Hunts keep you busy!

I've been busily creating items for the February hunts and released some new Victorian wear in store. If you haven't stopped by in a while, the store has been rearranged to allow the jewelry to shine through more easily. I've also added some pictures wearing the jewelry to give more of an idea of how it looks a well as the true purpose for the store.

One of the toughest things about owning a business, whether in real life or in second life, is how to promote it without breaking the budget. If you have your main store on land you control, you can place a fairly cheap advertisement tied to your land. If you don't own land, then there are fewer options.

I've rented an ad-board at the Happy Hippo Building School for two reasons. First, I hope to drive some traffic to my store. Second, I do it to help Victoria Paule, owner of Happy Hippo. The ad boards help her make the tier payment on her land, so I don't begrudge the money as I learned a lot at HHBS as I started out, have done some teaching there, and have many friends from there. However, it doesn't seem to be helping with traffic.

The hunts are another mechanism to drive traffic. With the Renaissance Hunt, I received a lot of store traffic as it was a large hunt. The hunts I'm involved in now are smaller and drive smaller audiences to the store. This is making me consider other options.

One option is a classified ad. I will probably end up doing this. I've heard mixed reviews about the effectiveness of these ads. In an effort to determine what works, I'm trying one thing at a time. It's about time for the next thing in the arsenal so I believe I will place a classified ad.

Someone suggested getting my store featured by bloggers. I may try this also. I've been trying to get a bit more merchandise before I contact them. That too is a balancing act. I was rejected by one hunt group as not having enough merchandise. Since all my items are custom and different, creating new items takes a while so I will never be terribly fast in creating new merchandise.

A friend suggested getting a midnight mania board. I'm contemplating this as well. I'm really not fond of these as it takes away from the themed, period look in the store. When, again, I get a bit more merchandise, and I start using the second floor, I may put one up there. This one really makes me think - is it a necessary evil or a huge mistake? It's hard to say.

And to think I didn't have anything I wanted to say when I started writing today.....

Onward ho - 2012 holds hope and promise!

Busy busy - I have some new merchandise out - a lovely ruby heart brooch and earring set - or completed! Will be putting it out for sale shortly. New order for the next Dr. Who ring - thank goodness for the Whovians! Signed up for 2 February hunts and working on the freebies for those - don't forget this month's freebies and the prizes for the hunts the store is in - Trick or Treat (Farewell to Winter) and Poppin' Penguins!!

I keep hoping at some point I'll be able to use a snippet of something to help make something else but not too much so far. Since I don't want to settle for something close, I find myself making sculpts to get exactly what I want. Of course, that makes things take longer.....or does for me anyway. At least the brooch clasp I made can be reused.

In researching the brooch, I found that Victorian ladies didn't really wear necklaces very much. With those high necklines, where would you put a necklace? They wore some chokers, and a lot of brooches and bracelets. They also tended to wear the bracelets in sets of two, the same for each wrist. Interesting.....but for the Sl audience, I think I have to make necklaces also, or for most things.

Off to put out that ruby set - I find I like the paperwork far less than I like the making of the items - go figure!

Welcome 2012!!

A new year always seems to bring hope and dreams. Besides the usual world peace and stamp out world hunger, I have some wishes for Always Eclectic...

.....Continue expanding the jewelry lines. I'm envisioning 3 lines - Victorian, Renaissance, and anything that doesn't fit into the first two!

.....Take or at least consider custom work requests. I completed one recently for the Dr. Who store in Mieville Wells (Who's Who). The owner seemed quite pleased with the outcome. There is more than one way to increase brand awareness!

.....Create a line of jewelry for Tinies. I'm not sure how I want to take this. I could just make reduced sized versions of my normal lines, or I could create silly stuff that would only make sense on Tinies. I think I may take a tiny, Tiny survey to see.

.....Have a stall or small store in each specialty area - Victorian, Renaissance and Tinies. This is easy enough to do for Victorian (already there!) and Tinies (there's a Victorian Tinies sim (Mieville Shelley) and there's Raglan). Renaissance seems a bit more difficult as most of the sims seem to be roleplay sims. This will probably take some research.

.....Learn about mesh in relation to jewelry making. I keep hearing that mesh is great for jewelry - I'd like to find out why and how mesh is created, etc. This is a stretch goal as I don't anticipate being ready for it for a while. I'm learning enough the way I'm going between Sculpt Studio and Blender and Photoshop and Illustrator.

.....Trust my own instincts. Recently I got myself into a, um, opinion war between a couple of strong willed, well meaning people. It got very uncomfortable for me. If I had stuck with my guns in the first place, I would not have had nearly the problems I ended up with.

I think that's plenty!!! I'll try to readdress these points periodically to see if I'm making progress or if the direction has changed. Makes sense for now though!

Happy New Year everyone!

Riendra