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Friday, September 08, 2017

Using Instagram and Snapchat Stories For Marketing

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Using Instagram and Snapchat Stories For Marketing daily-golden-nugget-1573-91
Earlier this year, I explained why Instagram should be your primary marketing channel and how to use photography and hashtags to build a following. If you're struggling with Facebook marketing for your business, then you should really go back and look at that previous post of mine.

Although I explained Instagram photography, I did intentionally exclude details about Instagram Storie...
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AT: 09/08/2017 09:33:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 25, 2017

Facebook Algorithm Cleans Up The News Feed Spam

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Facebook Algorithm Cleans Up The News Feed Spam daily-golden-nugget-1571-12
Way back on April 10, 2017, Facebook announced that they'd be cleaning up the News Feed to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.

Their goal was to cut back on the amount of spammy content that is published by Pages that deliberately try to game the Facebook algorithm. Their algorithm measures the popularity of a post by the number of likes, comments, and shares it gets an...
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AT: 08/25/2017 09:42:13 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 18, 2017

How To Handle and Learn From Your Customer Reviews

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How To Handle and Learn From Your Customer Reviews daily-golden-nugget-1570-14

Have you Googled yourself lately?

Your online reputation is now part of your marketing. The results that people see in search help formulate the first impression that someone has of your business and whether or not they will purchase from you.

Managing your online reputation through reviews that appear on Facebook, Google Reviews, and Yelp is vital for your future business health. Savvy consumers are referring to what other people say in these online reviews and other consumer generated co...
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AT: 08/18/2017 09:49:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 11, 2017

Resurgence of QR Codes Brings The Real World and Cyberspace Closer Together

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Resurgence of QR Codes Brings The Real World and Cyberspace Closer Together daily-golden-nugget-1569-47
The digital screen on my bathroom scale has been on the fritz more and more every day, and I finally decided to do something about it today. I've owned different wearable devices over the past 7 years to monitor my health and daily activity, but I didn't yet have a smart bathroom scale to monitor my BMI or other health factors. Today was the day I would finally get one.

I contemplated buying one off Amazon.com but decided that I'd rather compare models ...
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AT: 08/11/2017 06:48:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 14, 2017

6 Most Frequently Broken Or Missing Website Features

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6 Most Frequently Broken Or Missing Website Features daily-golden-nugget-1552-28
Website review and analysis are part of my everyday job. I've been actively analyzing and making suggestions on improving traffic acquisition, user flow, SEO, and usability for several years. I've shared this analysis process and the tips for improvement in my writings for the last few years to provide an insight into how you could do it yourself.

Today, I'll share 6 of the most frequently broken or missing website features that I have seen over and over again, and provide some suggestions for maki...
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AT: 04/14/2017 09:35:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Hellberg's Jewelers Website Review

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Hellbergs Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1498-2
Every week, usually on Friday, I write a website review. This week, I'm publishing my review a couple days early because I have something special planned for Friday. The goal of my website reviews is to dissect the online efforts for a random local retail jeweler. I don't bother reviewing the websites for chain stores because I want to illustrate how a local jeweler can improve a similar site like their own.

I find my website candidates by searching Google using the Chrome browser set to incognito mode. Incognito mode is good to use whe...
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AT: 04/20/2016 12:16:41 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, April 11, 2016

How-To Get The Most People To Sign Up For Your Email Newsletter

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How-To Get The Most People To Sign Up For Your Email Newsletter daily-golden-nugget-1491-39
Back when jWAG was formed in 2010, the common mantra touted by many online marketers was that "the money is in the list." The list, at the time, was a reference to the number of people on your email list. Since then, we now have the ability to reach customers through many other list methods, including Facebook retargeting lists, Google AdWords remarketing lists, and even push notifications through custom apps that people download. So many online marketing opportunities exist now tha...
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AT: 04/11/2016 06:35:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 06, 2016

How To Get Customer Consent For Marketing and Social Media Photos

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How To Get Customer Consent For Marketing and Social Media Photos daily-golden-nugget-1488-71
When it comes to social media photographs, it's easy to forget that every person has a legal right to prevent you from posting a photo of their face online. Paid photographers and media companies are very aware of your legal rights, and they require people to sign a model release form.

