[Ahern & Brucker]

I'm looking to start an affiliate program selling our line of higher end jewelry but I want to start slow and introduce one product line at a time targeting specific niche markets.

I think we have a viable product and their is a market for it... but to tap into this market I realize professional help is in order..

So,. I know that in this pool of people looking for an opportunity the right person is here to help us get our product to market. (properly)

But who and what is the best way to identify this person? What questions should I ask and what should I expect? WOuld this be something I just Post like a classified? How much should I expect to pay or should I give more comission? (prices ranges from $2500 to $10,000+)

Really, I need more than an affiliate manager... what we need is one person to orchestrate and direct a marketing team but lol, I'd be happy if we had a test of just one product to see if it works.

Sometimes I think it would be just easier to sell our prototypes and retire but I'm not ready to give up on the marketing plan... plus, this is where our 30+ years of individual hard work and struggle and efforts and sacrifices pays off...

We have been screwing around with a bunch of dead wood for far too long and it's time to get this marketing end covered once and for all...

any advice?

[cutebeast]

1. You got a good signature, but no link on it.
2. You got a unique service, badly layout designed website.
3. You even want to associate yourself as a mom & pop shop therefore instead to go online you need to look for more of an offline solution.

Just some improvement thought
1. Redesign your website with a far better design please. You are offering design as a service, and by looking at your website I highly doubt that any visitor will think that you are capable to produce any good designed jewelry. Well at least I know I won't.

2. What type of users or market you want to go into, medium income? high income? low income? Your web design should reflect your targeted market.

3. There are varies marketing technique and tools you will be able to use to promote your website or services online however with your current design it will not help much. I believe you are taking about online marketing for your services right? One of the tools you can look into will be experiential marketing (Experiential Marketing Forum) however there are other method you can try out as well.

[Ahern & Brucker]

Originally Posted by cutebeast

1. You got a good signature, but no link on it.
2. You got a unique service, badly layout designed website.
3. You even want to associate yourself as a mom & pop shop therefore instead to go online you need to look for more of an offline solution.

Just some improvement thought
1. Redesign your website with a far better design please. You are offering design as a service, and by looking at your website I highly doubt that any visitor will think that you are capable to produce any good designed jewelry. Well at least I know I won't.

2. What type of users or market you want to go into, medium income? high income? low income? Your web design should reflect your targeted market.

3. There are varies marketing technique and tools you will be able to use to promote your website or services online however with your current design it will not help much. I believe you are taking about online marketing for your services right? One of the tools you can look into will be experiential marketing (Experiential Marketing Forum) however there are other method you can try out as well.

Thanks for your insightful observations.. I realize my main web site may seem poorly designed but we are in the business of making custom jewelry and have little experience designing web sites.

I'm sure their is a greater segment of the population who will look at our web design and assume we are as lousy making our product (as you suggest) but, their is a specific nich of people (our internet customers) that don't relate the two... these are the customers we want and like...

If you were to look at our web site, you might wonder "how do people order, how can we sell jewelry without listing prices etc" but, it's been working just fine and are able to maintain a healthy 3 month back order for our custom work.

on our "custom jewelry side of the business" we get to pick and choose our customers... just because someone has a fist full of cash doesn't entitle them to our work or attention. so, while the web site may appear poorly designed, it is excellent in weeding out the tire kickers and bargain hunters and other unsavory types from the serious buyers.

THe "mom and pop" thing might also scare off a larger segment of visitors but again, their is a segment of people (our internet customers) who specifically look for the kind of service and results only a mom and pop shop can provide. and more importantly, that's who we are. It would be difficult to attemept to market ourselves any way other than the truth.

You suggest we explore off line marketing avenues ... I'm not sure why? high end custom jewelry sells very well over the internet and it's a lot easier and far more cost effective and offers a far larger audience world wide. so, I'd like to hear your reasoning if you don't mind.

that being said..

We are not looking for affiliates to market or sell our custom work or to get us custom orders... we have more than we can handle (resulting from our web site) if our backlog gets too much longer than 3 months...

what we are looking to do is market designs we can reproduce quickly. limited editions of our originals. Like you suggest, with a web site (seperate from our main site) something with a much better design, copy etc using a "vending machine type web site"... put your nickle in and your selection comes out. the last thing we want to do is offer our services to the masses or general population. yikes!

our current web site isn't really intended to offer "jewelry for sale", more it is a portfolio of what we have made for other customers and, how we made it. again, our "internet" customers... (8 years of internet customers, all happy and no complaints)

I am going to check into the experimental marketing idea but I'm not sure how us selling limited edition jewerlry is any different than selling a widget or gadget? what about marketing fine jewelry is experimental?

what do you need, a nicely made page, good pics, good copy, customer testimonials, a button to push or some slot to drop your nickle an affiliate to get the link out to the masses... some means to identify different affiliates and who get's what, some way to count the beans and that's about it right??

selling a $.05cent pencil or selling a $50,000 diamond ring should all have the same mechanics behind it i think... unless there is something i'm not aware of?

Thanks again for your suggestions.

[cutebeast]

1. I get confuse again, I thought you want to market your product to more ppl via internet.

2. Correct me again if I am wrong but you are actually looking for company or partner that might be able to reproduce your design in a faster manner so you have approach a greater scale of customer based on what you have design before. Right?

[Ahern & Brucker]

Originally Posted by cutebeast

1. I get confuse again, I thought you want to market your product to more ppl via internet.

2. Correct me again if I am wrong but you are actually looking for company or partner that might be able to reproduce your design in a faster manner so you have approach a greater scale of customer based on what you have design before. Right?

We wish to market our reproductions, not custom designs...

No, We will handle all aspects of manufacturing.