Celebrate and Have a Jewelry Sale

Celebrating an event and having a sale on your jewelry is a great way to bring customers back for repeat business and an opportunity to acquire new customers.

August is a great month to celebrate with these 3 holidays:

1. August 1st is National Bestfriend's Day
2. August 3rd is Sister's Day
3. August 15th is Best Friends' Day

Offer a limited edition jewelry design to help customer's celebrate and honor the special people in their lives. Why not include a quote in your packaging to make it an even more meaningful gift?

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."
- Thomas Jefferson

To your jewelry marketing success,

Randi

Jewelry Business Slow ? Have a SALE to bring in cash!

Typically, summer means lean times in the jewelry business but it doesn't have to be! Have a SALE to bring in much needed cash to breathe life into your business; have fun and be creative and people will respond to it even more!

One of my favorite ways to increase jewelry sales is to offer my "regular customers and newsletter subscribers" monthly "specials". Note, I said "special" NOT "sale"! Often, I will create a limited edition design and let them get first crack at it. These "sneak previews" make them feel special (and they are!) and give me valuable feedback as well!

Here are 7 tips from Alicia M Forest on having a sale in your business to bring in cash NOW!

Enjoy!

----Randi

P.S.
Do you have marketing strategy that you would like to share that brings in consistent sales in your jewelry business? Please leave a comment!

Strapped For Cash? 7 Ways to Have a Sale Today
by Alicia M Forest, MBA
Multiple Streams Queen & Coach

Want to encourage people on your email list to buy one (or more) of your products or programs sooner than later? Have a sale! The following are 7 ways that you can provide value to your potential clients/customers and still bring in a profit for you at the same time.

1. Half-Off Sale:

Offer your product or program for 50% off its usual price. That may seem like a big discount - and it is - which means that many more people are likely to buy it.

Or go one step further and offer all your products or programs at 50% off (except any one-on-one work with you, of course!). I've been thinking about buying a few products over the past year from one site, and when they had a 50% off sale recently, I jumped at the chance to buy not just one, but three products for half-price.

2. Close-Out Sale:

Do you have a product or a program that you are no longer going to offer, perhaps to make room for some other offerings? Or are you coming out with a new version of one of your offerings? Have a close-out sale by offering a deep discount.

TIP: As an added bonus, you could then offer those people who bought your offering at the close-out price that same amount in a discount if they buy the new version.

3. Re-Gift Sale:

Remember the Seinfeld episode about re-gifting? Do something similar for the stock of any of your products that have been returned. "Re-gift" them to a new buyer for a discount.

4. VIP Sale:

Offer a coupon or promo code ONLY to your email list, or to your clients, or to those people who have bought from you before, that is good towards the purchase of any one or all of your offerings. You can set this up in your shopping cart system very easily, so there's no other extra work on your part.

5. Free Shipping Sale:

Offer free shipping on any of your physical products for a limited time, or offer free shipping on all orders over a certain amount.

Personally, if I'm looking to purchase something online, I will hunt through a half dozen or so websites to find the one that offers free shipping and make my purchase through them (price of item being equal).

6. Bonus Sale:

Add a valuable bonus or two to your offering for a limited time. It can be something you've created or something from one of your colleagues that your niche would benefit from.

Leverage this kind of sale by doing a "bonus sale swap" with a colleague, where they would offer a bonus from you and vice versa. Your own sale will bring you cash, and your bonus offering for your colleague's sale will bring you more subscribers to your list, which will ultimately bring you more cash.

7. Just Because Sale:

This is a favorite of mine - having a sale just because - it's your birthday, you want to show your gratitude to your list, it's the 1, 5, or 10 year anniversary of when you went into business for yourself, or for any other reason you can think of.

Having a sale WILL increase your sales, but there are some cautions to take when doing so. Only have a sale occasionally, and when you do, have a compelling reason for doing so. Otherwise, if it seems you're always having a sale, you're planting a seed in your potential buyer's mind that your offerings may not be worth their usual price.

So, which kind of sale are you going to have to put some extra cash in your pocket?

© 2008 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach^(TM) teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit www.ClientAbundance.com

Sell More Handcrafted Jewelry with NEW "Seminar in a Box"

If you truly want to make more money with your artisan jewelry, I highly recommend this program by David Weiman. It will help you target customers who will pay the price you're asking without you having to discount your jewelry! In fact, he tells you why you should NOT offer regular discounts/low pricing.....you may be hurting your jewelry business and NOT even know it! He offers a guarantee so if you don't feel you got your money's worth.....just return it (but I will be surprised if you do!)
-To your success,
Randi-Sue
www.Designing-Diva.com



The 5 Keys to Selling Handcrafted Jewelry
is a DVD and 30-Page Workbook that
Shows You How to BOOST Sales
of Your Handcrafted Jewelry...
and You Learn it All from HOME!

How much MORE JEWELRY could you sell if you knew...

• how to set and achieve your goals in a way that would help you, even when you're not consciously thinking about it...
  
• how share your goals with others so that you are more likely to achieve them...
  
• how to start taking massive action for maximum success...
  
• how to identify any obstacles you might face in pursuing your business goals and dreams...
  
• why you should write a business plan and an outline that will help you write one quickly and easily...
  
• what the elements are of a successful marketing plan...
  
• why you should focus on what you love to make...
  
• how to write a great description of your products...
  
• how to assess your competition...
  
• how to price your jewelry correctly and avoided under-pricing...
  
• how to identify the prospects who are your ideal customers...
  
• how to identify the right places to sell your jewelry...
  
• options for promoting your jewelry selling business...
  
• how to correctly handle the common objections that prospective buyers raise about your jewelry...
  
• how to raise the level of your selling skills...
  
