $30 gets you a custom-made balloon bouquet. These calculations assume that your average deal will be worth about $50. After removing how much the balloons cost, your profit margin should be around 40%.
In your best few months, you could work from home and close 30 deals per week, making $78,000 a year. Assuming a 40% profit rate, this would mean making more than $31,000. As your website gets more famous, your weekly sales could hit $150. At this point, you would hire people and rent a storefront, which would cut your profit margin to about 20%. If you made $390,000 a year, you would make a good profit of $78,000.
Entry Barriers
- The creative skills needed to come up with great inflatable plans
- Entering a serious market
Step 2: Create a Strategy
Identify a Gap
Find out about the goods, prices, and customer reviews of local balloon companies. You’re looking for a gap in the market to fill. For example, maybe there isn’t a local company that sells colorful balloons or decorates balloons.
This could get people talking about you again and bring you customers right away.
Solutions
You can sell inflatables in many different ways. You can make balloon bouquets to sell or design balloons for parties and weddings. You could also set up a stand for kids to do grow animals.
Pricing
The price of balloons depends on how they are sold. About $20 per foot is spent on expanding and decorating. About $30 will get you a bouquet of balloons. After you pay to make them, you should have a profit margin of about 40%.
Once you know your costs, you can use this step-by-step profit margin tool to figure out your markup and end price points. Remember that the prices you use at send-off should depend on how the market changes in the future.
Target Market
Your audience will be varied. You should spread out your marketing by using sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
Location
In the beginning, you may have to run your business from home to keep costs down. But as your business grows, you may need to hire people for different jobs and may need to rent a place to make things. You can look for business space to rent near you on Craigslist, Crexi, and Instant Offices.
If you are looking for a place to do business, you might want to keep these basic rules in mind:
- The spot is in the middle of everything and is easy to get to by public transportation.
- The room gets a lot of natural light and has good air flow.
- As your business grows, you can stretch the lease.
- It is ready to be used and doesn’t need any big fixes.
Step 3: Write a Business Plan
Every firm need a plan. This will serve as a manual to help your business through the launch process while staying focused on your core objectives. A business plan also helps potential partners and investors understand your firm and its vision:
- Executive Summary: A quick overview of the whole business plan that should be produced when the plan is completed.
- Business Overview: A overview of the company’s aims, vision, purpose, assets, and control structure.
- What we manufacture and what we do: Describe in detail what you’re selling.
- Conduct a SWOT analysis and consider market trends such as changes in demand and growth prospects.
- Analyze your top competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, then build a list of what makes your services superior.
- Sales and marketing: Consider your company’s unique selling points (USPs) and devise sales, marketing, and promotion strategies.
- Management Team: An overview of the team’s duties and professional backgrounds, as well as a company structure.
- Operations Plan: Your company’s operational plan includes how it will get supplies, where it will put its office, what its most important assets and tools are, and other practical details.
- Financial Plan: A three-year plan for money, including start-up costs, a break-even analysis, predictions of profits and losses, cash flow, and a balance sheet.
- Appendix: Add any other papers related to money or business.
Step 4: Create a Marketing Plan
Some of your customers will come from walking by or finding you online, but you should still spend money on advertising! For new businesses, getting the word out is very important because it will bring in more customers and raise brand recognition.
Connect your website to your social media accounts once it is up and running. Social media is a great way to get the word out about your business because you can make fun content and sell your goods.
- Facebook is a great place for paid ads because it lets you target specific groups, like guys under 50 in the Cleveland area.
- Instagram has the same benefits as Facebook, but it is used by a different group of people.
- Website: Search engine optimization (SEO) will help your website rank higher in relevant search results, which is important for growing sales. Make sure there are clear calls to action on your website. Change the size, color, and placement of calls to action like “Book Now” to get more customers.
- Google and Yelp: Putting your business on Yelp and Google My Business can help people find out about it and buy from you.
- Flyers should be passed out in your neighborhood and at business events.
- Put up a video – Put up a movie about your inflatables. If you use fun, it might go viral on the Internet.
- Make a blog: Make a blog and update it often. Change up your information and share it on many different channels.
- Paid social media ads: Run ads on sites where your target crowd is.
- Pay-per-click marketing: Use Google AdWords to improve your search engine results. Do some research before using a term.
- Influencer marketing is when you pay people with a lot of social media fans to talk about your balloons. There are micro-influencers with a small number of fans and a low rate of interaction.