Good Grief! I'm Actually Still Here!

Wow! It's been more than 6 months since I've done anything here! I've been busy everywhere but here!

Still going "against the tide", as it were.

Some people are less than enthused that I am determined to carve a niche for myself somewhere in the fashion/artist industry. Others are telling me to keep going.

Whatever.

I have had some definite ideas about marketing women's jewelry, some things off-the-wall, but no ideas of how to create repeat customers.

I may change the products I have currently, i.e.: change the materials in my current line to accommodate the prices people say they want to pay (I'm talking acrylics instead of glass), and also branch out into mens' jewelry (a sadly neglected segment of the jewelry industry), and I'm thinking about scarves, too. Extremely simple fleece scarves for not a lot of money.

Just some really simple stuff that I can outsource the work on when things really get going and I have several projects going on at once.

Gotta quit knocking my head up against the wall and making things hard for myself and quit attracting difficult customers! Whew! Life would be SO much easier and more fun to live!

Thanks for reading my post! And my advice for today: Life should be easy and fun. If it's not, find out why and fix it!

Handcrafted Jewelry Mini Store Events

Ah, the mini store events...they go a long way toward getting my jewelry "out there". All in all in the world of marketing, a pretty great idea.

The mini store events are actually jewelry showings I host in my own home. I make a list of everyone in my area I can think of, create invitations, hand deliver or mail them, and then I set up the displays in my livingroom.

















While I did set up these events to gain customers and to create a customer mailing list, I also used these events for creating new ways to display my jewelry (pictured above: the lollipop necklace display was done by my daughter and we worked together on the earring display), something I expected to get better at the more often I tried doing it. (The two displays below are from the 2nd mini event, which my son and daughter both helped me to set up. There are about 114 pairs of earrings on the earring table that I had previously packaged separately, so you can imagine why I'd need help with the setup. Whew!)

















It does look as though I am getting better at this, which is great in case I decide that I want to do craft shows again. I must now get better at setting the displays up faster...



It's always something, isn't it? Never stop learning...



I have done three mini store events now and am about to do my 4th and final event for the season. (I may do one or two more at the very end of 2008...maybe.) It's going to be rather interesting because it will happen just before Mother's Day. Not just that...I'll be holding it on a Friday evening instead of a Saturday...AND...I'm considering holding a 2nd event on Saturday as well, but I think I'll invite a whole different group of people...



I will keep mulling that Saturday over, letting it "marinate", if you will... Meanwhile, I'll be spending this week posting brand new jewelry PLUS some de-stash items in my web store at http://www.marquina.etsy.com/.



("De-stash", by the way, refers to thinning out a stash of items once you've collected a lot of stuff - in my case, this includes things related to making jewelry and, since I used to sew, sewing items I no longer use. Just FYI...)

Marketing Extravaganza - Really Interesting Ideas...

Here I am sitting in front of the computer again, writing with impaired health and thinking to myself that I am really going to have to do something about dissolving the "tortured artist" stereotype by taking better care of myself. I really did not get into this so that I could be "tortured" (though it kind of seems like it at times), but so that I could be challenged.

So here are my thoughts/ideas:

First of all, there is no one way to sell jewelry. A lot of people would be majorly (my word - don't bother looking it up in the dictionary!) surprised to find out just how many ways jewelry can be sold.

So, I have these ideas, and I thought to myself, "If I tell people about my ideas, someone will steal them and profit from them." Of course, if I were perfectly honest with myself, every idea I've ever had "stolen" was "stolen" by people whom I'd never met, and they did profit from the ideas. The only thing I got out of not sharing was feeling stifled at not being able to share and develop my ideas.

And since I'm a part-time sharer (the other part of the time, I'm private - just so you know), I'm going to say that the best way to sell jewelry, by far, is personally. As in face-to-face with your customers, because people do like to interact with people who make jewelry. They always want to see if we look different, live, dress, speak and act different from them. It's a major curiosity thing, and just being there personally gives the customer an extra reason to want to see if they want to buy from you.

Yes, it is time-consuming, and no, it is not always profitable, though it can be quite fulfilling because you can see the interested faces. Very encouraging. Which leads me to my next idea:

Get your friends to sponsor jewelry showings in their homes. This is the way to build your client base. Offer something nice to your friends in return for their help - maybe you can offer some jewelry to them based on their favorite colors. (Sidebar: Do not offer custom jewelry unless you are an expert at communicating with people to produce jewelry they will want to keep, otherwise you will get stuck trying to sell jewelry that is not even your style.) When you offer something nice, keep it business, as in: do not offer to babysit your friend's kids in exchange for the jewelry show. You do want them to take your work seriously.

Next idea: Ask your friends' friends to sponsor jewelry showings in their homes. Trust me, they'll be expecting it. If you have ever been to a Tupperware, Lia Sophia (formerly Lady Remington), or cookware party, you know that there are always incentives in place for anyone who wants to host the next parties. It's a model that works. Run with it!

Great idea: Get the names and addresses of everyone who attends the showings/parties. Create your own mailing list so that you can create a "following", or a fan base. Let the customers know when and where you will be doing public events or if you choose to hold your own private trunk show (trunk show sounds great, doesn't it?). Weed the list out over the next six months to a year so that you are only communicating with people who buy what you make and not those who just come for the free chips and dip.

Here's an idea I came up with within the last 2 days. It's not original since it's based on the idea of a musician's manager or actor's agent: Ask a couple of your friends to book parties for you in other places and pay them a commission - a portion of the sales. Your friends become the booking agents instead of the hostesses of the parties.

I'll let you know if it works for me, because I'm about to try it this weekend. I finally got the "nerve" to just go ahead with one of my ideas - a handcrafted jewelry mini store event. I will be presenting one every month on the last Saturday of the month. I'm looking for this to get so large that holding it in my little apartment will become ludicrous!

I've also got lots more ideas in my "noodle" that I'd love to share, but right now, I've got a mini store event to process.

PS - The "Jub-Jub" sale idea that I mentioned in the bottom of my last blog is a bust idea unless you are gifting customers who already appreciate what you do!