Those release forms grant ownership and permission to use the photos for any purpose, even to sell the photos or use in promotions to sell a product. A quick Google search for "sample mode...
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AT: 04/06/2016 11:57:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Best Way To Use QR Codes #TBT

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The Best Way To Use QR Codes TBT daily-golden-nugget-1484-74
There was a lot of marketing buzz around QR codes when they appeared in the USA in 2009 and 2010. Marketers thought they would be a hot sensation for smartphone users and started slapping them on all their ads. Even though QR codes began to appear everywhere, their usefulness and marketing success rates were small. What marketers didn't realize was that QR codes must be utilitarian, but most were gimmicky. I wrote this Nugget about...
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AT: 03/31/2016 12:13:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 28, 2016

Using Your Smartphone To Improve How You Engage With Customers Socially

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Using Your Smartphone To Improve How You Engage With Customers Socially daily-golden-nugget-1481-17
Your success on social media is related to the amount of time you spend engaging with your customers. I like to think of social media as the online version of a business networking event. Plenty of people attend business networking events with grand notions of meeting new business partners only to get there and stand on the sidelines, or quietly sit at a table without working the room.

At some local networking events, you might have the opportunity to hand out ...
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AT: 03/28/2016 07:32:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Tricky Steps From Social To Sales

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The Tricky Steps From Social To Sales daily-golden-nugget-1478-52
Social media marketing is quite frustrating. The rules seem to change every time you think you understand the right methods of how and when to share to social media. Most internet marketers will lead you to believe that business success will come if you can get 10,000 or more fans following you on every network, when in reality it takes a bit more than just growing your social fan base.

Somehow those social media fans have to be converted into sales as shown in this diagram:

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AT: 03/23/2016 08:53:39 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 21, 2016

Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together

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Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together daily-golden-nugget-1476-81
Social media is required for business--all businesses. It ties all your other advertising together: every ad you place in your local community, whether it's on TV, radio, on billboards, in all of your direct mail, for newspaper ads, or everything else you do on other social networks. Social media ties all your marketing together in such a way to support your customer life cycle.

Customer Life Cycle


There are specific steps that every customer must travel throug...
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AT: 03/21/2016 06:46:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Customer Experience and Marketing Campaigns Based on the Customer End-To-End Journey

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Customer Experience and Marketing Campaigns Based on the Customer End-To-End Journey daily-golden-nugget-1468-11
It's no surprise that the jewelry industry faces a tough road ahead. With JBT continuing to report increases in jewelry business discontinuances it's difficult to predict who will still be in business in the next 12 months, especi...
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AT: 03/09/2016 12:42:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 07, 2016

Facebook Messages: Your New Customer Service Channel

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Facebook Messages: Your New Customer Service Channel daily-golden-nugget-1466-20
Once upon a time, Facebook was the social network for college friends only. Then it was opened up to anyone to join. It was a free-for-all of friends keeping in touch without any special filtering getting in the way of seeing your friend's status updates.

When they let businesses join, there was a sudden surge of unwanted solicitations and plenty of users complaining that they were seeing too many business posts in their news feed. As is all things internet related, businesses viewed Facebook as t...
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AT: 03/07/2016 01:27:50 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Mimic Your B&M Customer Service Through Your Contact Form

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Mimic Your B&M Customer Service Through Your Contact Form daily-golden-nugget-1463-14
I've often said that a website needs to provide customer service features that mimic the service that you offer in a store. Today, I'm going to specifically explain one of those feature you should strive for.

In-Store Customer Service


Think about the following scenarios for a moment.

Scenario 1:
A customer is shopping in your store and tells your sales associate that they like the way you've recently remodeled the store.

Scenario 2:
A customer ...
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AT: 03/02/2016 01:32:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Left Unchecked, Comments On Your Facebook Ad Will Kill Its Effectiveness

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Left Unchecked, Comments On Your Facebook Ad Will Kill Its Effectiveness daily-golden-nugget-1453-55
Planning the perfect Facebook ad is quite time consuming. Some ads, like Valentine's Day promotions, are only good for a few weeks, while others could be good for quite a long time. You could boost a regular post VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/17/2016 01:38:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 28, 2016

Get Customers to Check-in to your Facebook Page #TBT

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Get Customers to Check-in to your Facebook Page TBT daily-golden-nugget-1439-92
Welcome to the #ThrowbackThursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today, I'm jumping back to one of my early posts about location based services and checking-in on Facebook.

It was all the rage during the summer of 2010 to have a check-in app on your smartphone check-in everywhere. Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl, and Loopt were competing heavily when Facebook tried getting into the game. Facebook's initial eff...
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AT: 01/28/2016 12:05:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 01, 2015

Donating Gift Cards to Local Charity Events #TBT: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Donating Gift Cards to Local Charity Events TBT: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1354-62
For today's edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I want to jump back to a Nugget from November 2013. In it, I gave ideas on how to use gift certificates as a reputation management tool. That idea, which is still very viable today, is to donate a gift certificate to your local charity in exchange for asking them to write an online review. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/01/2015 11:03:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Time Management For The Retail Jeweler: Part 2

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Time Management For The Retail Jeweler: Part 2 daily-golden-nugget-1327-64
This is part 2 of a 3-part series on Time Management. I have to thank Rod Worley with Four Grainer: Inside the Jewelry Trade Radio Show for motivating me to write this series. While I was on his podcast show, he asked me the following question: "Where are they supposed to find the time?"

