The time has come to say good bye to the Jewelry Sweet Spot – And Hellllooooo to the How to Make Jewelry Blog!

All of these informative posts have been duplicated on my new blog – the How to Make Jewelry Blog – which is an extension of my rapidly growing website, How-to-Make-Jewelry.com

I think I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, but I am so excited – If you are familiar with the Alexa rankings, I’m up to 308,000. Yes, I know there are those of you out there saying the numbers are skewed, blah, blah, blah but for a highly focused niche content site that’s an amazing number and I am just pleased as punch since I started it only in October 2007. I made it up to 50 unique visitors a day in January, and I regularly get 500 unique visitors a day now.

But I digress. The real reason I’m writing this is to say thank you! to all of you, my loyal readers, and to invite you to visit my more up to date blog at http://blog.how-to-make-jewelry.com . There is a recent post about editing digital jewelry photos for beginners – you might want to check that one out.

And, I want to invite you to join my "I’m Making Jewelry in my Jam Jams Newsletter mailing list. You won’t regret subscribing! To learn more about my newsletter and to see if it’s something you might be interested in, click this link to be taken to my newsletter information page . I’ve already been sending out lots of cool information not only for jewelry makers, but for jewelry business owners too. Videos, free tutorials, free patterns, networking opportunities, and I’ve also just set up an announcement list for some very special events coming up that will be very valuable for anyone who has the internet as part of their jewelry business plan.

So check out those links, and sign up for the newsletter. If you chose not to sign up for the newsletter, I wish you the very best of success in all your jewelry business endeavors, and I hope we cross paths again!

Cheers,

Christine Gierer

The Basics of Marketing: How Do You Know if You’re Clueless?

Do you know what you don’t know?

The Discovery

I typically never go to networking type meetings, but I was at a women’s business networking group a few weeks ago with a friend who is much more of a joiner than I am, and I was surprised that about 5 out of the 20 or so women had bead and handmade jewelry related businesses.

I made a shocking discovery at that meeting. It was hard for me to believe at first, but many of the women in the group were basically clueless about basic marketing concepts, and especially internet marketing basics.

Having little experience with offline networking, I imagined that people who were savvy enough to want to network would at least know some marketing basics.

Are You Clueless Too?

So here’s the point. Maybe you are in that clueless category and don’t even know it. I don’t want to be harsh, but I call it like I see it. And hey, everyone has to start somewhere. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until someone enlightens you.

I must admit that about a year or two ago I was in that clueless category too. As artists and craftspeople, sometimes we just want to make things in our studio and not really interact with the world in any way. At least I feel that way. I started learning about marketing because it’s necessary, not because I love selling or advertising, or even because I find it at all interesting on its own.

The Dream of All Jewelry Designers, Artists and Craftspeople

I bet you’re a lot like me.  If I could create all day and have an enthusiastic salesperson/girl or boy friday do everything else I’d be as happy as a clam.

The Naked Truth

The world doesn’t work that way though. You can be the most brilliant craftsperson in the world and make the most beautiful things that the world has ever seen but it wouldn’t matter. The marketers make the money. That’s just the way it is.

The first step, as they say, is acknowledging you have a problem. This first article in the series is all about knowing what you don’t know.

Can you answer these Basic Marketing Questions?

Marketing Questions:

The top 3 questions are the most basic. 

• Who am I targeting (or who is my audience or ideal customer?)
• What do they need?
• What is the problem I am solving for them?
• What are features and benefits? What are mine?
• Do I have a marketing strategy?
• What is my marketing strategy?
• Do I have goals?  What are they?  Are they specific and measurable?
• How can I get people excited about my product?
• How is my product different from others?
• How is my marketing different from others?

Research Questions:

• How do I find out what people want and need?
• How do I find out whether people will pay for what they want?
• Who is the competition?
• How well is the competition doing?
• How am I different from the competition?

Basic Internet Marketing Questions:

In no particular order of importance:

• What is search engine marketing?
• What is web traffic?
• What are the best ways to get web traffic?
• What is Google Adwords?
• What are keywords?
• What is a "list"?
• What is search engine optimization?
• What are backlinks?
• What is an autoresponder?

These are some of the most basic questions there are for anyone with a business. If you are planning on selling your jewelry entirely offline, with no website or web presence whatsoever, maybe you won’t need any internet marketing. I suggest though, that you should at least have an email mailing list so that you can follow up with regular customers. I’ll discuss this further in a future post.

I don’t want to scare you, but if you can’t answer most of these questions, you’re in the "clueless" category.  Don’t worry though, there is lots of information out there for the learning.  Much of it is free

Action Steps for Today:  

• Relax.
• Let some of the question percolate in your mind for a bit.  At least now you know what you don’t know.  
• Write a comment below.  Let me know what you’re thinking.

Here’s a quick heads up for all you Etsy jewelry sellers. For the next week or so only (?) you can take a look at who is making lots of sales, top sales, and sales versus listings at Etsytools

Maybe all etsy sellers know about this already. I just came across it though and I’m sad that it’ll be gone! (The blog owners are getting frustrated with some negative feedback they’re getting so they’re closing down. You can read their last post here.

I would have loved looking at this when I was selling my jewelry online. Seeing what the most successful are doing is a great way to get some insight into how to market, what people are buying, etc.

I’ve been out of the Etsy loop for awhile- I set up shop about a year or two ago but I haven’t been doing anything there lately. That’s a story for another email.

If you’re unfamiliar with Etsy, don’t check them out. You will lose countless hours of your life browsing the beautiful pictures you’ll find there.

Etsy is a huge treasure trove of anything handmade. (Just want to clarify that I have no affiliation with Etsy. I’ve had some feedback that maybe I’m plugging sites for monetary gain? Not so).

Items are sold directly from the artist and if you are looking to sell some of your own stuff, or even de-stash some of your supplies, you might want to set up shop on Etsy. Only 20 cents per listing for 4 months. MUCH cheaper than fee-bay.

Back to the point – selling on Etsy – you’ll find the stats charts at Etsy tools fascinating. Check it out before they pull it down.

If you know of a similar stats tracking tool for Etsy (or Yessy, Ruby Lane, or any of the other 3rd party crafts/ art selling websites where artists can promote and sell their work), please let me know! I’d love to share it with everyone!

Talk soon, Christine
Jewelry Making Play, Every Day!
New!!! The HTMJ Bloooooog!

P.S. New question at Ask and Answer- and it’s a biggie! I might have to answer it in parts. Wanna read it? It’s a business related one:Pricing Jewelry and Other Business Questions

(This post was written as an email for my mailing list at my main jewelry making website) I don’t often post my emails here, but this one was a time sensitive one. If you want to see what else you’ve been missing out on, you can subscribe to the Making Jewelry mailing list here.)

It’s been a looong time since I’ve blogged here but I vow to write more regularly in 2008.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing on my Jewelry Making website.

Check out some of the new tutorials:

Learn how to make a swarovski crystal, gemstone, and sterling silver Mother’s Bracelet

You can check out this free sterling and gemstone earring tutorial that I am particularly proud of.

There are a bunch of hemp jewelry making tutorials and even a hemp bracelet making video on my hemp jewelry making page

There is an awesome polymer mold and bead making tutorial by guest artist Kristen of Morbidly Cute

And lots more stuff too so please check it out and let me know what you think!