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Friday, October 06, 2017

Attribution Modeling: Do You Know Where Your Sales Leads Are Coming From?

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Attribution Modeling: Do You Know Where Your Sales Leads Are Coming From? daily-golden-nugget-1575-60
Between your website, local newspaper, direct mail, radio ads, billboard, social media, and word of mouth, it's difficult to calculate exactly how your customers are finding you and what ultimately convinced them to make a purchase. What was once an easy task of calculating the ROI for an individual ad is now impossible because of so many different ways a customer can engage with you online.

"Attribution modeling" is the modern process of analyzing and assig...
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AT: 10/06/2017 11:09:48 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 21, 2017

Make Smarter Decisions Based On Your Website Reports

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Make Smarter Decisions Based On Your Website Reports daily-golden-nugget-1553-21
Retail is being redefined every day. Everyone still looks at their bottom line sales, but it doesn't matter anymore if the sales are from foot traffic through the front door or via shipping boxes out the back. While most retail businesses are still struggling to figure out how to bring foot traffic back in the front door, I submit that it's probably easier to learn what it takes to build your ecommerce business and increase the flow of shipped product instead.

With regard to marketing, the common p...
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AT: 04/21/2017 11:17:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 30, 2016

Why Do So Many Bite Off More Than They Can Chew?

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Why Do So Many Bite Off More Than They Can Chew? daily-golden-nugget-1537-14
We each have our own set of specializations and talents. Someone in your family is probably better at cooking than all the others, while someone else is a better writer, carpenter, or a musician. The world would be a very boring place if we all had the same level of skill and proficiency in everything.

The Entrepreneurial Journey


At some point, you probably got the idea that you could make your favorite baubles or provide a service better than others you'd seen, and so you launched a business o...
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AT: 12/30/2016 10:46:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 14, 2016

4 Ways To Prep Your Website For Eventual Ecommerce

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4 Ways To Prep Your Website For Eventual Ecommerce daily-golden-nugget-1471-33It seems like only yesterday when it was thought that email addresses would become more important than telephone numbers, and now a website address is more important than both a telephone number and a physical address. A website is the most important representation of your business, yet most jewelers don't treat it that way, and many still view it as an online brochure that needs to be made once, and then forgotten about.

The local retail jeweler is losing a lot of business to the internet. The younger gen...
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AT: 03/14/2016 01:21:56 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Business Startup: Entrepreneurs Should Hire Marketing Professionals

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Business Startup: Entrepreneurs Should Hire Marketing Professionals daily-golden-nugget-1458-18
Entrepreneurs face many challenges when they first open their business. Frequently, business owners don't even know how to get started with registering their business on a local, county, state, or federal level. During my time as a business mentor with SCORE, I've been surprised by the number of aspiring entrepreneurs who come in asking for legal and accounting advice to help them get through their initial start-up peri...
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AT: 02/24/2016 07:58:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Branding Your Holiday Advertising: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Branding Your Holiday Advertising: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1348-86
This is Part 2 of a multi-day Daily Golden Nugget series packed with tactics to help you in your 2015 holiday marketing. The series started yesterday with the overview of 2015 holiday marketing strategies. I'm breaking down each section of that overview into a more detailed Daily Nugget.

Beginning with...

Create a Uniform Branding With Your Ads


Acc...
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AT: 09/23/2015 11:42:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Run-Up Planning for the 2015 Holiday Season

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Run-Up Planning for the 2015 Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1347-81
Another summer has come to a close and the holiday season is almost here. No matter what the financial forecasts say, I want to give you some current ideas to improve your marketing methods, and hopefully your sales, through the end of this year.

Create a Uniform Branding With Your Ads


I'd like to start with a suggestion for you to review the ads you are already planning for this season. Instead of running standalone ads this year, you can use all the potential advertising methods...
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AT: 09/22/2015 11:04:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 27, 2015

Managing Social Media: Business Strategy Made Easy

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Managing Social Media: Business Strategy Made Easy daily-golden-nugget-1306-37
When you consider the time it takes to be involved with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and so many social networks, it's no wonder so many people live their lives carrying their smartphone in their hand all day. So many people have traded everyday verbal conversations for terse text conversations and deluges of selfies.

Those who have chosen a smartphone-tethered life, now find it second nature to use social network as a way to keep their friends and family in...
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AT: 07/27/2015 07:03:31 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 20, 2015

Acquisition Channels: Practical SEO Guide

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Acquisition Channels: Practical SEO Guide daily-golden-nugget-1301-82
In today's Practical SEO Guide, I will show you how to access the Google Analytics Acquisition Channels report and explain how to read it.

