October, 2008

Market Research with Terapeak

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 07:02

How exactly can I research if there is a market for a particular jewelry design idea?

market analysis
original photo by Nic McPhee

I received quite few emails about my previous post asking the same question; so, I figured out that probably a lot of jewelry designers in some way do face the same problem.

It sounds like a good idea to check if a product that you are about to create does have a market and it may be sold in a reasonable period of time for a profit. Doesn’t it? But how?

The good news is that it’s so much easier nowadays to do the market research. You may have results in a matter of hours while without internet you’d wait months. As I mentioned already, poll is a good way to find out what majority of your customers might think about an idea or a product. That is easy if you have a lot of visitors at your jewelry web store and what if you don’t?

terapeak logo
terapeak.com

There are several tools that may help you to analyze what people buy. One of the best is the web application called Terapeak that will help you to see what sellers list at Ebay and what happens with those listings.

For example if you will to got to Terapeak’s free selling report and search for a "jasper bracelet", you will see that there were 748 of them listed in last 7 days (in time of writing this article), 49.33% of them have been sold for an average price of $12.22.

You can further filter the data by category and price, take a look on particular items and get a pretty good understanding on how your idea or product matches with what people buy.

Free version has limited functionality and you have only up to 14 days of listings’ history and you will not be able to research on top sellers and see the trends, but it’s already gives you a lot of data to think about and a great analysis tool.

Deciding on your next product you must not guess.

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Do You Know What Your Customers Want?

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 22:55

question sign photo
original photo by Oberazzi

No matter how big or small, the list of your loyal customers is and always will be your most important business asset.

You already know that.

Now, how do you decide what kind of jewelry you should design and sell next? Is it just an inspiration, a business decision based on market analysis or a combination of both? Guess which one's right...

But fist, let's review the basics.

As in any other business, when selling jewelry online you should have all three marketing components in place:

  • Leads generation system;
  • Efficient conversion tactics;
  • Customer retention strategies.

Although the first two are very important, focusing on them alone isn't going to be enough. I see jewelry website owners falling into that trap often.

They build their marketing around finding ways to attract visitors to their website and using every possible trick to make the site sell.

Concentrating only on finding new customers, they miss a simple opportunity to increase their sales.

If you sell jewelry online you should remember:

  • It is much easier to sell to your EXISTING customers then to find and convert new prospects;
  • People will most likely forget about your website if you don't REMIND them;
  • It's easier to UP-SELL to someone who already bought from you and appreciates your jewelry.
  • People buy not what they need, but what they WANT. So, don't be shy to ask them what that is.

One of the easiest ways to ask your customers what they want is to place a poll on your website.

It is not a problem if you don't have that functionality at your online jewelry store. Ask500People.com, for example, provides a way to setup your own poll in a matter of minutes for free.

When implementing your online marketing strategy, remember that it takes time and effort to build a solid relationship with your customers. Get creative, but do so wisely; your customers’ trust is the holy grail of your jewelry business.

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Keep URLs Permanent If You Can

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 09:52

wrong way, mistake photo
original photo by orangebrompton

I had a great time helping a friend with an online jewelry store makeover last month. It was another chance to see how crucial it’s to have a marketing blueprint.

If you have a good understanding of your target market, a clear strategy and you do act on it every day, then you success is virtually guarantied. Try it and you'll see you business grow even in slow economy like we have now.

When implementing your online marketing strategy, though, remember that if you have to redesign your jewelry website you should pay attention to few things in advance.

Here is one of them: if the URLs are going to be different, you should decide what would be the best way to handle it.

For instance, if you decided to use another shopping cart you most likely will have different page names (also known as URLs). That can result in broken links to your site. Your visitors (referred to old URLs by other sites and search engines) instead of product descriptions and categories will get an error message. That’s not good at all.

Although, solution to this problem is simple, I frequently hear: "I see that Google Webmaster Tools complain about hundreds of broken links at my jewelry website. What should I do?" Try this:

  • If you had to change page URLs or move pages around, the safest option is to use "301 redirect". It simply means that a page was "moved permanently" and once Google, for example, will find that, it will “forget” the old URL and will use the new one instead. It's the most efficient and search engine friendly method for webpage redirection which should preserve your search engine rankings.
  • Make your "Not found page" useful. Instead of just saying to you visitors that there is no such page at you site, offer something. You can suggest trying search or simply apologize for the missing page and show list of your jewelry categories and your home page. In other words give your visitors a good reason not to click on the back button and leave your site.

And remember that you should think about URLs, I repeat, in advance.

It takes a lot of hard work to get quality inbound links and have you site ranked. If pages get lost so does the rank as well as your online marketing efforts.

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Check How Your Website Is Doing In No Time

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 11:31

This reply, which I received yesterday on my list of 5 Most Common SEO Mistakes from a jewelry designer, did not surprise me:

Really good ideas. I need to work on my website more, but……so many things to do.

That's right. There is so much that we'd like to do, but we have no time. We can do some tasks, though, much faster that we used to.

