The Guild of Jewellery Designers - Guilded Gems

This last week was a busy one again.  Making jewellery, working on the new website and also a 'phone call from Jayne at Guilded Gems.  Having noticed my new website design she'd emailed me asking if I could participate in an article for other members of the Guild of Jewellery Designers.  She felt my website could be an inspiration to other members of the Guild.  It was launched on the 1st March and on 16th March we had our interview.  www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk
I spent in total 8 months designing and building this website and was very pleased that the desired results had been achieved when Jayne mentioned it looked 'luxurious'. 
We discussed the thought processes and the decisions I had made with regards to its build and most importantly the importance of SEO and marketing of it. Without which, there is very little point in having a website. She stated that she sees many Guild Member's websistes that have been built for them and not the customer and it was not only the look, but this factorshe liked. Mine is most definitely directed towards making the customer's experience an easy and nice experience to shop.
When the article is released, I'll post a link for all to read

www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk/entercompeition

A fantastic opportunity for someone to win this amazing sterling silver necklace is available. A 100 club draw, so one in one hundred chance of winning it! Take a look at the competition page and see how you could be in with a chance of winning it (with a chain)

Not only that, to celebrate the launch of the new website all purchases from the Handmade Silver Jewellery site www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk are available with £5 off the first customer purchase.

NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED TODAY 1ST MARCH

My new website has been launched today!
6 months in the making and well worth the wait I'll hope you agree www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk

www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk
Business Tip of the week!

A well-known referral expert suggests "promoting referrals" instead of asking for them. Whenever a client expresses recognition of your value, say, "I'm glad you see the value of the work that I do. Please don't keep me a secret."

What do you read?

http://www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk/

As a small business myself my tip for the New Year is "What do you read?"

If you receive an email, how much of it grabs your attention?  What people see in their inbox differs among email applications. An email viewed in Gmail will appear different when viewed in Yahoo! mail or Outlook. To make an impact even before they open the email, keep your subject line within the 40-character limit.

Tip of the week - helping to sell your handmade silver jewellery

Tip of the week - helping you to sell your handmade silver jewellery
Don't Hide Negative Feedback

If you sell online - don't shy away from negative comments!  Instead, face them and address your customer's concerns.  Addressing them helps build trust and diffuse a tense situation and can help you win back an upset customer.  What's more, it gives you a chance to come to your defence.  Consider this.... one person out of ten will say when they've received good service. One person will tell TEN people when they've had poor service!

Often you will receive a customer compliment following the complaint if you've handled it well!
Customer Testimonials 

www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk

A-Z of Selling Your Handmade Jewellery / Selling Your Handmade Silver Jewellery

Next week I will be attending the Dorset County Show, so I won't be updating my blog with the A-Z, but this week is

J  for JARGON

How many people are 'turned off' by you using phrases that they don't understand?
 It's important to try and remember the words you used to use before you began making and selling your handmade silver jewellery and remember the knowledge (or probably lack of it) you had.

For instance when I talk about Sterling Silver - what does that actually mean to a customer.  They know to ask, is it sterling silver, but do they know what it means?  Silver describes a variety of precious metals - for instance the silver is mixed with copper to harden it, so sterling silver is 925 silver and 75 parts copper - but there are other grades of silver around. Tibetan silver for instance, is vastly inferior quality and do the customers understand this?  Fine silver is 999 parts silver and 1 part copper (usually produced by precious metal clay workers) - so a better quality silver, but much softer and would be pretty useless for a ring which is frequently worn. Sterling Silver is the minimum quality of silver which is accepted by the Assay Offices.  Anything less which is sent for hallmarking by a British silversmith, would be destroyed!

Hallmarking is a another one which customers have very little knowledge of.  Again, I'm asked 'is it hallmarked?' - but do they understand what that means? You can bet that the majority don't.  It's worthwhile explaining in a little more detail what they have to look for to ensure that they know what silver hallmarks look like. The more people who understand, the less they're likely to get ripped off!

Come and visit me

I will be attending a show where you can come and see my jewellery and have a chat. I will be available for the 5 days Friday 5th August - Tuesday 9th August. I will also be demonstrating my craft.

Dorset Arts and Crafts Association in Dorset

I'll look forward to seeing you there!

A-Z of Selling Your Handmade Jewellery / Selling Your Handmade Silver Jewellery

The A - Z of selling your handmade jewellery / selling your handmade silver jewellery

This week's letter is:

H

H for Handmade or Hand Made or Handcrafted or Hand Crafted.

If you are wanting to sell your jewellery or indeed any product which you've made by hand - the question is, what do you call it?  Handmade, hand made, handcrafted or hand crafted.  You need to understand how your customers would think and what would they call it?

There are very useful tools on the internet - a tool which provides an idea for free as to how your customers think is provided by Google.  Having typed in the phrases it will tell you based on the country you search how many monthly searches occur for the particular country.

So for the United Kingdom:

Handmade - 450,000 searches

Hand Made - 301,000 searches

Handcrafted - 201,000 searches

Hand Crafted - 27,100 searches

This gives a clear indication that Handmade and Hand Made is far more popular in cutsomers minds than the word Handcrafted/Hand crafted.

Around the world - the same pattern is evident with the following:

Handmade - 2,740,000 searches

Hand Made - 1,500,000 searches

Handcrafted - 1,000000 searches

Hand Crafted - 201,000 searches

This is why I've chosen to name my jewellery Handmade Silver Jewellery