The Acquisition Channels report provides a high level view of the different marketing channels that brought people to your website.

Log into Google Analytics and click on Acquisition -> All Traffic -> Channels as you see here:

Acquisitio...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/20/2015 01:02:15 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

How To Accomplish Real Time Reporting At Live Events

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How To Accomplish Real Time Reporting At Live Events daily-golden-nugget-1283-11
It doesn't matter how many blueprints, multi-part marketing plan ideas, strategies, and VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/24/2015 11:25:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: How the game is changing: Big Data in Retail

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JCK Talks 2015: How the game is changing: Big Data in Retail daily-golden-nugget-1278-47
The term Big Data is one of the internet's latest buzz words that everyone is talking about but no one seems to know what it is, why they should care about it, how to collect it, or how to use it.

Put simply, Big Data is the collection of massive amounts of demographic and tracking information you gather about your customers. Once gathered, you then churn that information into reports that help you better plan future marketing and provide interesting insights ...
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AT: 06/17/2015 11:29:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Learning Branding and Social Engagement From IHOP's New Logo and Social Campaign

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Learning Branding and Social Engagement From IHOPs New Logo and Social Campaign daily-golden-nugget-1277-46
It must be summer. That's the only time I ever go to IHOP. In fact, this is the second time this month I've visited this family favorite. I was preoccupied with JCK work during my first visit earlier this month, but this time around I'm able to relax and leisurely enjoy a Saturday morning breakfast.

I always know what to expect when visiting IHOP. The menus always show crystal clear, large photos of mouthwatering stacks...
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AT: 06/16/2015 09:51:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 11, 2015

What Is A Money Site?

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What Is A Money Site? daily-golden-nugget-1274-3
This is the Throwback Thursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today I'm jumping back to Nugget number 55 and the topic of money sites.

The topic of marketing funnels came up during the 2015 JCK Talk on multi-channel marketing. The original idea of a marketing funnel was that you would reach a lot of people with a broad scope...
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AT: 06/11/2015 08:44:10 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 01, 2015

Create Marketing Campaigns That Allow For Natural Discovery of the Full Message

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Create Marketing Campaigns That Allow For Natural Discovery of the Full Message daily-golden-nugget-1266-23
I was at a social media marketing meeting in New York City last month when someone asked if they should be posting the same photos and status update to every social network.

That was a good question, and there's no real straightforward answer. In reality, it depends if you have the same audience following you on all the social networks. If the same audience follows you on all networks, then they will get very bored very ...
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AT: 06/01/2015 06:48:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Recommended Monthly Online Marketing for Jewelers

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Recommended Monthly Online Marketing for Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1262-1
After last week's Nuggets about marketing funnels and determining a funnel cost, I received an email from a reader wanting to know my current recommendations for a marketing funnel.

Here are my recommendations for monthly online marketing, in this o...
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AT: 05/26/2015 01:12:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Determining the Cost of Different Methods of Marketing in Your Funnel

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Determining the Cost of Different Methods of Marketing in Your Funnel daily-golden-nugget-1258-48
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I explained how to analyze the cost of your marketing funnel. Today, I'll follow up with some specific funnel ideas to help you formulate your own plan.

Understanding Previous Marketing


Here's a tricky question to think about... Do you measure ad success by the number of people it brought...
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AT: 05/20/2015 09:09:37 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The Misunderstood Cost of the Marketing Funnel

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The Misunderstood Cost of the Marketing Funnel daily-golden-nugget-1257-3
The truth of the matter is that your business will never survive without some type of marketing. Word of mouth marketing is not enough anymore to support your business. Simple posts to social media and meager ads in community newspapers won't support your overhead, or even put food on your table.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, you should VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/19/2015 11:16:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

E-Commerce Isn't The Answer for A Declining Business: Learn Who Your Customer Is First

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E-Commerce Isnt The Answer for A Declining Business: Learn Who Your Customer Is First daily-golden-nugget-1252-91Last week, Rob Bates, News Director for JCK wrote an interesting article with theories of why the jewelry industry is in a funk.

You can read that article yourself, but in brief, the 6 theories posed were:
  1. People are disappointed... Which I guess means all of us in the jewelry industry are wondering when our industry will rebound from the recession like...
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AT: 05/12/2015 11:10:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 11, 2015

Learning From the Marketing of a Marvel Mouse

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Learning From the Marketing of a Marvel Mouse daily-golden-nugget-1251-76
I'm one of those people. I admit it... I don't turn my cell phone off in a movie theater.

