“Thank You America” Ad Campaign for National Jewelry Chain

February 7, 2016 Aaron Belchamber Leave a comment

Check out this high-end jewelry store TV commercial I conceived, wrote and co-produced. One of the goals of this video was to remind people that a lot of the jewelry from Riddle’s Jewelry was made in America, that they were a family business, and that they actually care about their customers. That’s a lot to express in 30 seconds!

Build and reinforce the brand

It’s no secret, companies who have enough money to spend on advertising cannot afford to experiment with unclear, fuzzy, unfocused messaging. Advertising is an integral part of marketing and the messaging must be clear and reinforce to the public your company’s image, while achieving the goal of persuading viewers to remember and act based on the marketing message. In this case, this ad ran alongside other more specific calls to action. This was a brand reinforcement campaign that was meant to reinforce the Midwestern loyalty to American-owned companies while differentiating Riddle’s from the competition, especially those jewelers like Kay’s and Zale’s that don’t manufacture jewelry in the U.S. or are even owned outright by Americans.

I was also the managing director that lead the launch of their Magento E-commerce site, which this company is still using along with its original theme, concept and layouts. This site was launched with a lot of technical help from another developer, Kevin Kumpf, who I cannot praise enough as an excellent web ninja on so many levels! One reason I recommended to move to Magento, besides it was much more SEO friendly at the time, was my insistence in using a theme that would accommodate mobile devices seamlessly. At the time, according to Google Analytics, 38% of all visitors were on smart phones and the trend was steadily increasing. I suspect now it’s more than 60% and they sell almost as much on their site to smart phone users as desktops. Imagine where this jewelry retailer would be with web sales and steadily increasing competition had I not moved them to this platform back in 2012?

Perhaps your company or organization is looking for someone with over 25 years of marketing, media production, and business-building experience? I am currently available for freelance but only for video production and 3D animation services. Are you ready for a fresh perspective, someone who can challenge the status quo in a positive, team environment?

When it comes to finding a Marketing Director, who else can better understand your company’s data than the person who designed the system with future-proofing and your company’s profitability and scalability always in mind?

Someone who has negotiated and placed over $100 million in digital and broadcast advertising with schedules based on the best data and accurate ROI calculations from data and systems, including custom ERPs and business systems that I designed and programmed and also migrated to the cloud?

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3D jewelry animations an affordable way to show off jewelry products on-air and online

August 17, 2015 Aaron Belchamber Leave a comment

I have created hundreds of 3D jewelry animation scenes of jewelry designed by a 16-store retail jewelry chain along the east coast. They simply supplied the 3D models from their jewelry design department in Rhino 3D or Autodesk Maya as OBJ or STD files. I then had to speak with their marketing department about the use and context of the jewelry — something dramatized and unique for their jewelry TV commercials. Using at the time Autodesk 3D Studio Max, I converted the files from their 3D models and put them in scenes timed to the spots for everything including loops inside the retails stores, website product videos, and broadcast TV.

Multi-use 3D models save time in photography and video production fees

Some jewelers have a full-time photographer or two on staff who can spend a full day shooting just a few pieces of jewelry. Then they would pay extra for a video production company to shoot the video on a turn table. Oh yes, the ever exciting and always predictable shot of jewelry pieces spinning on a turntable in one direction or another. Ho-hum.

Since 2010, I’ve helped jewelry companies like Riddle’s Jewelry and smaller stores similar to Jacksonville’s Underwood’s Jewelry to showcase their jewelry in unique ways. Yes, the turntable shots are useful for people to get a feel for the look and dimensions of the jewelry piece from every straight-on angle, but in 3D we can make the camera fly over, through and around it.

There are more exciting options and ways to make a splash and to show off your jewelry lines in more unique, eye-catching ways. In less than a day, they got samples of these scenes – they wanted the camera to show off the jewelry in unique angles so I put the ring on a watery surface and made it rain around it, giving it a sexy style that went with their “walking in the rain” advertising campaign.

I can’t show you the final results due to contract restrictions, but you get the gist.

Show off the products on air and online and boost your jewelry sales with 3D animation

Selling jewelry is an act of visual stimulation. The better you show your jewelry, the more sales you will make online AND in-store. The two aren’t exclusive. If you get more traffic to your site showing interest in one jewelry piece but sales lag online for that piece, that does not mean your website is failing, especially if the cost of the jewelry is over $300.

The higher the jewelry’s price, the higher the chance a buyer will pre-shop and find out details about your product online but still want to go into a store and see, touch, hold, wear and compare.

