SPONSORED CONTENT The Jewelry Retailer’s Ultimate Marketing Guide Introducing a special 5-part blog series for jewelry retailers, aimed at helping you utilize online marketing to increase traffic and sales. The series will cover useful topics such as building websites, making the most of social media and email marketing, with tools you can put into action today to start bringing more customers to your website and retail store. PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 PART 1 OF 5 5 Ways to Create a Shining Online Presence for Your Jewelry Company By Alexandra Bohigian Ready to create an online presence that is as bright and shiny as your stunning jewelry? Creating an online presence is never a one size fits all solution. However, there are several steps every business can take in creating a stronger online presence, which inevitably leads to more eyes on your products and a favorable ROI. Your online presence will often be the first place people learn about your brand, so you want it to reflect your business at its best. Here are the top 5 ways to create a shining online presence for your jewelry company. 1. Build a user-friendly website The first step to building an online presence is to build a user-friendly website. This means the website should be clean and simple to navigate. If your jewelry company has an online store, the process of searching for jewelry to completing the check out process should be absolutely seamless. If you are not utilizing your website as an e-commerce platform, then it is still important for it to have information about your store’s location, examples of jewelry for sale, and your contact information. Not all websites are created equal. Ensure you are working with a professional to get your website up and running. It is such a core component to most businesses, so having it built right the first time around will save you from future headaches and expensive re-development. 2. Invest in a professional photographer A professional photographer will be able to capture the beauty of your products and how to make them look their best online. Being able to show off your products online is extremely important when building an online presence, especially when this may be the only experience a customer has with your jewelry before buying it. Work with a photographer with specific experience photographing jewelry. These photos can be used for other marketing materials beyond your website, such as advertisements, social media graphics, and for creating signage for your brick and mortar location. Click here to download our Ultimate Marketing Strategy Checklist for Jewelry Stores 3. Gather and highlight reviews from customers A huge part of your online presence is what other people say about your company. You can go on and on about how great your jewelry company is, but unless those sentiments are being echoed by customers, it does not mean much for boosting online presence. Ensure you have claimed your Yelp page, social media pages, and Google business profile. These are the most common areas that customers will leave reviews, and as a business, claiming these profiles allows you to keep up with what customers are saying and respond to reviews in a timely manner. Encourage customers to leave reviews by explaining how important they are for small businesses. You can also use reviews in your marketing strategy by highlighting positive snippets on your website and on social media. 4. Get social by investing in social As a business owner embarking on the growth of your online presence, you probably already know how important social media will be for your brand. Developing a strong presence on social media requires a strategic approach and an investment of time and money. Invest time in coming up with content to share on your social media channels. Some content to share each month may include: Promotional content such as images of your jewelry and information about sales or specials. Content that will give a face to your company, such as information about the designers, founder, and other employees. Customer testimonials. Interesting facts or news about the jewelry industry. Unfortunately, growing your online presence from a social media perspective does not end with creating a strategy and executing that strategy. You will also need to invest some budget in getting eyes on your social media posts. Facebook, for example, is often referred to by marketers as “pay to play”. With the way these channels’ algorithms work, most businesses need to “boost” each post with an amount of money behind it, which allows you to target specific demographics. If putting some money behind your social media posts is out of the question, this does not mean you should ignore social channels! It is still very important to have a presence on the major social media networks (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and maybe Twitter). 5. Develop a brand story, and get good at telling it When creating an online presence, you need to have a solid brand story that will help others connect with your company. Developing a brand story is no easy feat. It requires taking the time to dive into creating a message that will resonate with your audience. This might be the story of how your jewelry business came to be, or how you found your passion in this career. Practice ironing out this story, and incorporate in online. This may be in the form of an “about us” page on your website, a video message, or take snippets to utilize in your social strategy to connect with potential customers. Now that you know how to build your online presence, tap in to your inner marketing-guru and click here to download RapNet’s Ultimate Marketing Strategy Checklist for Jewelry Stores. Alexandra Bohigian directs marketing and sales for a software development company in Austin, Texas. She is also a freelance marketer focused on helping small businesses build a competitive digital presence. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Rapaport or any other Rapaport Group entity or service, its officers, directors or employees. Rapaport does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy or validity of any information presented by Rapaport or the views expressed therein. RapNet is the world’s largest and most trusted diamond and jewelry trading network, with daily listings of over 1.5 million diamonds and jewelry pieces valued at more than $7.4 billion. RapNet serves members in 97 countries and provides a competitive and transparent peer-to-peer trading network with no commission charges. Additional information is available at www.RapNet.com