Marketing but not selling

[Ozladie]

TL DR: I’m doing loads of marketing but not selling anything and I feel stuck.

Basically I can’t handmake jewellery in the UK and sell it for less than £1500 (and that’s the low end, lots of stuff will be up to £7-8k). People keep saying “why don’t you do silver, it’s cheaper so it sells better?” Thinking you can sell silver jewellery for £100. Which you can if it’s machine made or produced by child labour in Asia.

From my perspective, using cheaper material doesn’t make the jewellery much cheaper. I still have the same expense in terms of my time spent on design and manufacture. The same time and money spent on marketing and software. The same expenses for my accountant, solicitor, insurance, bills.

Knocking a few hundred quid off the materials doesn’t massively reduce the overall price of the jewellery, because of all those fixed costs. I’ve got more chance of selling gold and gems at a price that covers those costs vs silver.

So my difficulty is finding people who can pay £1500. It’s not your average person on the street. Nobody impulse buys a £1500 ring at a craft fair so there’s no point attending those. There are plenty of people spending that amount but I’m obviously not getting their eyeballs on me.

I’ve done free work for exposure, just for the cost of materials, in order to get pictures to post online. I’ve written articles for arts magazines, given a talk at an art gallery, gave a guest lecture to university students, went on arts podcasts as a guest. Made sure there was evidence online of all that stuff so I look like a professional. I’ve made a few pieces with my own money, I have those in stock to show people as examples, but I can’t make any more because I don’t have the money to keep buying materials.

I can’t keep doing all this free work but not getting any paid work. I started trading in November and I’ve only had two paid commissions, both from the same client, who is someone I knew previously. She could easily have shopped elsewhere but wanted to support my new business, so she asked me to make her engagement ring, and she loved it so asked me to make her wedding ring to match. I haven’t had any other requests despite all my marketing.

Don’t say there isn’t a market for stuff at that price point. There is. I see other people running successful businesses and selling at that price and more. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong?

Sales vs Marketing
Marketing is how you get people to click on your OLD profile, Sales is how you get them to actually go on a date with you.

You're going to need a lot more money than you currently have to be successful in this venture.

You need money to guide people through the marketing funnel, to nurture their interest in your brand all along the buyer journey to the point where they have the confidence to buy from you. It sounds like you're doing some marketing but at a broad, high level (social media posts, etc). I'd suggest you need a small shop in a high traffic part of a high end area like Richmond, Marylebone, Windsor, Chiswick, St Albans, etc. But if you cant do that and you can only ahow up digitally, then you need to be pumping money into Google ads so that your content comes up as one of the first things people see when they search for engagement ring (or whatever it is). And you need the money to build a catalogue or portfolio of that content. That means you also need to have your own view on jewellery, its cant just be custom work. Is it chunky pieces of jewellary, is it fine and organic, is it pieces with multiple gemstones, what is your signature style?

You're competing against a lot of wealthy companies already doing what you do, and they probably either have with more contacts or more money (or both) to succeed in that space.

What else can you do that could work from a jewellery point of view? Can you pivot so that you're more high-rnd high street? Look at the brand 'linjer' - they're doing a lot of marketing, and showing up in the right places on Google, and their price point is in the low hundreds, not thousands.

Would you feel comfortable sharing your website? We might be able to see how you might be ranking on Google and what you can do to improve user experience

But that's the occasion market

I don't know if there's enough money in that market for a viable business but presumably you know there is

so where did you and your friends buy?

From my perspective, using cheaper materials doesn't make the jewellery much cheaper. I still have the same expense in terms of my time spent on design and manufacture. The same time and money spent on marketing and software. The same expenses for my accountant, solicitor, insurance, bills.

Knocking a few hundred quid off the materials doesn't massively reduce the overall price of the jewellery, because of all those fixed costs.

