How-To

The most important part of growing your business is marketing. We’ll take a look at some pointers for getting the word out about the craft jewelry you make. Today let’s start with marketing online.

The more people that know about your jewelry, the more you can sell. Get noticed.

That’s marketing. Now with that out of the way, let’s move on: How do you make people aware of the stuff you’re selling? You could have a yard sale, but since you’re reading my advice through the Internet, let’s go right to the most sensible idea…

Be easily found. Online.

This means two related things. Have an online store. (If you don’t, how are people going to give you money?) And make sure people go there. (If they don’t, how are you going to have a business at all?) Luckily, both are simple to do nowadays. Read on.

Where to sell online

Here’s a short list of suggestions, but hang out on any crafts or jewelry discussion site and you’ll hear other valuable recommendations!

• Etsy: The best-known shopping site for handmade stuff. Etsy offers you a ton of help, it doesn’t cost very much, it’s not hard to create a beautiful-looking store of your own, and there’s an existing community of fiercely loyal Etsians.
• ArtFire: “Sell without fees. Create without limits.”
• 1000 Markets: A newer site that works like Etsy: their home page features an ever-rotating selection of members’ stores and products. There’s lots of good buzz about this site.
• Crafty Nation: Even newer, and full of enthusiasm and original ideas. (They had a “site-warming party”. You can submit your items to be reviewed. You can find people to collaborate with.) Worth checking out!

How to get noticed

Hang out where the people are. Yes, here too it’s all about community. And the more you hang out, the more you’ll hear of other places people like. Very serious advice: it may surprise you, but the single best way to attract eyeballs ‘n’ wallets online is to be a valued part of people’s lives. Better not stand around shouting, “Ooh ooh, I’ve got this for sale! And this! C’mon and buy something from me!!” Don’t lose your cool–connect with people. If you’ll take the time to show interest in what others are saying, naturally they’re going to spend more time paying attention to you. And to your wares!

Again there’s a very short list of obvious places to be:

Twitter: The fastest-growing, liveliest place to network with people whose interests relate to yours. It’s fun, too–you have to put your thoughts into 140 characters (letters) or less. A neat way to learn to express yourself clearly and reach many, many hearts and minds. You can include links to your store, or to any web pages you think are worth sharing. (Be sure to follow Rings_Things there, that’s us!)

Facebook or MySpace: These two are the biggest, best-known sites for reaching out to folks who might want to hear you. An advantage that both have over Twitter: you can personalize your page with pictures, music, or just about anything you want. Drawback: those hefty pages can take a long time to load on your visitors’ screens, and they may annoy people over 30.

Jewelry / craft blogs: Start one of your own. Use WordPress, or Live Journal, or Xanga, or whatever. (Google “how to start a blog” for all the guidance you’ll need.) And hang out reading & making comments at other people’s blogs of related interest. They’re likely to start conversations with you, quote you, and link to your blog or your store. Again, have something to say that’s useful, interesting and to the point. And in blog world, you need to be a regular…if people enjoy what you say, they’ll come back looking for you. Don’t be a stranger!

Discussion forums: Similar to blog land, you can join a few favorite discussion boards about jewelry making, beads, etc. They’re everywhere. (For an example, see Rings & Things’ Forum.) Usually when you join, you can set up your profile to link to your online store, blog, or both. Here too, be helpful and friendly, and attract good attention.

There are tons more of advice to share about particular ways of using the Internet for your business. But what you just read is the bare basics that’ll get you up and going. There’s time to learn more after you take those first steps.

Have some hard-won advice on what’s worked or not worked for you in selling jewelry? Share it in a comment below!

Exciting news: every month, we’re going to hold a lottery right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it will work:
*At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce a new lottery.
*You enter by leaving Replies, also known as blog comments. Comment on any post(s) this month.
*At the end of the month, I’ll randomly draw 2 names to receive surprise goodie packs!

*Dollar-bill image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Val here at Rings & Things was photographing some bead assortments the other day: Scoop a sample, pour, catch the spillover in a bead tray. Which makes a considerable racket–especially if you sit near the boss, who’s talking on the phone. Necessity (or Val) is the mother of invention, so spying a sheet of foam, Val lined the bead tray, and…

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing The Bead Silencer™!

I’m going to keep this post nice and simple. You never know where a great idea is going to come from, to grow your business!

• Consider trademarking any snazzy names that you use.
• And think about the possibility of marketing new products.

By the way, Val’s invention is actually made by cutting up one of these beading mats.

Exciting news: every month, we’re going to hold a lottery right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it will work:
*At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce a new lottery.
*You enter by leaving Replies, also known as blog comments. Comment on any post(s) this month.
*At the end of the month, I’ll randomly draw 2 names to receive surprise goodie packs!

