So, you’ve made it through yet another holiday season, paid the bills (hopefully), reviewed what worked and what didn’t and are ready for a fresh start in 2013! Maybe you’ve had a wonderful season and wouldn’t change a thing for the coming year or perhaps you’re like a lot of jewelers I’ve talked with and are left scratching your head, wondering what to do for 2013. Here are a few ideas:
- Start collecting customer info to use in direct marketing, including name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, birthday & anniversary dates, children’s info
- Get actively involved in social media, most especially Facebook (I recommend a personal page for yourself and a fan page for your business)
- Use the e-mail addresses you’ve been collecting and start sending a weekly e-mail blast to your clients with specials, new arrivals, repair specials, etc. In case you’re afraid you might offend a customer, know that the larger jewelry chains send daily e-mails to their clients!
- Have your staff, as well as yourself, make a point to reach out and contact at least 5 customers per day via telephone just to say, “Hello” without a hard sales pitch. People like to know you’re human and not just trying to sell them something.
- Make a commitment to send every customer who makes a purchase a thank you card or note along with a gift certificate for them to spend later.
- You’ve put it off for years, but this year is the time to get involved in local community civic affairs so that you can meet people and they can get to know you and what you are all about… it reaps benefits!
- To increase your average ticket sale, train and retrain your sales force to develop a process of upselling or adding on to each transaction – it’s the quickest way to get to a higher ticket sale overall!
- Increase the amount of times you touch your customer list. Agree to touch everyone on your list via telephone, direct mail or e-mail at least six or more times per year. In my store, we reach out to our clients in some form almost monthly.
- Host more events for your store rather than just another sale. Events create buzz in the community and allow for more profit than when you just do another sale.
- Look at what your customers are requesting as well as buying. Do you have the right inventory and enough of it?
- Remember to reorder your fast selling items weekly, not monthly – you’ll make more money if you do!
In the last week, many jewelers have told me about their holiday results and they’re both good and bad. The one thing I noticed above all was that those who promoted their store actively thru the entire year, did better than those jewelers who only did it once in a while.
My friend George Prout with Gems One and I have been exchanging e-mails discussing the changes taking place within our industry. One thing is for sure, today’s jeweler simply cannot afford to sit on their duff because they won’t make it much longer.
The piece of pie is getting smaller for each of us and I plan to get my store’s fair share. How about you? The ideas above are only a few things that you can do today to impact your business in a positive way… think about it, meditate on it and then implement them! Your staff will thank you and more importantly, your thicker pocketbook will thank you!
Bill Warren is president of The Gold Mine Fine Jewelry & Gifts, Inc., a successful jewelry store in the Hudson, NC. He recently formed Warren Marketing Systems, a company dedicated to helping small to medium size jewelers achieve success through innovative marketing. He regularly speaks at jewelry shows and conventions and also is a member of the Marketing Wizards Alliance. If you would like to receive more money making ideas like those in this article, consider subscribing to the Marketing Wizards Alliance Newsletter. To do so or to contact Bill, call 828-729-1020 or e-mail goldman86@bellsouth.net.
