what is a good way to make the advertisement for my business

[swljewelry]

Dear friends, I am a newer here, and hope that we can talk each other about the business, I own a 925 sterling silver jewelry store at alibabaexpress. I want to let more and more people know my store, how to make it? Can you give me your advice?

[Dan Furman]

Welcome to the forum.

Well, the first thing is to put your business website link in your signature. Then join the discussion / contribute. You can post your website in the "website reviews" section and ask for opinions on it.

Have you sold any jewelry anywhere?

[vangogh]

What have you tried so far?

[linderobrands]

Have you tried giving out promotional items to advertise your business?
Promotional products are a good way to let more and more people know about your store.

[huggytree]

for a jewelry store the first thing that comes to mind is Radio...i hear them constantly on the radio....it must work since ive heard some of them for 20 years now

[lucas.bowser]

Since you're using Alibaba Express, I'm going to assume you're looking to do large quantity production jobs in the long run. If that's not the case, you may be using the wrong venue to start your store. Alibaba Express is good in that it gives jewelers/retailers a central location to find their foreign wholesale suppliers, but the problem is you have to stand out amongst your peers. Currently, your products will be fighting with the listings of 450,000 other "925 silver" products. Since you're currently in mainland China a sales trip visiting jewelers is probably out of the question. Probably the best thing for you to do is start doing online searches for independent jewelry stores in major metropolitan areas around the world and approach them by email about carrying your items. Give them your preferred method of purchase, i.e. direct order to you, go through Alibaba Express, etc... Make sure that you give them enough information so that they can contact you. You're going to need one of two things to get them interested. The first is high quality, appealing items. The second is an attractive price that leaves enough room for them to make a profit that they will put it in their showcase.

I believe that I found your store (aliexpress.com/fm-store/904148). I'm not sure that you're work is high end enough yet to attract the independent jeweler (hard to tell from the pictures, but some of them look like items I would expect to see in a teen fashion accessory store like Claire's.) I'm pretty sure that you don't currently have the scale you need to get into a large retailer. One other avenue you might consider are Independent Christian Bookstores. You have a number of nice religious designs at a reasonable price that I could see doing all-right in such a setting.

[merlot105]

If you have the capital, I would set up a PPC campaign on AdWords. Get the word out there and start making some money. Only people who don't believe in their product are hesitant to start with AdWords. You can do two things at once 1) Spread word of your brand 2) Make sales.

[webconquest]

Hi,

Built an e-commerce site, some squeeze pages to capture email to build a list of targeted prospect, give a way free gifts or e-Books with some links to your products, grow your list and market to them.

Good luck

John

[yllainehudges]

SEO your site but make sure to use the right keywords in order for you to target your preferred market. Aside from that, if you can try to at least offer something new to your visitors like a discount coupon, freebies, poll and etc. so your site visitors will have a reason to come back to your website.

[jarederni]

I've done a lot of marketing for my business (both local marketing and nation-wide) via Craigslist. People think Craigslist is a bunch of hobos selling old couches, but the truth is even big businesses utilize it to market, sometimes even dedicating a full-time position just to market on Craigslist.

A few tips I would suggest:
1- Before you create your posts, search your competition and similar products/services. Evaluate what they are writing for their headlines and how they write your ads. Then brainstorm ideas to make your headline really, really stand out.
2- Don't post more than 3 ads per day
3- Make each headline original and different than the other ads.
4- Generally, I find better success if I DON'T put my website link in the ad but rather try to get the customer to contact you for more info, either by responding to the ad via email or calling your phone. If you can speak to the prospect, you will nail the sale much easier than just sending them to your website.
5- Make the ads short, sweet, and right to the point. Don't give them ALL the info. Instead, make them DO something for more info, like respond to the ad to find out more.

[lptprinting]

Depending on your target market, I would avoid alibabaexpress or any alibaba at all costs. I'd invest in your own site. Alibaba can be a great tool but it has received a lot of bad press in the US due to the amount of scammers on the site.

