Expert: Peter Gabany - 12/9/2005

Question
My wife designs, makes and sells Pearl Jewelry thru the Internet. She a has a very high quality product for which she has a trademark. Years ago she was the 1st on the Web but now is lost in obscurity. She now derives a good portion of her income from e-bay with a lot of work however overall it is a small amount and nothing in comparison to what I feel her product is capable of.

Questions:
#1) Is advertising on the Web good and if so where and how is the money best spent.
#2) How can she build her "brand" and get into the big leagues, substantially expanding her Sales & Brand.

www.DivinaPearls.com    www.TahitianPearls.net

Thank you,

Daniel Gregory
310 450-4357

Answer
Daniel,

You are right - the product quality looks great - actually I was surpirsed at the low price. There are a couple of things that we would recommend and please note that I am very frank.

The sites do not reflect the quality of the product. They look like discount stores. The overall quality of the site is no where near the product offering in style, elegance, class. The look undermines the product but decreases people's comfort level of making a purchase - from both a security issue and quality issue.

The photographs are NOT bad, but they are not inspired. There is no emotion in the site. Jewelery is emotional. It's evocative. The site should also have a story. A story that leads the viewer through the site gradually persuading them that their purchase would be the best move that they could make.

So, Daniel this is the site. The cost of making such a site would be a much needed - significant investment but you would be surpirsed at the results.

From a marketing strategy point of view, I would consider breaking costs into retail and wholesale - and I am not suggesting that your lower the price. On the contrary - raise it. Now, that said, I am not familiar with the general costs of these pearled beauties. You would have to consider competitive pricing to a point but these are NOT machine built - rather hand crafted and designed by award winning (assumption) jewelery designer Ms XXX XXXX. Again part of the story.

This would allow for far more market opportunities. Next, we would recommend development of a wholesale sales kit/brochure. This kit would have a number of components, the least of which would be the brochure but a unique presentation that would elevate the artist and her fine pieces.

With these tools in hand, it would be appropo to then run a regular news release program - bi-weekly at first to drive traffic to the site and develop awareness about the artist.

Also, the most important methid to drive traffic to your site is to operate a Pay-Per-Click program. We have set these up for a number of clients. In each case we have helped them to experience a positive return on investment model.

There is SO VERY much to consider, but the absolute most important step to take when wishing to get to the next level is to develop a strategic plan. Develop strong content for a beautiful site and and implement the balance of the plan.

If you would like some help to develop the next steps, please don't hesitate to ask.

Pete
promote@limelight.org