Sorry @Ozladie but you haven't got your costings quite right there. You need to take fixed and variable costs into consideration, and whether the costs are direct or indirect. If you design a piece in silver and make ten of them, the variable cost involved in that would be the raw materials and your time. But each piece doesn't have to absorb all the overheads, but only a proportion:

Design & make one: (materials & time £100) + overheads £100 = cost £200

Make 10: (materials & time x 10 = £1,000) + overheads £100 = cost £1,100

So cost price for making one is £200, the cost price if you make ten is £110 each.

Economies of scale. I know you only want to make one-offs, but until you have made a name for yourself, people will not choose you for their commissions. If your lower cost price is lower, then you will be able to sell to high-end retailers at cost plus a profit margin, which you can't do at the moment.

My suggestion would be that you need a niche - at the moment you’re just a new company doing what lots of established companies already do. Sorry to sound harsh, but in the eyes of a customer, why are you special?

I’d look at jumping on the sustainability/vintage bandwagon. Market yourself as someone who can remodel a vintage heirloom piece into something new and fresh, make a package, sell that. Keeps your materials costs down, gives you something to build a marketing hook on.

for example, groom to be gifts heirloom (or vintage, if he buys for the stone) engagement ring to his beloved, and buys a package with you where they get a day with you, designing, discussing, brainstorming lunch, etc. you then Use the materials and remake a ring.

It won’t be what you’re wanting to do, but it’s a hook into marketing your business - you can guarantee when it comes to eternity ring time, 10th anniversary pendant etc, it’ll be you they come to.

It’s ambitious to expect your business to take off in the direction you want without some sort of USP initially, something like this would allow you to be introduced, build the trust and then you can showcase the amazing stuff in your kitchen!

I run marketing campaigns for small start ups - this is a really common issue. I do understand that it’s frustrating to think of diluting your main offering, but diversifying can really really help.

As PP have pointed out, marketing is about engaging people while selling is about closing the deal, so that product and cash are exchanged. Thats the part that is currently missing for your business. Though, to be fair, it’s more of a hobby until you start selling enough to cover your costs.

what was your business plan? How long did you expect your activities to start breaking even, never mind making a profit? I don’t wear much jewellery, my wedding ring (which the the most expensive item I have ever chosen) is a plain gold band. Most of what I I wear day to day is costume jewellery, so I’m obviously not your target market. If I were looking to buy something, I would like the idea of something one-off. I have a contact in a firm based in Hatton Gardens who can source stones in a wide range of price points and commission individually designed settings. I would never buy serious jewellery from anyone without the back up of a serious company.

If you want to continue doing the work and have someone else find the contacts, it might be worth contacting all the that kind of companies based in Hatton Gardens and elsewhere,it might be worth your contacting each of them to offer your services as part of their offering.

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

But you are not selling! Go and ask those people you talk about to find out why you are not selling and they are! That’s the first thing I would advise.

I mean they aren’t going to advise me, they’re my competitors!

I have already diversified. Originally I was going to offer a handful of pre-made designs, and increase that catalogue as I got more money. I’ve made one as a sample and can show it to people and make another one the same.

But I saw a marketing consultant via the business centre and he said you can’t run a business with 5 products, and you can’t afford to make more products. So expand your product range by offering custom work. Then you can post materials and drawings and inspirations on Instagram, and technically your range of products is unlimited.

So I did that. My website looks more impressive with more stuff on it. But I’m still not making sales.

I’m not exactly making a loss. A few quid for Canva and insurance, I’m working from home and using my own laptop, I have my tools already. I’m not out of pocket - I’m just not making a profit. I was hoping by now to be selling one piece a month.

I buy jewellery in this price point. I approach known independent jewellers who either have traditional shops or craft village shops. I want to pick up, handle and discuss options about bespoke pieces there and then. Sounds like you’re too web based and for me personally and with so many other more trusted options, I wouldn’t ‘risk’ your set up. Sorry OP. Could you approach an established indie jeweller and see if they’d be interested in ‘hosting’ you for a fee?

I'm not in this market and to be honest, despite living in an affluent area, know very few people who would pay £1500 for any piece of jewellery including wedding / engagement rings.

