Jewelers of America's Tips to Thrive features daily business-building tips, from Jewelers of America's resident experts. Don't just survive the year, thrive with our profitable ideas for all areas of jewelry retail.
In a recent "Custom-Made Events" Tip, we featured creative event ideas from “Running Successful In-Store Events,” an America’s Best Jewelers workshop held during Jewelry Market Week in Las Vegas. Jewelers on the panel session also shared ideas on promoting and tracking events.
Take the following tips from successful retailers to get the most out of your in-store events:
More and more retail jewelers are capitalizing on the Facebook phenomenon, as the social networking website continues to grow faster than the speed of light. In “Retail Jewelers Can Sell on Facebook,” JCK Magazine Senior Editor Rob Bates shares insight from jewelers who are making the most of their Facebook Pages.
Use these tips, from Facebook-savvy retailers, to market your store on Facebook and reach more customers:
Continue reading "Get Started on Facebook 101: Put Your Best Face(book) Forward" »
As jewelry retailers look for ways to reach new customers, online media must be a focus of their marketing efforts. The recent tip, “Get Started on Facebook 101: Build Your Company Page,” showed retailers how to set up a business-friendly Facebook Page. Once you’ve entered the Facebook frontier, there can be a language learning curve.
Use our Facebook Terminology Primer for key terms to help you find your way as you explore Facebook:
Continue reading "Get Started on Facebook 101: The Terminology" »
You want to reach more customers, faster and stay connected to them once you’ve found them. Facebook, the ever-popular social-networking website, has become a go-to web venue for businesses looking to expand their brand. Yet even for the most tech-savvy business owners, getting set up on the site can be daunting at first. Over the next few days, we’ll share Facebook tips to get you started without breaking a sweat.
Your timing couldn’t be better. Facebook recently made it even easier for brands and companies to connect with their target customers through their “Pages” feature. According to Inside Facebook, the updated version of the Pages feature has “the potential to … [reach] your customers in a very authentic, powerful, and extremely targeted way.”
Jewelers of America’s Communications Manager Lauren Thompson provides a simple seven-step process to set up a business-friendly Facebook Page:
Continue reading "Get Started on Facebook 101: Build Your Company Page" »
Are you letting minor technical problems drag down the overall quality of your site? Mike Werling of Entrepreneur.com writes that solving these issues doesn’t require a total site makeover.
He shares everyday fixes you can make to improve efficiency and build your bottom-line:
Today’s consumer is more open to the buying online than ever before. Consider this statistic found in a survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org: U.S. online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009. That trend is sure to continue, as people choose to shop in ways that are most convenient for them, whether in person or on the web.
Whether you’re just getting started -- or want to revamp your existing site -- Jewelers of America’s resident education and management expert David Peters offers advice on entering the e-world of opportunity:
In the jewelry business, reputation is everything. As you expand your business online, are you doing enough to protect your reputation in the world “wild” web? You need to be certain that the same high standards you apply to your store are being applied to your online business.
In Small Business Trends’ “Top 10 Ways to Save Your Online Reputation in 2009,” Janet Meiners Thaeler offers of-the-moment insight on how your online reputation can be fragile -- with web features like negative customer reviews that spread quickly and can live online for years. “Today one angry customer can tarnish a company’s reputation for years,” she writes.
Here are some of her top tips to help you proactively protect your jewelry-business reputation online:
Do you make it easy for customers to contact you through your website? If users need a degree from M.I.T. to figure out how to email, call or visit your store, it’s time to rework your “Contact” page. There’s no point in investing a lot in your Internet presence, if customers have a hard time reaching you through your site. In “Make Your ‘Contact Us’ Page User-Friendly,” Megan Morris of MyBusinessMag.com shares ideas on ensuring your information is accessible.