Jewelry stores, websites, and product visuals are all necessary and symbiotic

Your bring and mortar jewelry stores will not survive without a mobile-friendly, fast, and the largest selection of all of your jewelry products. You will sell more products if you showcase your jewelry in interesting ways and informative angles. They all depend on each other and help each other getting traffic to your website and to your retail stores. It sounds so logical, yet so many jewelry marketers stumble and live in a pre-internet world, they take maybe two flat photos of their products and perhaps the jewelry piece goes on their website but it’s not a priority. This is pure plain idiocy.

If someone goes on your jewelry e-commerce site and doesn’t find what they are looking for, do you think they’re still going to waste their time driving to your store? You just lost them to a competitor who had what they are looking for, it’s that simple… and obvious.

This is where your website helps your retail store more than any other form of advertising — think about it, a radio or TV commercial is one direction, the web is interactive so people can explore, spend more time learning and looking about your products and services.

Of the jewelry stores we made their sites mobile-friendly and increased the quality of their product offerings while improving their site performance and SEO, we saw a dramatic spike in sales in jewelry stores online and in their stores within months.

I know, there are jewelers out their not interested in making money, they’re happy operating in the 20th century and ignore the internet and the mobile device revolution. They ignore the fact 3D animations of their existing jewelry designs could highlight and showcase their products and boost sales while cutting costs in photographing and video production. They’re happy being the status quo and they’re ignoring the fact their competitors are increasing their sales, standing out from them online while simultaneously decreasing their expenses. Eventually, their complacency towards the web and media production regarding their products, their insistence that they don’t need to put all their offerings online which hampers their in-store traffic substantially, will reflect in lower web retail sales, a decrease in mall traffic which will force them to eventually contract because they refuse to modernize and compete. Denial and big know-it-all egos can destroy a company, can’t say they weren’t warned.

Screenshot Restoration Advertising New Restoration Services TV Spot For Sale

3 tips from a decade of experience helping disaster restoration companies market and grow their businesses

August 8, 2015 Aaron Belchamber Leave a comment

RestorationAdvertising.com was a site I launched in 2003 and since then we have helped over 25 disaster restoration companies increase their phone calls and sales through impactful and memorable advertising that helps smaller remediation and repair companies stand out in their local market with ready-to-go TV commercials and websites. Our “Super Hero” TV commercials alone have aired in New Hampshire, San Francisco California, Georgia, Florida, New York, Virginia, South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Minnesota and Canada.

For small restoration companies on a budget, we help them stay consistently in public view through strategic marketing initiatives based on costs per impressions, traffic measurements and other market research. We’ve created local marketing campaigns that included super hero billboards, post card mailings, signs and fleet truck graphics.

No one plans to use you, nor do they ever want to

No one plans on needing to call a disaster cleanup (sometimes referred to as “kleenup”) company because people just can’t plan on a disaster like a home flood, fire, storm damage or an infestation of mold.

TIP #1: Since such events can’t be scheduled, you have to market your company all year round and be sure you are easy to find online and get hold of on any mobile device.

This puts companies who offer services like home water remediation, water clean-up, mold remediation, storm and wind damage repairs in a unique marketing situation that is often challenging. So how do you stay top-of-mind so when a person discovers their house was flooded they’re going to want to call YOU first? You may have other questions we can help answer, like how much investment will penetrating your local market and staying on top require?

You have to assess your infrastructure then prioritize

Before spending a dime on advertising and marketing initiatives, you need to make sure your current infrastructure, especially when it comes to handling inbound calls and customer service. Is your team trained and diligent?

TIP #2: The most important question before you try to get your phone ringing more through marketing is: Do you have enough people to answer incoming calls and respond to any web estimates promptly? Don’t bother increasing your market presence if your answer is ‘no’ — fix your customer service first!

Our “top-of-mind advertising strategy” is simple: Stand out and be memorable

This is a simple solution we’ve applied to many different businesses in many different markets. Sometimes, in certain markets it only takes $1,000 per month TV advertising budget and another $300 on radio to maintain a market presence and at least be in the conversation if not top-of-mind for people in your market. In other markets, the cost can be substantially higher, it just depends.

We have the experience to work within your advertising budget and as experienced media-buyers we can arrange the optimal TV and radio schedules for you.

Your marketing strategy starts on TV and radio, but the web is growing in influence

Especially mobile! Over 50% of your inquiries come from people on their smart phone. Is you website mobile-friendly? If not, the number of calls and web estimate forms you will receive will be substantially reduced!

TIP #3: Fix your website and make it mobile-friendly before putting money in TV and radio advertising! Learn more by visiting Restoration Advertising’s Get A Website page.

To learn more about Restoration Advertising and how they can help your disaster restoration, mold remediation and storm repair company, visit their website at www.RestorationAdvertising.com.

To view our latest TV commercial we produced for disaster restoration companies, click here.