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How to Build Your Jewelry Customer Base with Relationship Marketing

Jewelry Business Insider:
Rena’s Exclusive Interviews with the Experts

Interview with Larry Keltto by Rena Klingenberg

 

RENA: What is relationship marketing?

 

LARRY: It’s the process of being in contact with people who share a common interest with you, in order to create rewarding opportunities.

 

RENA: How can relationship marketing help a jewelry artist develop a base of customers who will keep returning year after year for more jewelry?

 

LARRY: Done correctly, relationship marketing will give you a group of people who have a strong connection not only to your jewelry, but to you personally.

You can build a legion of loyal, enthusiastic customers who are eager to tell others about you and your work.

 

RENA: If you were a home-based jewelry artist, what specific action steps would you take right now to start growing your customer base with relationship marketing?

 

LARRY:

1. Cultivate authenticity in yourself. You can do this by being truthful in ALL of your human interactions. Authenticity is the bedrock of relationships and of relationship marketing. Anything that hints of being fake, fraudulent, or phony lacks authenticity. If the basis for a relationship is distorted from the start, it may never progress. If it begins on a false note, it is likely to be destined for failure.
2. Take the initiative. You must be alert, open, and alive to possibilities for making connections. The way in which you connect is the first impression you make on another person. A warm smile, a friendly greeting, and an upbeat conversation will open doors to relationships. The same is true when the first connection is online or on the phone. Taking the initiative to meet another person is a risk that is often rewarded.
3. Serve others, everyone, as if they were your customers. As with any relationship, satisfaction and growth have everything to do with meeting expectations. Meeting expectations has to do with meeting people’s needs. With an attitude of service, expectations are fulfilled, the relationship can gain significance, and it can last.
4. List the names of people with whom you can reconnect, and the interest you share. These people are likely to become the biggest fans of your work.
5. List the names of people you need to connect with in order to make your business a success. Next to their names, write how you will make those connections.

RENA: Thank you so much, Larry, for stopping in to chat with us about applying relationship marketing to our jewelry businesses!

About Larry Keltto

Larry Keltto has been a solo-business owner since 1993. His business, Straight River Media, provides marketing and communications services to small businesses, many of them startups.

In 2010 he launched TheSolopreneurLife.com, which provides resources to solopreneurs. He has written two books on solopreneurship: Relationship Marketing for Solopreneurs and The Solopreneur Life: 42 Solo-Business Owners Speak the Truth on Dreaming Big, Failing Forward, and Calling Your Own Shots.