Tips on how to improve customer accessibility to your store online:
Continue reading "Drive Online Visitors to Your Off-Line Location" »
One of the best tools a jeweler has in their arsenal is a customer Wish List. It not only enables targeted marketing, but couples it with customer buy-in, a huge advantage in the sales process. In “Customer ‘Wish Lists’ Prove Versatile Tools,” Joseph Dobrian of National Jeweler explores the ways that jewelers use lists to drive business.
Dobrian’s ideas on how to gather and use wish lists:
A website can be a great marketing vehicle or a disaster,
depending on what you put on it. In “Five Tips for Writing Good Content for your Website,” Suze Bragg notes, “no good content = no good customers.”
That’s an equation your store’s site cannot afford.
Bragg
shares the following ideas for attracting (and keeping) customers with the
quality of your content:
Is your website mobile-friendly? “All signs suggest that online browsing will be done increasingly by mobile phone,” writes the Wall Street Journal online’s Kelly Spors in “Serving Your Customers With Mobile Marketing,” In fact, she notes that a report from Nielsen Mobile shows 15.6% of U.S. subscribers actively use their mobile devices at least once a month and the number is rising quickly.
Tips to help you “mobilize” your site:
During challenging times, consumers put more thought into what they buy. Suze Bragg writes on “Retail Online” that this is the best time to market to consumers: “If you’re not on their radar screen now, why would you be on it after they’ve settled on a product or a store?” Now is the time to spend wisely and earn customer loyalty.
According to recent studies, consumers say they are less likely to purchase jewelry this holiday season. So it’s more important than ever that you put your store front-and-center. One of the most economical ways to accomplish this is to ride the coattails of broader industry or retail promotions, like Cyber Monday. Connect your online or in-store promotions to this heavily promoted e-shopping day, which falls the Monday after Thanksgiving, to gain a competitive edge.
Amanda Gizzi of Jewelry Information Center (JIC) shares the following ideas on how your store can ride—not get wiped out by—the Cyber Monday wave:
In offering great customer service at your store, we hope you’ve already taken important steps to ensure your staff can provide the best customer service possible. In addition to proper training, they’re also going to need the right tools to perfect customer service -- and technology plays a crucial role.
Jewelers of America Director of Education David Peters offers the following “tech support” tips to truly thrive in customer service:
Use a Database System. Invest in a comprehensive database system that allows you to record, organize and customize all customer contact information.
In today’s 24-hour news cycle, it's easy to feel a bit on the edge. But rather than pointing to the sky in abject fear a la Chicken Little, you’ll do your business (and yourself and your family) much more good by remaining calm.
Industry analyst Ken Gassman put the current economic climate into perspective in a recent IDEX Online column, “Don’t Panic, It’s Not The End of the World.” He reminds retailers that while jewelry demand may soften in a tough economy, it’s remained relatively strong this cycle and more importantly, it will rebound. “Jewelry is not a fad product; it has been around for at least 50,000 years,” he notes.
Gassman says jewelers need to hit this period of softness head-on. He offers up a “Plan of Action,” which includes the following tips:
Increase Customer Contacts: Set up a “clientelling” program to contact your best customers. Gassman reminds us that while just over 25% of jeweler’s business comes from the big holidays, the rest comes from life cycle milestone events like anniversaries and birthdays. Jewelers with good customer records can call their clients to remind them that they have “just the thing” for an upcoming life cycle event.
Target Advertising: In a slow economy, highly targeted advertising -- like direct mail and phone calls -- is the way to go. Use them to reach out to your best customers.
Properly Incentivize Sales Associates: Make sure the compensation system for sales associates rewards them primarily for doing their job -- selling. And don’t let them get bogged down with paperwork.
Focus on the Real Competition: Gassman says don’t fret over other jewelers -- whether they’re of the Wal-Mart, online or down-the-street variety -- because a jeweler's biggest competition for dollars comes from merchants selling handbags, scarves, sunglasses, cosmetics, shoes, and other accessories.
Take The Tip:
Click here to read Gassman’s full report at IDEX. We plan to revisit it for advice (and to stay calm) as the season progresses.