Another way to grow your business: Multi-purposing.

Big word. Simple meaning: Plan at least some of your jewelry pieces so that they can be used in more than one way by your customer.

• Make simple clasp extenders that can be sold with bracelets to turn them into necklaces
• Wrist wear can also be multi-purposed into book thongs
• Keychain charms can double as zipper pulls, and vice versa

• Here’s a great example that came from @noeasybeads on Twitter. Her idea for using cable chokers was:

noeasybeads @Rings_Things I would use a pin bar with a bail. To be worn as a pin or a pendant on the cable. [Visual aid:]

Have you multi-purposed any of your creations lately? Share ideas with fellow artisans by leaving a note below!

Exciting news: every month, we’re going to hold a lottery right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it will work:
*At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce a new lottery.
*You enter by leaving Replies, also known as blog comments. Comment on any post(s) this month.
*At the end of the month, I’ll randomly draw 2 names to receive surprise goodie packs!

To paraphrase Billy Joel, I’m in a bookmarks state of mind. I was writing about book thongs the other day, and now on to social bookmarking.

What is social bookmarking?! Is that like Stitch ‘n Bitch? Or the bead society meeting where everyone does a beaded-bookmark challenge? Actually, it’s something way better. Something that can help you grow your business!

Social bookmarking is a version of the Bookmarks or Favorites function you’re probably already using on the Internet. You’ve probably got a lot of places ‘Favorited’ in your computer already. But what if you’re traveling without your computer?

• You might need to place an emergency order for jump rings from, oh, who was that supplier?
• And who was that cool artisan on Etsy who you wanted to refer your sister to?
• How about showing a craft-show customer something in your online store, via someone’s wi-fi?

Human memory sometimes helps out… But if you install a social bookmarking button in your browser’s tool bar, every Favorite will be stored online. That means you can go back to that social-bookmark site wherever you are in the world, from any computer, and use your bookmarks. Never miss an opportunity to support handmade businesses again!

And when you bookmark a favorite site online, you can add some descriptive tags to it. So other people can then find recommendations by searching for tags that match their interests. (That’s the “social” part of it.) For example, if you bookmarked Rings & Things and tagged us as ‘bead supplier’, ‘beads’, and ‘findings’, searchers with similar interests could find this site too.

I should explain that what you’re really bookmarking is web pages, not whole sites. This means you can save as big a list as you want of various neat things that you found on any given site. An example from Rings & Things again might be bookmarks of our lead information page, our inches to millimeters conversion page, our blog’s main page, and The Tank bracelet (it’s awesome) in our Design Gallery.

There are dozens of social bookmarking sites. Check out a few major ones:

• del.icio.us (great website address, huh?)
• Digg (this is more about sharing recommendations of good information, like a neat blog post, cool tutorial, a news article, etc.)
• Technorati
• Bloglines (if you read a lot of blogs, this is a good tool for managing the bookmarks on one page)

Did you know, you’ll be helping out the sites that you bookmark? The search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN all pay attention to social bookmarks. Every bookmark you make is a recommendation to the search engines that “this is an interesting site.” As a result, that site tends to show up a bit higher on the screen when people go searching.

Have other favorite bookmarking sites? Use them for other reasons? Share your thoughts by leaving a Reply!

Exciting news: every month, we’re going to hold a lottery right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it will work:
*At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce a new lottery.
*You enter by leaving Replies, also known as blog comments. Comment on any post(s) this month.
*At the end of the month, I’ll randomly draw 2 names to receive surprise goodie packs!

Who needs the sales more?

You often see mail-order catalogs that include jewelry. And you know the prices they charge. Sometimes one of us is lucky enough to land a commission supplying that jewelry for a catalog.
But most of the time, most of us need to see some sales now, in our stores.

Why not create and sell the handmade equivalent of the catalog item? You’ll be able to offer it for a much lower price, and still make a nice profit.

I have an example in mind, because I’m looking at a recent Smithsonian gift catalog. They’re selling a hand-knotted (no-clasp) necklace of round lapis beads set off with 6 gold spiral beads, for $350.
A rough estimate from Rings & Things’ online store suggests it would cost you about $24 to make a copy.

(About $18 for lapis beads,

$6 for gold-filled beads,

and a few cents for silk cord.)

That’s less than $20 a necklace if you buy at our quantity price breaks.

You figure out what you’ll sell it for. How will you promote it? “Compare at $350 in Smithsonian gift catalog”? I’m sure you can think of 10 more examples like this.

There’s room here to compete, and profit, and prosper. ?? Grow your business!