5 Mistakes to avoid making in your online business in 2024
Mistakes are only mistakes if you don’t learn from them. I want you to learn from my mistakes rather than making them yourself. Start 2024 in a positive way by avoiding these easily done (and sometimes tempting) mistakes in your small jewellery business.
1. Focusing solely on sales
While sales are of course important, something I see a lot of brands do is making sales the sole focus of their online business and marketing activities. Instead of relying on the hard sell (which is very uninspiring to everyone who isn’t ready to buy yet!), set out to build relationships, provide value, inspire a lifestyle, and create a community around your brand.
Consider your customer profile, their values, and the problems they face. Solve these problems, answer their questions. Show them other brands and ideas they’ll adore and in turn they’ll trust and adore what you’re selling (without you having to sell to them!).
2. inconsistency
You’ve likely heard all about how important it is to post consistently on Instagram. Well that goes for every other aspect of your business too. To be able to buy into your brand, your audience needs to know what to expect from you. A lack of consistency in the product you design, the people or brands you work with, or even the words you use can confuse prospective customers and even lead to a loss of trust and loyalty.
Spend time on your branding and ethos, making sure you know exactly how you want your brand to look, feel and what it stands for. Then when you’re making decisions in the future you’ll know what choices will chime with your audience.
3. Ignoring customer feedback
Customer feedback is invaluable for improving your products and communications. It can be so stressful when receiving criticism from a customer, sometimes they don’t understand your brand and your aims, but every-so-often they can contribute the most valuable insight into what your audience wants. Don't overlook it and be open to making necessary changes based on customer input.
Even if you don’t receive direct feedback, what do your customers ask you the most. If you are consistently receiving the same customer service emails maybe you need to make changes to your site or offering to address these.
4. Neglecting social media presence
Yes it can be a pain and a mystery to some of us but there is not doubt meeting your audience where they are, on social media, is a must for small jewellery businesses. Social media is a powerful tool for building brand awareness and engaging with your audience. Ignoring it can hinder your online business growth.
But this doesn’t mean you have to quickly jump onto the newest platform or have a presence on every platform. If you have done your audience work then you will know what platform your ideal customers are on and you need to be visible there too. You don’t have to be on all platforms all the time. Decide which social media platform works best for you and commit to being authentic and consistent.
5. Advertising before nailing it organically
Paying for ads on Google and social media is very tempting when trying to make more sales or grow online. Of course no brand ever says they don’t want anyone new to find them, but I see small or emerging brands make this paid advertising mistake over and over. They pay for ads with content or a website which isn’t optimised to convert organically yet.
If solid foundations haven’t been built yet and your customer journey isn’t clear you’ll spend more money than you need to for less return than you could get. Before you spend money boosting that ‘meh’ instagram post, consider putting that money into creating more engaging images, or improving the user experience or SEO of your site. That will mean that when you do pay for views, those new comers are more likely to fall in love and buy from you.
If you want to find out more about working with me you can book a FREE discovery call or get in touch to discuss this topic & any other areas of your jewellery business that you need more support with. Plus you can follow me on Instagram for more regular jewellery industry & e-commerce insights & actionable advice.