We have been emphasizing the importance of working with the Web, rather than avoiding it, to thrive in today's market. The National Retail Federation’s Shop.org Annual Summit, held last month in Las Vegas, reaffirmed the need for retailers to establish the best online retail presence they can.
Lisa Everitt shared “Four Big Ideas” from the conference at the BNET’s Retail Industry blog. Jewelers should take advantage of these innovative Web ideas to stand out in the competitive retail jewelry market:
Having a web presence is important, but how much product should you share with visitors to your site? Images of your product online -- whether you have e-commerce capability or not -- will be crucial to creating interest in your store and the jewelry you sell there.
Over at Export Business Source’s “Retail Online” blog, Suze Bragg says the first thing you should ask yourself is what are you trying to accomplish when you display products online? For instance, do you want to test the interest in a particular item? Are you trying to drive customers to your store? Do you want to sell to them online? Perhaps both?
Continue reading "Know How to Showcase Your Product Online" »
Don't let the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) less-than-rosy predictions (2.2% growth) for holiday retail sales, deflate your confidence. Now is the time to think about how you can buck the trends. Don't focus on price, instead as we’ve noted again and again, your customers will be the key.
In “How Small Stores Can Lure Holiday Shoppers,” John Tozzi of BusinessWeek.com explains that since independent retailers can’t win on price, they must leverage their biggest advantage: personal relationships with customers and the ability to deliver superior service.
Continue reading "Fight the Retail Forecast: Customer Focus" »
The economic news may seem dismal right now, but regardless, consumers will still spend this holiday season. It just may be a little harder to get their attention. That’s why ramping up your email marketing efforts is a key component to thriving.
“Countdown to the Holidays: 100 Days to Ramp Up,” from online business publication E-Commerce Times, provides steps to ensure your email marketing campaign is optimized as you head into the holidays:
Continue reading "Ramp Up Email Marketing for the Holidays " »
We live in a digital world. Direct mail, newspaper ads, and telephone calls are no longer the most efficient ways to reach all of your clientele. In addition to your traditional promotion and instore customer service, to thrive today you need to start building a digital relationship, through your company website and email communication, with current and future customers.
The Jewelry Information Center offers the following input on how even small steps can make a huge impression:
Still not convinced that you should use social media websites like Facebook or a blog to help promote your business?
If you’re just getting started with the world wide web, the idea of promoting your business through a company blog can seem daunting. Larger players like Cartier have the time and resources, but what about smaller businesses?
At Smallbiztrends.com, Anita Campbell writes about real life examples of business owners using social media. Some small business owners have found success with blogs, using them to become a source of info for current and potential clients. Campell offers advice on how to start a blog, suggesting free programs like Blogger.com and Wordpress.com to test the waters (This site is powered by Typepad.com).
According to Nick Failla, president of Premier Consulting Innovations, pay-per-click advertising is versatile, measurable and involves a budget that is easy to control.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, like Google or Yahoo, where a company bids a certain amount – from a few cents to dollars – for specific search keywords. If their “bid” is highest for those keywords, their ad shown on the main search page as a "sponsored advertiser," but they only pay if someone “clicks” on their ad.
Failla advises retailers to use Pay-Per-Click advertising to put their message directly in front of consumers looking for jewelry products, then direct them to a special “Landing “ page on their company website. This page can be used to inspire your potential customer to take action: to purchase, learn more about your company or even visit your store.
Here are some tips to thrive with a Pay Per Click advertising campaign:
Are you properly targeting Generation Y? If not, you should be.
According to a presentation by the Diamond Promotion Service during the this year’s American Gem Society Conclave in Seattle, the confident, socially conscious, luxury-driven and youthful Generation Y makes up over a quarter of the population (roughly 26%) and they have a spending power that exceeds $200 million.
DPS provided these tips to thrive in communicating with these media savvy consumers online:
Email marketing provides small retailers the ability to compete with the larger chains and big box stores. Email marketing is extremely dynamic, measurable and easy to implement. According to a study by DMA Interactive, 54% of small businesses surveyed rated email as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.
