[Jewelry making - Article 01183] - Re: [Orchid] Have you been advertising?

[Daniel Spirer]

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    I highly recommend that if you are thinking about advertising you
    read Jay Conrad Levinson's books (Guerilla Marketing, Guerilla
    Marketing Attack, etc.). They are a little old at this point but
    still provide a basic premise for all advertising campaigns.
    Advertising is a critical part of any growing business. You should
    plan on spending based on the amount of sales you want to make, not
    what you are currently earning (in other words if you plan to spend
    5% of your sales on advertising you should spend 5% of what you want
    to earn on it--if you want to do $500,000/year and 5% is your plan
    then spend $25,000--even if you are only selling $100,000 right
    now). You also have to plan on a long term commitment. Advertising
    doesn't work if you run ads one or two times. You have to be prepared
    to run advertising year round regardless of whether it works at first
    or not.  We spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising in our
    first year of advertising and didn't get a single penny of it back.
    However in the second and third year not a single day went by that
    we didn't generate business from our advertising. Once you start you
    also have to plan on continuing forever because if you stop everyone
    thinks you went out of business. Does it work? Absolutely. Look at
    platinum sales in our industry alone. Prior to the Platinum Guild
    International's ad campaign began about 10 years ago, platinum sales
    made up less than 3% of total jewelry sales in this country. Now
    they make up about 35-40%. And that was only because of an
    advertising campaign. Local vs. national depends on how you are
    selling and who you are selling to. If you plan to brand yourself and
    sell wholesale then you need to advertise nationally. If you are
    running a store, then you only really need to advertise in your local
    area. 

    My personal feeling is that for a jewelry product print advertising
    is superior to radio or television because we sell a visual product
    (television is a visual medium but usually much more expensive--also
    the visual representation is much briefer than when something is in
    print). On the other hand if discounting and price is what you are
    selling then it may not matter as much. It also helps, of course, if
    you have a well made, attractive product (although advertising works
    great for McDonalds and I can't say that anything they make is well
    made or attractive). 

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
daniel AT spirerjewelers.com
www.spirerjewelers.com 

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