Business Tip - Small Businesses - Add a photo

Add Your Photo to Your Website

This is a great way of reassuring your customers about who they're dealing with. Having a photo kick-starts a personal relationship with your website visitors, and it makes it more likely they'll get in touch. But it has to be a good photo; get a professional to take it.
 

 Not many websites include personal photos, so get this right and your site will be head and shoulders above your faceless competitors.
www.lesleyhphillips.co.uk

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

Business Tip - How do YOU manage Social Media

If you don't have a schedule, it won't take long before you're sucked into the "social media black hole." Determine how much time you have to devote to your social media marketing and stick to it. If you only have 30 minutes each day, limit the number of social networking sites and generate a strong presence on them.

https://www.facebook.com/handmadesilverjewellery?ref=tn_tnmn 

Business Tip of the Week

lesleyhphillips.co.uk/contact

It's important to capture customer information -

If you have a website, make sure you have an area to capture the names and email addresses of visitors. Likewise if you have retail store, have an email sign-up sheet for customers to receive news and special offers.

Even if you don’t initially make the sale, you now have contact information to use in email marketing campaigns

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.

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!