Have you been advertising?

Has anyone here been advertising regularly? Has it helped your
business? Could you mention what type of advertisment you’ve done and
whether it’s been local or national?

I highly recommend that if you are thinking about advertising you
read Jay Conrad Levinson’s books (Guerilla Marketing, Guerilla
Marketing Attack, etc.). They are a little old at this point but
still provide a basic premise for all advertising campaigns.
Advertising is a critical part of any growing business. You should
plan on spending based on the amount of sales you want to make, not
what you are currently earning (in other words if you plan to spend
5% of your sales on advertising you should spend 5% of what you want
to earn on it–if you want to do $500,000/year and 5% is your plan
then spend $25,000–even if you are only selling $100,000 right
now). You also have to plan on a long term commitment. Advertising
doesn’t work if you run ads one or two times. You have to be prepared
to run advertising year round regardless of whether it works at first
or not. We spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising in our
first year of advertising and didn’t get a single penny of it back.
However in the second and third year not a single day went by that
we didn’t generate business from our advertising. Once you start you
also have to plan on continuing forever because if you stop everyone
thinks you went out of business. Does it work? Absolutely. Look at
platinum sales in our industry alone. Prior to the Platinum Guild
International’s ad campaign began about 10 years ago, platinum sales
made up less than 3% of total jewelry sales in this country. Now
they make up about 35-40%. And that was only because of an
advertising campaign. Local vs. national depends on how you are
selling and who you are selling to. If you plan to brand yourself and
sell wholesale then you need to advertise nationally. If you are
running a store, then you only really need to advertise in your local
area.

My personal feeling is that for a jewelry product print advertising
is superior to radio or television because we sell a visual product
(television is a visual medium but usually much more expensive–also
the visual representation is much briefer than when something is in
print). On the other hand if discounting and price is what you are
selling then it may not matter as much. It also helps, of course, if
you have a well made, attractive product (although advertising works
great for McDonalds and I can’t say that anything they make is well
made or attractive).

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
@Daniel_R_Spirer

Elkka,

I do international advertising 3 times a year, Mostly in Canada, and
some in Italy and get lots of work. Otherwise its handing out
business cards everywhere I go.

Jerry

    Has anyone here been advertising regularly? Has it helped your
business? Could you mention what type of advertisment you've done
and whether it's been local or national? 

A carefully researched and crafted marketing plan is, I think,
absolutely necessary for anyone who wants a successful business.
First decide what you want to accomplish, then you write the plan. If
you don’t first say what your goals are, you might get all messed up.
I launched a pretty thorough marketing and media plan in my first
year and it was really really successful; but I wasn’t ready for the
production it created - I burned out a little, and have re-evaluated
my plan and slowed down a bit, because my creative energy was being
sapped and I’m not ready to launch into the big production line
thing.

I did a combination of bought national media (in my target market
and demographic), earned national media (where you get your stuff
featured in editorial layouts for free!), and local. Locally, I did
some trading with smaller magazines in my gallery locations. That
worked really really well.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me offline.

Roseann Hanson
Desert Rose Design Studio
www.desertrosedesignstudio.com
Tucson, Arizona
Many Happy Trails to You!

We advertise in our local newspaper and via a handout in our local
grocery. It has brought in some business. we are happy with the
results. mike w

I have an advanced degree in business and have worked in advertising
for several years. There are two common misconceptions the public
believes about advertising:

  1. the larger the advertising campaign, the larger and more
    successful your business

  2. the more consistent your advertising, the more reliable your
    business

The golden rule of advertising - be consistent!! Not because of
rule #2, but the consistency helps to build brand recognition, and
puts you “out there” in the public eye. And for those of you that
have been in business 20, 30 years and don’t believe in advertising

  • look at Coke and Pepsi - they’ve been around for over 100 years!

Some other tips - keep your advertising simple. Don’t use up every
speck of white space. Print advertising is best for the jewelry
industry, so you can show off your creations.

Moongems,

My masters is an MBA and advertising is pretty much like you have
mentioned. The pit falls I have seen with a lot of places is having
a company logo on you business cards, I use an image of my work
instead. I print my cards out on a Desk Jet and change them to the
crowd that I am dealing with. This actually simple and cheap to do.

The two majors things that I find are a real waste, as mentioned
before a logo, and artist statements/mission statements. My mission
statement is “We Do Art.”

Nobody who buys from an artist really cares about these things, they
want to see the product. So that is what I put on my business cards.
When people see my business card, they know exactly what I do.

Jerry

To Moongems,

I have a real problem with the statements made in your recent post
about advertising and business. You characterized two beliefs of the
public as being misconceptions…one that , essentially, bigger is
better when it comes to the results of advertising campaigns and the
other that consistency will create a more “relliable” business in
terms of results. Then you go on to say that consistency is the
"golden rule" of advertising. You fail to explain why you think that
large campaigns don’t necessarily produce the most effective
results. And, you go on to suggest that consistency should always be
the prime ingrediaent of advertising. It is not at all clear to me
why you think that these should be classified as misconceptions of
the public.

There is also an inference in your statements that big is better and
that advertsing in its’ usual context is essential to survival in
business. What about the “mom and pops” who have long established
successful businesses that have weathered the test of time and have
gotten along quite nicely with out the costly advertising. And, how
about the giants that spend copious amounts of money advertising and
still seemingly get nowhere? In this later instance I am referring
to the large chain grocery stores, drugstores and others who are now
on their knees begging for mercy from the marketplace !

Small businesses have a tremendous advantage in the marketplace by
being able to acheive market confidence and recognition through
alternative means that don’t require large expenditures. Quite
simply, all one has to do is network within the community.

You donate to charitables, participate in group involvement, buy from
your local business people…etc. etc. Before long, assuming that
you are person of character and integrity, you will have a loyal
following.

The biggest problem with advertising is that it doesn’t give a damn
what your budget is. As a matter of fact, you are going to pay MORE
than the big guys because they have more bargaining power. In
essence, what you are doing is messing around in the sand box of
corporations that have a billion times more assets than you !

You have an impressive ACADEMIC background in business, but you have
little experience “in the trenches” Having spent a few years in
advertising merely gives you a particular bias. You might want to
get out there and actually talk to some of those “moms and pops” who
have been around for awhile. Chances are that they will NOT be at a
comittee meeting trying to figure out how to erase the red ink in
their bottom lines…

Ron Mills, Mills Gem Co. Los Osos, Ca.