Ways to Promote Your Jewelry

As you've read in this blog, we've been selling our sea glass jewelry at art fairs and festivals. We've also been selling them on the web at Etsy. Etsy is a large website that hosts stores for artisans, suppliers and vintage sellers. Etsy is an easy way to get your product for sale on the web as they provide the website, simple steps to get started and also a check out/buying cart. I would recommend Etsy to artisans just getting started on the web. You a can see our Etsy store at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Okay, so we are on the internet, but how do people hear about us? Find us? Well, at festivals, we give out our cards which list our Etsy site. We list our site on all our emails underneath our names. This is advertising and a way to promote our sea glass jewelry, but it isn't enough to just be on the internet. The internet is HUGE, so we have to do things to promote our site. First, we joined liked minded sites to promote our Etsy store like Facebook - you can see my Facebook page of Sisters Jewelry Design at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sisters-Jewelry-Design/328818121698 there you can like our page and tell others about us. Also I joined a site that promotes Etsy artists called "We Love Etsy," http://etsylove.ning.com/ This ning site gives you a home page where you can talk to other artists and/or advertise your work with pictures and comments - like - "hey, look what I just created." We also pay for a small site on Handmade Spark which is a marketing service for people on Etsy. What I like about Handmade Spark is you can find everything we are doing in one place, ie., blogging, shop, twitter etc. You can click on this following url to go see my site on Handmade spark -http://www.handmadespark.com/myspark/SistersJewelryDesign

Here is a badge they give to you to put on your sites then you click on the sign and off you go to my advertising site. There are other sites to promote your website/store on the web and just a few are Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Handmade Artist Hangout and more. You can twitter about your jewelry - promote your work! There are so many ways to promote your art on the web even this blog is a way for me to share and PROMOTE our sea glass jewelry.

You can spend hours promoting your work on the web or you can hire other people to do it for you. You can spend money on Google ads, we haven't done the ads yets because I want to have a website first. Hours and money can be spent on advertising.

We've also tried a few unconventional ways to promote our sea glass jewelry. My sister Shirley belongs to several charities and is often called to help decorate or set up an auction, a dinner, a lunch. Recently, she was involved in a charity where you buy a table and invite friends. Well, often when you buy a table at an event you can decorate it the way you want! Shirley decided to do a center piece of sea shells and our sea glass jewelry. Here are a couple of pictures of the table (sorry about dimness of photo).

Note how the sea glass necklace on a card lays over the napkin or is tied around a star fish.

One man at the table did take a necklace home by mistake - his wife called Shirley the next day to say they had her necklace. Our jewelry wasn't for sale at the event, but everyone at the table got a good look at some of our pieces. You never know when someone needs a gift and will remember something they saw recently - like our sea glass jewelry. You can also contribute a piece of your art to a charity for auction which is a great way to promote your product.

Another way, we advertise our jewelry is by having it in a case at Shirley's Travel agency. The case filled with jewelry sits on a side table and above the case hangs a picture of sea glass jewelry. Sometimes, someone takes a look and/or even buys a piece. Here are a couple photos of Shirley's set up -

The above ideas are just a few ways we are trying to promote our sea glass jewelry. It is an ongoing learning process. We'd love to hear from you readers if you have any suggestions.

Stay tuned as next we tackle creating our own website!

Blue Moon and A Learning Curve

Before I get started just had to share this shot of Palm Springs mountains with dusting of snow. We had a big rain storm last week and voila - snow. It is warm outside today if you're in the sun, but not warm enough to swim.

Took Dylan to the dog park where he ran around in the mud and had a great time after three days of rain and no walks. Here's a shot of Dylan lounging. And a shot of his cousin Bogey up in Oregon -

Bogey loves walking with Dylan when we are in Oregon. Black and white, the color of the dogs and my new long rope necklace of black and white beads and white sea glass which you can see more of on http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ Here's a picture to entice you to go to Etsy -

As you have already discerned this blog post is all over the board. Where's the beginning, middle, and end? I don't know, I'm in a rambling mood and trying to figure things out as I bumble around the internet today.

I titled this post Blue Moon and Learning Curve. We'll get to Blue Moon in a bit, now I want to focus on Learning Curve. Lately, everything is a learning curve for me - the jewelry, the marketing, the internet marketing etc. Designing the jewelry is really fun. Ideas just pop in my head. But once the piece is made it has to have a price point? How much should I sell it for? I try to take in the scarcity of the sea glass, the components cost and also the time it takes to make the piece. A few days ago, I started listing the sea glass rope necklaces in my Etsy store at a low price. The first one, made by Shirley, sold within the hour . Wow, that was fast. It's a gorgeous necklace, but what made is sell so fast? Was the price point too low? Thinking about it more, I realized that there is a lot of sea glass in the necklace (hard to find, and time consuming to drill all the pieces), so I adjusted the price upwards to reflect the work and components of the piece. Naturally, I should have thought this out earlier before listing, but hey, it is all a learning curve. Here is a shot of the necklace that sold so fast -

It's very pretty and can be worn in one long strand or looped over the head for a double strand look. We have other sea glass ropes on our Etsy site.

After I adjusted the prices in my Etsy store, I went on Twitter and posted a few tweets. I've been gathering followers and finding people to follow. Sometimes, I click on a person's tweet and read their tweets and even go to their websites. If I do go to the website, I'll go back to Twitter and make a comment to that specific person. Everyone is tweeting and most are tweeting about their products or businesses. I'm wondering what percentage of people on Twitter actually go and look at my store or blog? Is it worthwhile to be on Twitter? Is tweeting helping my jewelry business? All unanswered questions that bounce around in my brain. And the biggest question of all is - Am I even tweeting correctly to really interest others to stop at my store or blog?

And I'm on facebook http://www.facebook.com/sbrin1 and again, is this social networking site reaching anyone out there or is it just another place to go and post. Do people see my Facebook page? Do they click on my Etsy logo from Facebook? Are we really all connected? Again, I feel that I don't use my Facebook correctly or even know how it all works, yet I'm on there posting and sharing like crazy. Again, the learning curve comes into play. Is it for naught? I don't know.

I'm even on several nings like Handmade Artist Hangout and Seaglasslovers.com. I finally figured out if you're in one ning you have the same password for all of them! Geez, what I don't know could fill a book. It's all trial and error with me. I'm like a character in Alice in Wonderland stumbling around the ether world - bumping into this and that.

I could go on and on about the learning curve with topics like Art Fairs and Shows - what is needed, how do you get in, what kind of display do you need and so on. But I want to get to the Blue Moon part of the title - Blue Moon is the title of one of my favortie songs, I especially like how 10,000 Maniacs sing it and it is the name for my latest long rope necklace just listed in my Etsy shop

.

Any suggestions or help on learning my way around the social networking sites, please email me or comment here on the blog. I need all the help I can get. In the meantime, please check out my Etsy site at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ P.S. I should have labeled this post All Over The Place, but I won't because it is too hard to redo this darn blog and get it to look right - LOL.