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How to Increase Sales at Your Next Jewelry Show

jewelry photography using the gemlightbox
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Jewelry shows have always been the bread and butter for networking and business building in the jewelry industry. You can discover the latest jewelry trends, inspire creativity for your next designs, keep updated with the latest tech and know-how, and also meet very interesting people along the way!

While this is great if you’re just visiting a show, if you’re exhibiting, it’s another story. As an exhibitor, one of the biggest concerns is whether or not your money and time have resulted in a successful show. After all, exhibiting is not cheap at all, costing thousands of dollars in booth hiring and marketing, and also taking a lot of time away from your normal course of business.

Therefore a great measure of success can be determined by the number of sales directly resulting from the exhibition.

In this post, we run through 8 highly effective tips to maximize your jewelry sales and therefore your success at your next jewelry show. Read through and find out!

5 Annual Jewelry Exhibits, Fairs, and Trade Shows You Shouldn't Miss!

Jewelry exhibits, how many of these have you attended? Do you ever include them in your annual calendar of activities? There’s a question that emerged challenging the viability of jewelry…

Before the show

1. Make sure your presence is known

If you want to be heard, make sure you make some noise! What we most commonly see is that there are very little to no promotions by jewelry businesses that they will be exhibiting at a show. To make things worse, a large portion of these businesses do not have a presence on social media. As a business in 2018, your jewelry business must be present on at least one social media channel.

Generally, your jewelry show organizer will have both free and paid media options you can take advantage of. If you’re not sure what’s provided, all you have to do is ask!

For example, the Sydney International Jewellery Fair allows exhibitors to submit 1 special offer for all visitors. The offers are made available and promoted through printed brochures, email, website pages, and phone apps well before the show starts.

increase sales at your next jewelry show

2. Confirm bookings well in advance

A fully booked show can only be the best possible outcome for your jewelry business! It means that you don’t need to rely heavily on the traffic of the jewelry show. Instead, those who book a time with you in advance are genuinely interested in your products and are highly qualified leads. This allows your sales staff to focus on closing sales.

You can set up a simple booking system for potential customers by using free online tools such as Hubspot’s Meeting Schedule Tool. Simply sign up for an account with Hubspot, link it to an existing Google or Office 365 calendar, and set up your available times. Incentivize your booking by providing the smallest things for free such as water bottles, coffee, etc.

Confirm show bookings in advance - jewelry exhibits
Hubspot’s meeting tool allows you to plan well ahead of time

3. Organize your booth in a visually appealing manner

First impressions count! When we say visually appealing, we don’t mean that you need to go overboard with your booth decoration. You just need to make sure all of your products are well-organized and presentable.

It’ll also help your sales staff with finding specific pieces of jewelry to show to your potential customers.

During the show

4. Same-day jewelry photography

Same-day jewelry photography is a sales tactic that goes under the radar 99% of the time. According to Hubspot, the statistics are that 35–50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. By providing same-day jewelry photography, your potential customers can come to a decision much faster as they have all the information ready in front of them.

You can set up a photography station at your booth using a compact lightbox system. We recommend using GemLightbox as the lightbox solution to set up at your booth as it allows users to capture studio-quality images using just a smartphone with 100% consistency and color accuracy. Simply set it up at your meeting table or the front of your booth, and use your customer’s phone to capture images and videos of the pieces of jewelry they are interested in! Then send a quick follow-up message at the end of the day to really maximize the chances of the sale.

Same day jewelry photography

5. Always capture contact details

What we observe at many jewelry shows is that staff fail to capture the contact details of the visitors. This is astonishing as customer acquisition costs at exhibitions are almost always higher than other business channels. Simple maths tells us to reduce the customer acquisition cost, we increase the total amount of leads captured!

Therefore your sales staff must be well-trained to capture the contact details of any leads 100%. Implement processes such as always asking a simple “Can I have your business card?” or for the even more tech-savvy, scanning QR codes to instantly gain all details of a customer in a very efficient manner ensures that no contact details are lost.

6. Create hype and have plenty of energy throughout the show

Nothing screams louder than “Don’t do business with me!” if your booth gives off negative energy. Train your staff to greet visitors; give the visitors a reason to visit your booth! What also creates a welcoming atmosphere is good music, great lighting, and open floor space.

Once your booth gains traction, maintain it. There have been numerous studies on herd mentality in humans where subjects subconsciously follow the actions of their peers. If passersby can see that your booth is full and vibrant, they’re more like to stop and look, as they “unknowingly trust the judgment of their peers”. Under these circumstances, you are more likely to shorten your sales cycle as jewelers are more likely to impulse buy. If you know you have great quality products, why wait?    

increase sales at your next jewelry show
Picup Media at the HKTDC Hong Kong International Jewellery Show

7. Capture moments with your happy customers

The happiest moment is the moment your customer buys. This also makes the likeliest of times they’ll take photos or even do a quick video for you. Capturing such moments makes for great content for social proof and adds a level of trustworthiness to your brand. You can even recycle the content as marketing materials for your next show. Don’t miss out on the opportunity and ask your customers!

After the show

8. Follow up with all your leads

For the leads that were not closed at the show, ensure that your sales staff follow up with them consistently. At the end of each day, send a quick message thanking them for dropping by your booth and quickly remind them of the products they were interested in earlier in the day. This is when great jewelry photography will make your life easier! With visuals being processed 60,000 times faster than text, you must leave lasting impressions with your customers. Also, consider automating your follow-ups using specialized sales software so that you’ll never forget to email a contact!

Also, just a reminder that the sales cycle doesn’t end at the point of purchase. The post-sales process is just as important for repeat sales and referrals!

So how many of these tips are you using and how many will you use at your next show?

For those who are visiting or exhibiting at the upcoming Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair in September, we’d like to invite you to our booth at 5G529 for FREE jewelry photography! That’s right completely FREE. All you need to do is book a time slot in advance using the following link. We’ve got a limited number of time slots available so be quick otherwise, you will miss out!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Picup Media Family
2 Comments
  • Nice stuff on exhibition. You define very clearly the ideas how we can increase our sales in jewellery trade show. I really enjoy your point and appreciate all this point as always capture the contact details, capture moments with your happy customers etc. At last, when the exhibitions complete, we should follow up all this leads in future purpose. It is beneficial for those, thinking for organizing jewellery exhibition in India.

  • I like your tip to capture the happy moments with your customers by taking a picture. I also like that the picture can be used for marketing later. I have been thinking about proposing to my girlfriend and I am looking for a trustworthy jewelry store. I will make sure to check for reviews from happy customers before I buy any rings.

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