How should we promote our business?

I asked this question a bit ago...but I think that (while I did get some good responses) it would be most helpful for people to know what type of business we have.



www.bluedogbeads.com



It's all custom jewelry made from dried flowers from any occasion. Most of our business does come from people who have lost a loved one...we use the flowers from the funeral to make the beads. Everything we make is hand made with the exception of the sterling and gold (obviously).



How do we get the word out?



Someone we know suggested that we place our brochure on the windshields of people while they were in the funeral...a little tacky I think lol....
How should we promote our business?
Hi! Your jewelry is quite attractive and should do quite well when you find your market.



I believe the best market for you to target first would be the bridal market. (I would concentrate on only one market at a time initially). Brides are often very interested in jewelry and in keepsake type merchandise.



I would start by making a list of all of the bridal salons in your area along with their phone numbers. Set up an appointment to meet with the owners of the salons.



Ask the owners if they would be interested in carrying a display of your jewelry for prospective brides for a small portion of the sales. It's a nice source of additional income for the bridal store without them having to make an investment in merchandise.



You can check back every few days to pick up the orders to fulfill and collect your portion of the payment. It's a winning situation for you as you don't have to do alot of marketing and can concentrate on crafting the jewelry and fulfilling orders.



If you need some more ideas for marketing handmade jewelry, check out this free blog:



http://www.netbead.com



There are some ideas here you may not have thought of.



Best of luck to you with your venture. :-)
Reply:Well you have a couple ways to do it, Get a full website that allows a shopping cart, promotional capabilities, ordering, etc.



Also you can promote on myspace. I run a promotional company for that does website design and myspace promotions, we have worked with a few companies who have had profiles on myspace as well as musicians, and they have seen a drastic jump in their sales, and profile views.



We have some musicians that had 138 friends when they came to us and now have over 7,000 friends and 10,000 music plays in less than 30 days of our promotion service.
Reply:I would recommend that you consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce. Most Chambers offer resources specifically designed to help small business owners grow their businesses. If there is more than one funeral home in your area, consider making an appointment with each one, let them know that you only want 15 minutes of their time and let them know about your products. Maybe consider notifying the various religious organizations in your area (churches) and let them know about your products. A brochure is a great idea and yes you can get them professionally designed and made at a reasonable cost. Consider using someone on a contract basis to design and print the brochure for you~

Good luck with your business!!
Reply:eBay can bring in some good leads and the cost to list an ad is under $5. Yahoo Auctions, Bid4Assets and some other auction sites don't charge at all.



If you need capital for your expanding business take a look at the Sturzstrom Funding Group on Prosper - http://ww.ProsperFiveStar.com. Having an established business puts you in a good position to get a loan from $1000 to $25000. It could give you the extra capital you need to put together a good marketing campaign.
Reply:Saw your website and the jewelry is very good. I would suggest putting the pictures on the home page with urls to your different catagories such as weddings, birthday, baby, graduation, funeral, etc. so people don't have to navigate around to find them.



You may want to see if you can find a few at locations that host wedding receptions, birthday parties, graduation parties, wakes, etc. If you get to know the people who run these places, and they like what you have, you may be able to get them to include one of your items as part of a "package deal". So get to know the people who run these places, let them see what you have. They are a good source for referrals.



If nothing else, they may let you leave a brochures for their customers to see. If you don't have brochures, maybe put together a notebook with photos or a set up small display where you can leave your business cards (assuming you have those).
Reply:This should help you make some money.





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