Nick Failla, president of Premier Consulting Innovations, recommends using email marketing to announce upcoming events, new products or just to keep communicating with your customers. Jewelers who want to learn how to best integrate email marketing into their traditional marketing should attend Nick’s Digital Marketing Seminars at the upcoming JA New York Summer Show, click here for more information.
Not sure if it's right for your store? Our E-Newsletter provider, Constant Contact, says these are the top reasons your company can thrive with email marketing:
According to Nick Failla, president, Premier Consulting Innovations, optimizing your site is a journey and not a destination. It takes regular attention by you or a professional service.
An important part of this journey is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which refers to the act of editing your site so that it ranks well in search engines, like Yahoo and Google, for particular keywords (search terms).
Even if you have the most incredible website in the world, if no one can find it, then it is opportunity lost. Drawing traffic to your website through SEO utilizes a strategy that combines a number of items, including reciprocal linking, keywords and meta-tags.
Jewelers who want to learn how to use these features should attend Nick’s Digital Marketing Seminars at the upcoming JA New York Summer Show, click here for more information.
To start thriving in Search Engine Optimization, follow these tips:
Did you know that according to some surveys nearly 80% of luxury purchases begin with an Internet search? In today’s luxury market having a website is really no longer an option if you wish to compete in the luxury retail environment.
Having a website created for you has become less expensive with the new services available. According to Nick Failla, Premier Consulting Innovations, an attractive and informative website must be part of your marketing mix if you are to achieve ultimate sales success. In his upcoming JA New York Digital Marketing seminar, on Sunday, July 27, Nick will advise jewelers on how to get the most marketing push out of their websites.
If you are interested in developing a company website, check with your suppliers to see if they provide website creative services, or if they recommend companies who do. In addition with minimal research online, you can find inexpensive and viable options.
When you start your website provider search, be informed with these questions:
Whether it’s to sell off inventory or jump-start your online business, more and more retailers are turning to eBay. Speaking during educational seminars at the JCK Show, retailer and eBay expert Mary Liz Curtin provided insight on how jewelers can use the site to their advantage.
Rather than looking at the site as a bargain basement flea market, she advised retailers to plan ahead and take it seriously in order to succeed. To get started, Curtin suggested:
Like the majority of jewelers, your core long-term customers are probably part of the Baby Boomer generation. Over the years, you’ve fostered that relationship through their milestones and (if you succeeded) they probably turn to you for the majority of their jewelry needs. If you want your business to succeed today and into the future, you can’t simply reuse the marketing strategies that attracted Boomers to reach Generation “X” or “Y.”
If you think you can afford to ignore the differences, think again: Generation “Xers” constitute over 20% of the U.S. population and spend an estimated $125 billion each year. Generation Y (often called Millennials) number over 75 million and make up almost 29% of the US population. They are entering the workforce in staggering numbers and spend an estimated $170 billion of their own and their parents’ money each year. Because they were raised in different eras, with different environmental influences, each generation has unique sensibilities that impact how they buy.
Nick Failla, president, Premier Consulting Innovations, provides some marketing strategies taken from his J-Biz Education session, “Generational Marketing to X and Y,” for JCK Las Vegas:
Continue reading "Live from Las Vegas: Generational Marketing" »
Make it easy for the locals to find your store.
Did you know that in a few short years, the Internet has become a key research tool for consumers to find local retailers? According to a 2005 Kelsey Group Report, 55% of Internet users access search engines to find information about local companies. Think about it: When was the last time you searched for a local retailer in the phone book? Or, if you have kids, watch how they find a local store to buy something – inevitably they go online to search.
If your store does not yet have an online presence, consumers searching the Internet for a reputable jeweler will be directed elsewhere - not only to e-commerce retailers, but to competing jewelry stores in your area! There are some simple steps you can take to grow your web presence, and, at least initially, you don't even need a company website.