Xinu - Check quickly your PageRank, backlinks and much more
by noheat.com

Here is a tool that will save a bit of your time and will give you valuable information on how your jewelry website is doing.

This wonderful free service at NoHeat.com will automatically analyze your site, get Google, Alexa and other ranks, check your site's inbound links and a lot of other things and it will represent all that information on a single page.

It's critical to be aware of what is holding you back and where you want to invest your time in your online marketing efforts.

It is nice also when it takes no time.

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How to Make Your Descriptions Remarkable

Made to Stick book cover
www.madetostick.com

I just finished listening to the audio version of a great book called “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die…” and I feel obligated to share.

You should read it. You simply cannot afford not to.

You know yourself how hard it is to write creative descriptions for your jewelry. Don't you?

Now, be honest: do your descriptions actually sell your items?

What if I tell you that it’s possible to write descriptions for your creations that people cannot forget, those that get stock in their mind and make them talk to their friends about it?

Do you think that it would help your jewelry business to grow? You bet!

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier ...

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5 Most Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 19:27

wrong way, mistake photo
original photo by Chazwags

Every website owner’s dream is to get to the first page of Google's search results.

That’s neither easy nor fast, but the good news is that there are simple guidelines that will help you increase your chances.

Here are the common mistakes that most jewelry website owners make, but you won’t.

1. Not Using Page Titles Properly

Please, do not make it just 'My Home Page' or 'My Jewelry Store' or simply putting your company name there. Remember that the page title must have relevant keywords to the content of the page and at the same time should be human readable, because it will be shown in the search engine results. It really is worth your time. You need to make it a headline, a pitch, a shortest possible ad for that page. Every page should have its own title and it should clearly state what that page is about.

2. Trying To Cheat

There are many ways to cheat. For instance, you might add a hundred of terms into the “keywords meta tag”. I am sorry to disappoint you, but it will not do the magic. Yes, there was a 'loophole' long ago, but it is gone for good. When adding keywords, aim to be relevant to what you present on the page. Do not repeat the same terms several times - it won't help. Try not to use the same terms in the title and in the keywords, instead of that - use synonyms.

Another way to cheat on search engines is to use hidden (not visible) content which regular visitors do not see, but Google does. Well, again, it may have worked for some time, but it doesn’t any more.

Once and for all - don't cheat. If Google catch that - your site may be banned and you will lose all the time you have spent. There are many legitimate ways to win Google's favor.

3. Having Invalid HTML Code

Use free W3C Markup Validation Service to make sure that all your pages have valid code. If you have errors in your HTML, your site will have lower rank on search engines, will be slow to render and may appear incorrectly in some browsers. Double check even when your webmaster is sure that everything is fine and grade your website.

4. Link Trading

Every inbound link is a vote that your site is important. The rule seems to be simple: more links pointing to your site – the better your search engine rank will be. There are some complications though:

  • Links should have your keywords. For example, I would use “How to Sell Jewelry Online” instead of http://howtoselljewelryonline.com
  • You want to have links from relevant websites. There is no sense in having a link from autoparts.com. It is not about jewelry, nor does it have a good rank itself. Instead you would want a link from something like NationalJewelerNetwork.com which is a popular site with a strong search engine rank.
  • Two-way linking does not work like it used to. Google seems to consider that as a link exchange and not as a real vote. That is why I do not require a link back when you submit your website to handcrafted jewelry directory. Most valuable links to your site are one-way links.

5. No Balance Between Text And Graphics

Yes, quality photos are critical to your success in selling jewelry online. At the same time search engines can’t see how wonderful your jewelry designs are. So, first you need to make sure that you have enough text, so that Google will be able to index your site properly. Secondarily, be aware that once Google sends you a visitor, you have about 10 seconds on average to get his/her interest and in that case it’s true that a good picture is worth a thousand words. Finding the right mix of both is the key to your jewelry website’s success.

Search engine optimization is an important step in every online marketing plan. You can get paid traffic using an online advertisement program, but if your site appears at the top of the first page of Google's search results that can bring you more customers that you can handle. Now imagine, how would you enjoy having that?

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How to Complete Your Marketing Triangle?

Submitted by StanSavitsky on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 09:35

triangle
original photo by Yui KuboMost of major companies leverage the marketing triangle principle to reinforce brand recognition.

"Marketing Triangle" simply means having your company name (or at least main part of it) to match the name of your website and your phone number.

For example a company called "Best Buy Co., Inc." has a website bestbuy.com and a phone number 1-888-BEST BUY. The same way, a company called IBM has a website ibm.com and we aren't surprised to see 1-800-IBM-4YOU as their phone number for general inquiries.

For a long time vanity numbers were used by big businesses.

That increases:

  • the chance that your customers remember you;
  • your credibility;
  • response rate to your marketing message.

There are several companies providing such service and Ring Central would be a good start to check. For less then $30 a month (in time of writing this article) you can have your own toll-free number, dedicated fax number, phone extensions and much more to impress your customers.

Modern technology made it available and affordable even for small business owners. Now you can have your own toll-free vanity number for a fraction of what it used to be and complete your marketing triangle.

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