Instead of writing simple direction to explain how to get things done, I decided to dive deep...
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AT: 08/25/2015 07:17:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 20, 2015

Conversion Rate Optimization - #TBT

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Conversion Rate Optimization - TBT daily-golden-nugget-1324-45
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back 4 years to August 9, 2011 to my topic of conversion rate optimization.

What's A Conversion?


A "conversion" refers to some type of customer interaction that results in the capture of the customer's identity, usually their email address. E-commerce sites also measure conversions according to the number of online sales they have.
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AT: 08/20/2015 09:15:05 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
Wednesday, June 10, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: The Retail Revolution

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JCK Talks 2015: The Retail Revolution daily-golden-nugget-1273-81Thanks to The EDGE Retail Academy, attendees of JCK 2015 were able to witness two presentations from Terry Hawkins, bestselling author, well-established business woman, and President of the training company People In Progress Global. I had the fortune of attending her JCK Talk titled "The Retail Revolution" on Thursday, May 28, 2015.

Terry is certainly a dynamic speaker that keeps the audience entertained and engaged while also sharing valuable infor...
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AT: 06/10/2015 09:07:05 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
Thursday, February 12, 2015

Use Storytelling to Build Valuable Website Content

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Use Storytelling to Build Valuable Website Content daily-golden-nugget-1189-36
Throwback Thursday is the name of a weekly internet trend where participants repost photos from the past. This is especially popular on Instagram where users tag their photos with the #TBT hashtag.

Truthfully, you can "throwback" anything that happened in the past. It could be a social media post, a photo, a blog post, or yes, even a Daily Golden Nugget!

Honestly, this is my first participation in a TBT, but what the heck; let's do it with a slightly different spin...
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AT: 02/12/2015 01:38:48 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Understanding And Establishing Your Own Content Curation Channel

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Understanding And Establishing Your Own Content Curation Channel daily-golden-nugget-1182-1
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I proposed a few scenarios on how you could create content needed to attract customers to, and convert customers on your website.

Content marketing is a large part of the modern day business strategy, but the creation process is so long and expensive, that many business owners are ready to give up after t...
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AT: 02/03/2015 12:59:25 PM   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, 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
Monday, July 14, 2014

Wixon Jewelers: 2014 Small Business of the Year

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Wixon Jewelers: 2014 Small Business of the Year 6059-daily-golden-nugget-1036
Small business owners always seem to struggle trying to balance the time they spend working in their store, managing back office paperwork, and growing the business. It's very difficult to achieve the perfect balance of spending time with each of these tasks if no one showed you how to do it correctly in the first place.

Occasionally, you will find a small business success story in the news, and perhaps you wonder how they achieved their success. From my own personal experience,...
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AT: 07/14/2014 09:22:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 24, 2011

Do You Think You are Funny?

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Blogging is such an important part of website content. Using your blog, you can add real content that Google loves to index and use in the search.

You blog is a forum for so many different things. One day you can use it to showcase a new line of jewelry in your store, and the next you can use it to talk about your sponsorship of the local Little League.

Everything you post in your blog will feed Google's ability to bring you traffic. But what if you would rather have people share your blog posts on Facebook or Twitter? How can you get them to do that?

Google is a machine, programmed to do what it does and it doesn't care if your content is boring. It only cares if your content matches a search query.

To get interest from real people, you need to make your blog posts interesting. Give people a reason to b...
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AT: 03/24/2011 01:10:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Answer Their Questions and Show Them You Care

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The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page of your website is a great place to post all the typical questions you get from customers that visit your store.

Can you quickly recite the popular questions the people have asked you through the years? All of those popular questions belong on your FAQ page of your website.

But what about the not-so-popular questions?

People love to see you care about your customers and are willing to take the extra time to provide customer service. Answering specific questions on your website is a great way to prove you care. Here's how you can do it.

1. Put an "Ask the Jeweler" form on your website.
2. Post the questions and the answers to your website.
3. Email the "asker" the URL of the answer.

With any luck, the asker will be very happy you personally answered thei...
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AT: 03/23/2011 01:20:13 PM   0 COMMENTS
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