Now, onto the interviews where marketing techniques will be discussed.  Two of the interviewees have independent websites and two host with Ruby Lane.   These interviews  are the true crux of this story.  Experienced online marketers have taken time off from their busy schedules to share their experiences with you.  Why not thank them by visiting their websites?

Karen Elmquist  Ruby Lane shop "Out of the Past"   Karen is our featured lampwork artist of the month.  She sells her loose beads on both ebay and justbeads auction formats. 

She tried listing beads in Ruby Lane and found they moved very slowly.  However, sales took off when she turned the focal beads into pendants.   Click on the picture to the right for a larger view.

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Different marketing venues attract different customers.  Karen's auction buyers are designers who want loose beads, her Ruby Lane customers want finished jewelry.  Her floral designed beads are her top sellers on Ruby Lane and her stone series is her hottest seller on auctions.  Examples of both of her beads came be seen on our featured lampwork artist of the month page.

Karen is happy to leave the marketing to Ruby Lane.  She does NOT take advantage of the different value added marketing services Ruby Lane offers but makes a profit every month off her basic site.

Mona Hair also sells on Ruby Lane.  Her beaded jewelry is high end and everything about her website,  Mona Designs  reflects the high end atmosphere.  Mona says she wants every customer to feel as if they've been in Tiffany's when they enter her shop.

Her pictures are immaculate.  The jewelry is well framed in the photo and some of the jewelry is displayed on props.  Mona realizes the importance of giving potential customers  a feel of how the jewelry will look when it is worn.

In keeping with her high end boutique approach, all of Mona's designs are one of a kind.  She offers free gift cards, gift wrapping and third party shipping.  All services are free.

Mona also started out in the auction world - on yahoo.  She tried an ebay store but felt lost there.  She chose Ruby Lane because she could open two stores: an artisan shop for her creations and a collectibles shop for her vintage jewelry.  She is very happy at Ruby Lane and takes advantage of several of the optional marketing  services they offer.  One Ruby Lane service which works well for her is placing an advertisement for her shop in an off line magazine.  This additional service costs her 50.00 an ad and generates enough sales to make it profitable.

Rose Elliott, LadyBead.Com, sells barefoot sandals and other body jewelry from her website.   She hires someone to maintain her website and do her search engine submissions.    However, she herself does a lot of marketing, both online and offline.  Rose belongs to all the online beading newsgroups.  She also recognizes the importance of networking outside the beading world.  Since her sandals are often used for destination weddings, she advertises on wedding directories and has link exchanges with other wedding sites.

Sandals can be made in colors to match your wedding

As her body jewelry can also be used as beach ware and lingerie, Rose belongs to a non targeted marketing group, Mom Packs.  Members of Mom Packs put each other's flyers in with their shipments.  Rose frequently does physical world craft fairs.  She brings business cards to the fairs.  Rose believes a good business card is essential.  It's got to describe what you do.  She has had several people express interest in a product at a physical world show, take a business card and later order online. 

 

Janet Secrest, of Sea Crest Crafts & Jewelry,  makes mid range beaded jewelry, including long chandelier style beaded earrings and dreamcatcher earrings.

Her husband, Ernie, does all of the website marketing, including search engine submission.   In two years, he has managed to position her website in the number one position on Google for many key words.  This has been a long, tedious journey.  In the beginning, sales were very slow.  It was not until their second year of business that they began to see the results of their efforts.  Ernie warned others starting from scratch to expect the same: consumers must first establish trust in you through name recognition and repeated visits to your website before they will buy. 

Ernie is the consummate networker.  He belongs to the smaller, targeted webrings. He does a banner exchange.  While he recognizes that banners get very few clickthroughs, he still likes them for name recognition.   The banners on their website are tastefully done and do not in any way detract from the site. 

Ernie's main claim to fame, however, is his link exchange page.  Sea Crest Crafts & Jewelry has 1200 link exchange partners.  All 1200 of the websites in this link exchange sell items similar to those sold by Sea Crest.  Surprisingly enough, none of the links get lost in the crowd.  Ernie has a directory listing specific categories for his page.   It is worth a trip to his website just to see his link exchange. 

Ernie rejects about 1/2 of all sites wanting a link as not being similar enough to his site. Ernie explains that the closer your links are to being direct competition, the more the search engines like it.  He doesn't understand people's fear of giving away traffic.  According to Ernie, the people are going to leave anyway.  He also feels that for every one he sends away, he gets two or three back.  Ernie spends about 8 hours a week maintaining his link exchange program - he feels it is the heart of his business.

Ernie and Janet have just started a new website,

Eclectic Earrings & Beaded Jewelry. Ernie is hard at work doing start up marketing.  He's building two webrings for beaded jewelry, one specifically for beaded earrings.   When it comes to webrings, Ernie feels the more specific they are, the better they are.  Email him if you're interested in joining either of his webrings or his free banner exchange.

In closing I am going to share what I consider the heart of my success at The Bead Peddler®  It is the customer survey form I ask people to fill out when they sign up for raffles.  This customer survey has led me to make improvements to the layout of my website, it has caused me to add new pages, such as the new items page, to my website and it has kept me in touch with the new beads my customers would like me to carry.   A monthly gift certificate of 25.00 entices people to fill out the survey.  I consider it the best money I've spent.

Is there an aspect  of marketing that you'd like to see discussed?  
Would you like to share some of your marketing knowledge with other beaders?  Click here to email your questions or article proposals