• how to increase your product knowledge so that buyers feel confident and comfortable with you...
  
• why story-telling is so important to selling jewelry and how to do it well...
  
• how to represent yourself in the most effective way so that you form a strong relationship with prospective and current clients...
  
• how to develop a set of customer service principles that will ensure you give extraordinary service...
  
• what books, magazines and websites you can read to supercharge your business knowledge...

Here's an Example of
What You Will Learn:

This is from a section of the seminar where we're talking about how to price your jewelry.

It's a discussion about why people buy artisan jewelry, and I mention that it's not because of price, although many jewelry makers become obsessed over trying to find a price that's so low no one would refuse to pay it.

I make this important point: A bargain hunter is NOT a good prospect for artisan jewelry. You shouldn't lower your prices to please the bargain-hunter, because artisan jewelry is not sold on price -- it's sold on other qualities, such as original design, the fact that it was hand-made, and the buyer's connection to you.

In fact, you should avoid selling at low prices (and possibly discontinue lower-priced items) because you'll never compete successfully, with discount stores, and TRUE artisan jewelry buyers don't care that much about price.

This is an actual excerpt from the program:

"Your ideal customer is not somebody who’s shopping on price, and is not somebody who’s going to question your price based on what they know the market to be.

If you’re dealing with someone who says “well I could have bought that citrine at Michael’s for five cents,” that’s not a true artisan jewelry buyer.

I’m telling you that people will pay for what they love. We do it all the time. People don’t need jewelry. No one does. You need shelter, you need clothing, and you need food. You do not need jewelry.

So, if you’re encountering people who are questioning your price, you need to dig a little bit deeper and we’re not really at that part of the seminar yet, we’re only really dealing with how to price your jewelry, not responding to questions about it, but nobody needs it.

[There is an entire section of the seminar where I demonstrate how to smoothly and effectively handle objections that prospects raise.]

Check Out These Reviews:

"He talks about creating goals, targeting a specific market, promoting your work, techniques for selling, and ideas for creating great customer service. All of these are important, and he gives a lot of practical advice and tips, much of which are tied into the workbook that comes with the package. As you listen and/or watch, he prompts you to work through different areas of the book. Though I'm a writer and designer, I'm also a teacher, so I was impressed with the fact that this package includes a lot of different learning style approaches. We all learn differently, and he took this into account by including auditory, visual, and tactile methods for working through the seminar package ... If you have seen David's seminars listed in some of the show listings you get in the mail or by e-mail and have thought how nice it would be to attend one sometime but couldn't due to the cost of the trip and/or the time, then this seminar "to go" will probably appeal to you, especially since the cost of this package is considerably less for most people than traveling to a jewelry convention. Plus, since you own the material, you have the advantage of watching, reading, or listening to it more than just once and can refer to it on an as need basis."
-- Tammy Powley
About.com Jewelry Making Guide
Click here to read the full review

What do Jewelry Makers Like You
Say about David Weiman?

"... you are the best I have found and I recommend you all the time. Thanks for doing what you do. You fill a much needed niche in the marketing world."
-- Wendee Brandenburg
Twin Lake, MI

"I really appreciated Dr. Weiman's gentle demeanor, but everything was loud and clear about marketing strategies. He really drove home that each piece is worth what the customer is willing to pay for it, which is really important for a lot of us who think "I shouldn't price things too high.'"
-- Sharon Davison
Morgantown, PA

Planning Your Jewelry Sales & Marketing for the Holidays, part II

Wow, can't believe it is the middle of September already. I'm working on the Spring 2008 Signature Diva Collection and have shows booked through Feb 2008. Phew! ;)

Here is part "deux" of Planning Your Jewelry Sales & Marketing for the Holidays. At the bottom of this post, you will find a link so that you can read the first installment. Look for the 3rd installment by the end of September.

Now that you have a color palette and designs created what do you do? How about generating some buzz with these promotional ideas...

• Create a higher "retail" ticket jewelry design up for grabs. For example, if you are strictly e-commerce based, you can have a "lottery" entry and increase your chances of winning with every purchase. Depending on your pricing, maybe there name is dropped in every time they spend $50. Notify your customer base (on and offline), potential customers (prominent spot on your website), and send out e-mails to various blogs that may be interested (they can post a blog entry about the contest).
  
• Offer a promotional holiday related or jewelry related item with each minimum purchase. Be creative. It doesn't have to be jewelry...it could be an ornament, candle, etc??? Or it could be a nice velvet pouch or polishing cloth to protect their jewelry purchase. It's amazing what you can find for under $1-2 that can pack a punch. Plus, if you are pricing properly this will not hit your bottom dollar because you include packaging and incidentals in your price (right!!).
• Do you have a loyal customer base??? Send each of them a FREE gift certificate (NO strings attached) . I know you're thinking is she crazy.....Absolutely NOT. Yes, some customers will ONLY come in to get a FREEBIE but many will come and spend more; every time I have done this my sales have increased ( I track the gift certificates).
• Consider a partnership. For example, consider a similar business (fashion or beauty) that can cross promote with a particular item. For example, maybe a bath and body product with any purchase over a certain $$ amount (the other vendor will do the same with your jewelry). Trust me....you both will win. You both get exposed to new customers and your customers are getting value ( and they will remember this).
• Offer services to make your customer's purchase EASIER...free gift wrapping, free drop shipping, free gift cards, or if they are local (a private trunk show). The point is by adding value your customer will feel appreciated and think of your jewelry and business in "warm and fuzzy" terms which is a GOOD thing!

Read Part I of this holiday jewelry marketing series? Do you have any fab suggestions that you would like to share? Leave a comment!

Read part III of this holiday jewelry marketing series!