1. What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - new articles

2. Featured Article - Willy Wonka's Jewelry Marketing Tips

3. UNUSUAL Jewelry Related Website: Mr. Bling Gold Teeth

4. Submit a Tip and Get a Valuable Link to Your Website

Home Jewelry Business Success Tips has added several timely new articles to help you on your successful jewelry journey.

First off are two wonderfully insightful articles by new guest author Candy Loya of Kindred Kiln:

What Turns Me Away from a Jewelry Website
Building your jewelry website involves making hundreds of decisions - and a poor first impression can result in a site that has visitors clicking away from it. Guest author Candy Loya offers excellent tips on what NOT to do in your jewelry website.

Tips for Using Your Chamber of Commerce as a Business Resource
Your Chamber of Commerce offers events and other opportunities for businesses to network and grow. Guest author Candy Loya presents tips for getting the most out of your participation in your local COC.

Next up are some sound tips on protecting your jewelry business from scams, by new guest author Donna Jadis of Artisans at Mooseworks:

Scams that Target Small Businesses
Be on the lookout for scams that are cleverly designed to rip off small businesses like yours. Your intuition can be a good guide here - if you receive a jewelry order that sounds too good to be true, it may be a scam. Guest author Donna Jadis describes her recent experience with a scam artist, and how she investigated the situation to protect herself and her jewelry business.

And from new guest author Sally Jones of Tea Business Guide are tips on protecting your business from risk and where to get expert advice:

Risk Management
Risk management includes assessing and controlling risks that arise during your business operations. Guest author Sally Jones discusses the four qualified advisors who can help you with business management and risk management concerns.

Share some of your own experiences in the world of jewelry art, and get your jewelry business and your website known! Just submit a jewelry business article and you'll receive a free permanent link from Home Jewelry Business Success Tips to your website. Our guest authors report a significant flow of traffic coming from their article links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips!

Last week I saw the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie - and after seeing the quantity of candy Willy Wonka sells in the film, I couldn't help wondering how he would market handcrafted jewelry.

I have no doubt that he would be a huge success at it, because despite his quirkiness Willy Wonka is a masterful marketer. That may be completely unintentional on his part (and it's not what the movie's really about), but I decided his marketing techniques merit a closer look.

Here are four of Willy's techniques that I noticed - along with tips for applying them your own jewelry business:

1. Willy Wonka makes high quality products from high quality ingredients.

   That principle should apply to our jewelry, too.

   It's a good strategy to be sure that each piece of jewelry you sell is of your very best craftsmanship, and that you use the best quality of jewelry supplies you can afford.

   For example, I think I've told you about my stretchy bracelet disaster from several years ago, where I made and sold dozens of bracelets that later fell apart when the gemstone beads cut through the cheap stretch cord.

   That fiasco taught me the value of thoroughly testing all my new lines for durability and quality BEFORE putting them up for sale - and the value of using durable, high quality components!

   Quality is most definitely one of the keys to having repeat jewelry customers.

2. Willy Wonka's products are quite unique - like nothing his customers have ever experienced before. And he travels the world to seek out unique new ingredients for his candy.

   If a jewelry artist uses the same ol' beads, findings, components, and jewelry-making techniques as other jewelry artists, her jewelry won't stand out as being unique. So why should customers be motivated to buy it? They know they can find lots of stuff elsewhere that looks just like it - and that another jeweler might be selling it for less.

   The farther I go in my jewelry business, the more I realize the importance of offering your customers unique jewelry. Search out new materials, find unusual stones, seek different beads, buy unique findings. And evolve your techniques by learning and adopting new jewelry-making skills - and adding your own twist to them.

   Innovate. Be anything but mainstream. People LOVE to buy unique handcrafted jewelry that they won't find anywhere else.

   If a customer falls in love with a uniquely designed bracelet on your website or in your booth, she knows she'd better buy it immediately or she'll never again have a chance to wear something like it. And she'll come back later for more.

   Uniqueness sells.

3. Willy Wonka's competitors steal his recipes and copy his products, but Willy keeps coming up with new innovations for his candy, so his products always stand apart from the rest.

   Unfortunately, if you are successful in selling your jewelry, you too will probably have copycats who attempt to replicate what you do instead of coming up with their own designs.

   The best way to combat this is to ignore the copycats and channel your energy into inventing more new designs for your own jewelry lines.

   And that's another reason to find unique supplies for making your jewelry - it makes your work harder to copy.

   The "wannabe's" will be trying to sell imitations of your previous designs while you're marketing your fresh new ones. But guess what? They'll never be able to sell as much jewelry as you do, because their products aren't fresh or original.

   Meanwhile, you'll have a new crop of unique jewelry for people to see, combining a brand new selection of unusual supplies with a new jewelry making technique you've learned.

4. Willy Wonka himself captures the public's interest with his famous eccentricity; he's very different, and therefore very memorable.

   First, let me say that I don't think you have to be eccentric to sell jewelry.

   But I do think it's an excellent idea to come up with your own successful ways of standing out and being memorable.

   There are many facets of your business you can develop into a way of being memorable.

   A few examples include your "costume" at shows, your packaging, your booth decor, your business cards, your website, any free gifts you include with your sales, a particular color you use everywhere, your business name itself, the communications that come from your jewelry business.

   The possibilities for making an impression that helps people remember you (in a positive way!) are endless. I encourage you to enjoy using your creativity in this aspect of promoting your jewelry business.

Okay, now it's time for a chocolate bar and some jewelry business brainstorming! :o)

This time our spotlighted jewelry site doesn't quite fall into the "neat" category - but I couldn't help finding it fascinating. When you visit Mr. Bling Gold Teeth, be sure to scroll down their home page and see the whole selection of flashy tooth adornments available there.

Wow! Who knew?

Mr. Bling Gold Teeth leaves me speechless, except to say that it appears to do a great job of filling a specific jewelry niche. You'll have to visit it and see it for yourself.

And don't forget to floss. :o)

Do you have a good idea, handy hint, or helpful technique related to jewelry business or jewelry making? Send in a tip that's useful to jewelry artists and receive a free link to your website when your tip is published in the Jewelry Business Blog.

And thank you to the creative readers who have been sending in your truly excellent tips! Many of them have been published already, and more are coming. If you've sent in a tip but it hasn't yet been published in the blog - don't worry, it's coming soon!

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