[vangogh]

Regardless of alibaba's reputation, I think you're generally better running your own site. It's the equivalent of opening your own store vs renting space in someone else's store. When you're renting you do gain the advantage of the landlord's marketing. As they bring in more customers to their store you likely gain more customers to your small corner of their store. However you're always completely dependent on the landlord in that scenario. If and more likely when they decide they'd like their space back, your business is pretty much gone.

Better is to have your own store and then rent space from the other store. If you want to use alibaba or set up an eBay store or use any of the other similar sites, your still better off having your own site as a base of operations.

[lucas.bowser]

If you're on Alibaba, you're probably looking to do one thing, wholesale business to retailers and distributors.

Is the reputation sparkly clean? No. But then again, any time you work with a foreign supplier, you are taking a risk. There are too many things that can go wrong, from fraud to production and shipping delays. Anyway, the main problems with Alibaba's reputation come from the sell side (which this guy is) rather than the buy side. The majority of problems are where the seller does not deliver what is promised (payment for goods is held in escrow until receipt of goods is recognized.) Either way, avoiding this site, for a manufacturer in China trying to find wholesale buyers, does not seem to be good advice.

[vangogh]

avoiding this site, for a manufacturer in China trying to find wholesale buyers, does not seem to be good advice.

I can't say I'm all that familiar with Alibaba. Is it a must for Chinese manufacturers? If so why? Just curious.

[lucas.bowser]

It's not a must, per se, but is a very useful tool. Alibaba is essentially a supplier network where manufacturers can go to sell their excess production capacity (It is not restricted to Chinese Companies.) You or I, unless we're retailers, distributors or producers of some type would not normally use it. So as an example of where this can be really useful to a company, I'm providing the following link.

Plastic nursery pots with good quality products, buy Plastic nursery pots with good quality products from alibaba.com (http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/501894006/Plastic_nursery_pots_with_good_quality.html)

Consider the link above from the standpoint of a production nursery that had need for plastic pots. If you buy them through a US Supplier, they may cost a significant amount, but if you go to Alibaba you can find a Chinese supplier that in lots of 10,000 are willing to sell directly to you, stripping out the middle man when there are significant quantities involved. If you look at the link above, the price you are getting on equivalent product is somewhere between a 50-80% discount over a US Wholesaler.

Alibaba Express is an offshoot of Alibaba. It was created to fill a specific consumer need for smaller lots. Alibaba tends to deal in large lots, Alibaba Express deals in small lots. This way a customer has a way of better controlling their search experience. If you're looking for 10 of an item go to Alibaba Express. If you're looking for 10,000 of an item go to Alibaba. This also allows manufacturers to target customers with small/big lot needs in accordance with their production mix capabilities.

Alibaba itself has been around for a while. When Express was created two years ago, it had some of the same growing pains EBay and Craigslist had when they first started, especially around fraudulent seller transactions. Since then, they have strengthened their buyer protections and transaction practices to bring themselves more in line with industry expectations. Still, the advice to avoid Alibaba and Alibaba Express is essentially the same as telling people looking to sell their wares to avoid Craigslist and Ebay because in the past, there was significant fraud activity, especially in it's initial start-up phases. Both of these companies had their problems with fraud that they had to adapt to. Alibaba Express was no different, and in my mind's eye, they have made a transition that makes them a much more reliable business partner from the buy side than they were say a year ago.

[vangogh]

Got'cha. Not necessary, but you'll be at a serious competitive disadvantage by not being there. I guess my lack of familiarity with the site has to due with my lack of need to connect to Chinese suppliers. I think the dew times the site has come up it's been here and probably mentioned by a member from China. Good to know more about it, since I'm sure the site will come up again.

[rbianchi007]

Wow, I'm impressed with these responses as a long time SEO and internet marketing professional. I find that it is always very important to first find where your target audience spends their time online and let them know who you are. In some aspects I think you may be taking a right first step. A website and a strong social media presence are two more steps. Using classifieds may help some also as small shop owners could find you that way. The whole idea is to get you in front of them. You provide a service they need!