It's not that I want to be rude; I do put it on silent; but I have to keep the vibrate setting on. The nature of my job is such that I'm always on call to monitor a few very important websites for a few of my clients. So I can't be out of touch from those computers and servers. In fact, the only times I'm unplugged is when I'm at 38,000 over the Atlantic. WiFi isn't available on the transatlantic f...
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AT: 05/11/2015 11:43:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 17, 2015

Adams Fine Jewelry Website Review

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Adams Fine Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1235-64
This is the Friday jewelry website review where I find a random retail jeweler and review their website for design, usability, and SEO. In each one of these reviews, my goal is to show how the information from my other Daily Golden Nuggets can be directly applied to a website.

This week, I'm using the Google Chrome browser in incognito mode to search for "jewelers st joseph mo." Here's a snapshot of the results:

...<br VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/17/2015 09:30:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Planning Your Jewelry Store's Profitable Future

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Planning Your Jewelry Stores Profitable Future daily-golden-nugget-1228-19
Last week, I was doing a little research into the US census data on this website. The U.S. business census data is captured every 5 years, but there's a delay before the information is published. The 2012 was only recently published.

Shrinking Number of Retail Jewelry Stores


The data shows that there were only 16,847 corporations that classified themselves as "jewelry stores" in 2012, and there were 2...
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AT: 04/08/2015 11:55:34 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Good and Bad Implementations of QR Codes

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Good and Bad Implementations of QR Codes  daily-golden-nugget-1214-92
QR Codes have been a hot topic for several years. In this #ThrowbackThursday Daily Golden Nugget, I'd like to jump all the way back to my second Nugget ever, which was on QR Codes. That was July 27, 2010!

That Nugget was the number one most popular post I had ever made, until I started writing about screen resolution and setup directions for Google M Business. It has since d...
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AT: 03/19/2015 11:26:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 16, 2015

10 Ground Rules For Employees When Using Social Media

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10 Ground Rules For Employees When Using Social Media daily-golden-nugget-1211-39
Many retail jewelers still struggle managing the time it takes to promote themselves on social media. Unfortunately, even though you can hire an agency to manage your social accounts, the best way to engage your customers is to establish your brand's own online identity.

It's difficult to allocate the time needed to engage on social media amidst the daily routine needed to run a jewelry store. Instead of doing it all yourself, you could allow your employees to engage soc...
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AT: 03/16/2015 07:10:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Internet Marketing Agencies - Changing With Technology

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Internet Marketing Agencies - Changing With Technology daily-golden-nugget-1143-44
The internet has seen many changes over the last 4 years since I started writing these Daily Golden Nuggets. Undoubtedly, a lot of that change was informed by Google, but really there are a lot of other factors involved.

Through the Great Recession, a lot of easier and less expensive technology emerged that now allows us to access information from anywhere at any time. You could argue that the technology companies forced fancy new mobile devices on us; or you could say that the technology devel...
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AT: 12/10/2014 08:20:17 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Timely Watch Promotion

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The Timely Watch Promotion daily-golden-nugget-1112-16
Around this time every year, my local fire department hangs out their "Change your clocks, change your smoke detector batteries" sign. It doesn't rhyme at all, but they want to make sure you get into the habit of associating a required action with a life saving action that we all would otherwise forget about.

Since daylight savings time is on everyone's mind, this is also a good opportunity to tie in some type of watch promotion. Selling watches isn't as glamorous as selling diamond covered jewelry, but it's still a sale that shouldn't be overlooked...
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AT: 10/28/2014 09:38:03 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 20, 2014

Referral Websites That Work for Retail Jewelers

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Referral Websites That Work for Retail Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1106-2-66
We're now in the last two weeks of October and a lot of holiday promotions are about to launch. You've probably already completed your own marketing and all the publication dates have been set. In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll go over some last minute online marketing referral sources that you still have time to set up this week.

Your customers will find you through many online sources. Some of those sources will be your own paid marketing, while other people arrive through organic tra...
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AT: 10/20/2014 12:24:11 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 25, 2014

Domain Names Used to Track How You Sell Your Products

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Domain Names Used to Track How You Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1089-50
Over the last three days, I've given you some specific marketing tactics that, as a whole, would equate to a large marketing campaign for the holiday season. I began with a discussion on choosing the right products for the campaign, then explained how to VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/25/2014 08:43:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Offline and Email Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products

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Offline and Email Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1087-57
This is the second part of my Daily Golden Nugget series outlining a potential marketing plan for the upcoming holiday season. The first part I began yesterday explained how you should select a specific set of jewelry items and then write blogs, take photography, and make videos for those items.

