Reflect, Reset & Ready yourself to take on the New Year with these 10 questions
Designers, makers, and jewellery business owners, are you going into 2025 feeling positive? Wondering how to improve sales this year? Or how to build a better brand for the future of your business? These 10 questions are essential for jewellery business owners to ask themselves to star the year positively.
“What were my key successes last year, and how can I build on them?”
Recording and analysing data throughout the year is an important activity, so that in the new year you can look back on what worked, and what needs work with facts rather than feelings.
“What challenges did I face, and what lessons did I learn from them?”
Learning from what went wrong is often just as good as looking at what went right. If challenges from 2024 are persisting, look at ways to overcome them, realistic or not. If your challenge is that you didn’t have enough time to work on your business while working your part time job, that might not be something you can resolve immediately, but knowing this is an issue will help you work towards overcoming it.
“Have I clearly defined my unique selling point (USP) to differentiate my brand in the marketplace?”
If sales were slow or you’re not making the progress you want, consider if your foundations are truly solid enough. Finding your USP can be the most difficult part of building your brand identity but is essential to know what you are selling is unique in some way. This informs everything from who you are selling to, to how and where you sell.
“Who is my target audience, and am I effectively reaching them with my current marketing strategies?”
Are all your followers fellow jewellers or gemstone dealers? Have you paid for advertising which brought no results? Knowing your ideal customer and how to find them can be such a tricky part of building your brand. Dreaming up ideal audience personas is incredibly helpful but in reality you will have many groups of customers outside that persona. Their partners, parents, friends etc. Are you ensuring your brand is accessible to all the people around your ideal audience too?
“Is my branding and visual identity consistent across all platforms and touch-points?”
Branding goes beyond colour pallets and fonts (all of which need to complement each other across platforms), it’s the tone of voice you strike with your audience, the look and feel of your images and the models you use. Make sure you use the same graphics and visual aspects across your social media, website and printed materials. Your audience needs to be able to recognise your work in a sea of other makers.
“What new trends or consumer demands are emerging in the jewellery industry, and how can I adapt my offerings accordingly?”
For me, trends are controversial. A really distinctive design and brand aesthetic will always be more valuable, in my opinion, than jumping on a popular trend which will likely be ‘out’ after only several months. So be careful which trends you lock onto, if any, but be sure to keep an eye out for trends which resonate with your brand. You may be lucky enough to find your authentic message or design will lend itself to a trend.
“What goals do I want to set for my business in the coming year, both short-term and long-term?”
Having a plan, no matter how rudimental, ensures you have direction throughout the year so you don’t make reactionary decisions or find yourself caught short on projects. How many new launches or drops would you like to have this year and how many are realistically achievable? What are the key marketing dates in the calendar that you would like to focus on? If your goal this year is to go full time in your business, ensure you know how many sales you need each month to generate the revenue to make that happen. Then create a plan to help achieve those sales targets.
“Do I have a clear plan for my product development and inventory management to meet anticipated demand?”
Did you sell out of one product but are stuck with loads of another. Use this as a sign when designing and design more of what sells. Consider making fewer pieces for a new launch to gauge demand so you have more resources to play with during tricky cashflow months.
“How can I enhance my customer engagement and foster long-lasting relationships with my clients?”
What’s your RCR? If you don’t immediately know that acronym, it’s your Returning Customer Rate, and it’s incredibly important. Much easier for online businesses to quantify, as the figure is right there in your analytics, and it shouldn’t be over looked. The most valuable customers you can have, are the customers you already have. Are you nurturing them and encouraging them to come back to you regularly? Your email list is key for this. Email marketing is often overlooked so if you are guilty of this, make sure 2025 is the year to try to grow your list and regularly land in your audiences inboxes. Whether you offer them incentives to buy, give advice or just tell them what you are up to, your subscribers want to hear from you, don’t ghost them!
“Am I utilising analytics and data effectively to inform my business decisions and optimise performance?”
If 2024 is a year you have little data to reflect on, make sure 2025 won’t be the same. Every metric from traffic to average order value (AOV) and even how they found you, is invaluable info to have for 2026 then you’re reflecting on your next year in business. Make sure you are tracking your online metrics and learning from them.
I hope you have already been asking yourself these 10 questions, but if not, there is no better time to start than now. The year ahead has so much potential, I know it’s going to be a great one for you and your business. And if you’re not sure how to move forward I’m always here to help, if you’re ready.
If you feel like it’s time to get support in your business or you have questions about this blog post, you can always book a FREE discovery call or get in touch. Plus you can follow me on Instagram for more regular jewellery industry & e-commerce insights & actionable advice.