I am in marketing though. I would have thought the experience and / or the brand cachet would be a major part of buying / commissioning a 4 figure piece of jewellery. Visiting the jeweller at their work/shop, having a 'name' or heritage associated with the piece, making it an occasion and making a memory. I can't imagine emailing a stranger on the internet with a jewellery order and getting it delivered by Evri in 2-4 business weeks being perceived as a high value experience. There is lots of lovely jewellery available under £100 that would look just as good as any £1.5k piece to 90% of people. You need to add value. It's not about the materials.

I have a friend who's a bag designer and she had a range of entry priced products (bag and hair accessories) to get people in through the door and engaging with her brand. Is there a way you can expand your range at low value OR offer an additional service e.g. wedding stylist or floristry or whatever?

Also agree with PPs that if you are serious you need major investment in materials and a shop.

If you won’t even share your products on here how can you expect to sell them.

Marketing and advertising are not the same thing.

How about doing some advertising?

hth

Basic stuff:

Have you looked at your search rankings? If people google 'jewellery designers/place where you live' are you coming up on the first page? Same with other key words, phrases and questions e.g. 'wedding rings in [ozladies town]'

Have you done local PR, local newspapers, town website? Do people know you? Do local people say 'oh you know ozlady, she makes lovely jewellery'. Does your joiner DP talk about you to his clients? Have you hosted parties to showcase your jewellery? Have you got a mailing list? What about an afternoon tea where you invite customers round with their favourite pieces that need mending or re-tooling and you give them some suggestions and a quote?

All of the marketing you have done is very off the mark. You need to access brides to be and affluent ladies with lots of occasions and leisure time - not arts undergraduates.

Starting any business is hard work. Getting your first sales is hard for every small business. A big issue for you seems to be that you do not have the necessary start up funds to get it going.

if what you want to do isn’t generating income try something that has a better chance of generating income to get you off the ground and allow you more flexibility to create and market.

as a previous poster said, use economies of scale and time to do smaller / cheaper pieces and get out to craft villages and wedding fayres

you’re creating high ticket items so you will have high start up costs and you will need to make this start up money, the golden client is unlikely to come to you out of nowhere.

I follow a number of artists who have grown from starting out to full time artists with huge followings. They all spend time showing people a lot of videos of them creating their works from start to finish. Lots of narrative and talking to their audience. And personal posts too.

their works eventually after a lot of hard work and time got viral interest and they took off with global sales.

@FKAT totally agree

I think the pricey brands need entry level items for exactly this reason

Couture is a different price point of course, but even the big couture houses had to do perfume etc to keep going

same principle really

I was going to ask for a treat for my 50th and go to the Aurum & Grey atelier

then I thought about the reality of an expensive piece and how careful I'd have to be with it

I appreciate I'm not the target audience but when driving around the posh houses nearest where I live, I'd say wealthy people spend on a range of things, with jewellery not being high on the list

so aiming for one piece a month is actually optimistic

it does seem that going cheaper is the way to go, to fund the promotion of more expensive pieces.

Can you share a link to your website on here? Might get some better advice if people can see

You can run a business with 5 products. Especially a jewellery business. Small simple pieces well made within an affordable price range until you make a name for yourself and build up brand allegiance makes sense.

earrings, ring stacks, diamond less tennis bracelets. stacked necklaces.

5 bread and butter jewellery that many people have. And are often bought as gifts .

You might not think you are out of pocket, until you factor in what else you could be doing with that time. You might not want to count that, if y this so what you enjoy doing, but opportunity cost would very much be part of your business plan.

People can’t buy from you if they don’t find you, and even when they do, you need to look credible enough for them to take the next step.

SEO is a big part of that, and it’s not just about keywords. Positioning, content quality, and technical stuff (like site structure, mobile speed etc) all matter. This article breaks down top SEO trends in a pretty practical way, worth a look even if it’s written with a different industry in mind. The same rules apply across the board.

Fwiw, I think the pp who mentioned making it into a day has a great idea. Discussing it with the groom, and bride, ‘here’s how to buy the stone’ etc. turns it into a memory. I’d also enjoy being guided through what I think of as quite daunting .