Today, I'll go into some detail about launching the ...
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AT: 09/23/2014 06:34:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Share the Content Creation Burden and Then Share Socially

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Share the Content Creation Burden and Then Share Socially daily-golden-nugget-1078-56
Content creation is a continual task for every website owner. It can also be a very challenging task to come up with new content all the time without suffering from mental burnout or writer's block. That burnout will have a bad effect on your long term SEO, so it needs to be prevented.

One way to prevent content creation burnout is to spread the task around between several employees on your sales staff. Remember that website content isn't just blog posts. Content...
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AT: 09/10/2014 07:44:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Improve Your Website's Success With These 3 Methods

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Improve Your Websites Success With These 3 Methods 1664-daily-golden-nugget-1063
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I gave a list of four things that could improve the success of your website and how you use the internet.

Here's a quick refresher of those four:
1. Anticipate customer needs...
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AT: 08/20/2014 02:03:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 11, 2014

Proven Results of On-Site Blogging

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Proven Results of On-Site Blogging 8461-daily-golden-nugget-1056
The other day, I presented some historical data showing why it's bad to have an offsite blog instead of a blog on your website.

I'm going to continue this on-site/off-site discussion today with a presentation of measured results for when you do have a blog on your site.

The data I'm presenting today is part of the ...
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AT: 08/11/2014 09:23:45 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Who's Using Google Remarketing: Sleazy Reality Slap

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Whos Using Google Remarketing: Sleazy Reality Slap 940-daily-golden-nugget-1053
Google AdWords Remarketing is an online marketing method that allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website. You and Google control who sees the ads by secretly tagging every visitor to your website, then choosing what ad to show to them around the internet.

I always like to refer to AdWord Remarketing as a separate type of online marketing, but...
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AT: 08/06/2014 02:04:47 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 21, 2014

Walk a Mile in Your Customer's Shoes to Understand Their Intent

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Walk a Mile in Your Customers Shoes to Understand Their Intent 1990-daily-golden-nugget-1041
I've been sharing a lot of my secret tips recently and today I'd like to share another. This one's about understanding your customer's intent.

One of the biggest mistakes I've noticed many retail store owners, not just jewelers, make is that they set up their store, create advertisements, and design their website based on what they believe their customers will like, without truly trying to understand what their customer's intent is.

It's easy ...
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AT: 07/21/2014 03:40:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 20, 2014

Avoid the Single Point of Marketing Failure

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Avoid the Single Point of Marketing Failure 32-daily-golden-nugget-934As a computer engineer, programmer, and networking engineer, I have seen my share of technical disasters since I first got involved with computer in, um, 1984. I got my first computer, a Timex Sinclair, in '84 and quickly learned the BASIC programming language.

Early computers were very fragile and their storage ability even more so. You never knew if your program would work the next time you tried to load it after saving it to a tape drive. Early floppy disks were also fragile and could easily be ...
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AT: 02/20/2014 05:15:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 23, 2012

Redefining the Center of the Marketing World for Jewelers

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Your website is not an island. It's now a crucial part of your full marketing strategy. Sure, back in 1997 it would have been safe to think about a website as an island.

Your jewelry store's website should be the most interesting, most informative, most accurate, and most up to date component in your entire marketing model. If you've not yet turned your website into the center of your marketing world, then you need to change your strategy... Today.

Here's how to turn your website from that bastard child into the beloved favorite...

Introduce all your marketing teams, and tell them they have to work together or you will be sad to replace them. Everyone needs to work together, and this includes your billboard guy, postcard gal, newspaper ad man, social marketing guru, email newsletter guy, and your website people. ...
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AT: 03/23/2012 10:30:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Why Are You Selling Burgers to Vegetarians?

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Ever wonder why your marketing strategy fails, or doesn't return any real investment? You spend thousands on a billboard just to have friends say "I saw your billboard." You spend thousands on a radio ad just to have the FedEx guy say "I heard your ad on the radio today."

Each and every time you spend money on an ad, it should return enough sales to at least cover the cost of the ad. If not, well, then you did it wrong.

Wrong demographic target, or wrong placement, or wrong words, or maybe simply no one cares about what you are trying to sell. Of course, there's always the possibility that your ad slogan has some other urban slang definition and everyone's laughing at you.

Now in the second week of online marketing attempts, we are seeing random and sloppy ads from many jewelry stores.

Here's what we've see...
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AT: 12/07/2010 01:05:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
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