Pinterest Mysteries

Tags

branding, customer, designer, fashion magazine, fashionable woman, inspiration boards, magazine, mystery woman, pinterest, polyvore, sketch book

Today I’m bringing you another “Mystery Woman” and announcing that I am now on Pinterest.  I put it off for a while because I felt like it would be another thing to suck my time.  But then I reconsidered and realized it is just another tool to organize my inspirations.  I figure I can use it like I use Polyvore too.

What are your thoughts on this lady?  What is she thinking about at the moment?  Who is her hero?  What is her favorite outdoor activity?  Does she have a nickname?  What does her family look like?

Share with us your thoughts!

Lori

Turning a “Hobby” into a Business

Tags

business, business side, designer, entrepreneur, etsy shop, helpful tips, independent, next level, profit

Thought this article from MakeItBetter.net had some helpful tips so I thought I would share.

5 Tips for Turning a Hobby Into a Business

They recommend things like analyzing if your fantasy is really something you want to spend 40+ hours a week doing, getting really good at social media and getting good at the business side of things.  I personally have the website Designing an MBA on my radar to check out at some point.  I have browsed it briefly before.  The designer and entrepreneur Megan Auman provides resources and coaching for crafters who want to take hobbies to the next level.  See the full article here.

Lori

Profiling Myself

Tags

art collector, business, complicated women, jewelry designer, life experiences, Lori Delisle, loridelisle, mystery woman, persona, personal, personal profile, profile, sketch book, world traveler

When I began to start making visual pictures of the women I see buying my product line I started to realize that I did not look like her.  At least the persona I was showing in my online presence looked nothing like her.  I had put forward an online profile that looked nothing like the woman who would most likely buy the brand I am creating, and by no means shows the full picture of me.

I have realized that I need to change that persona.  Quit stating the obvious… I’m married, I’m a Mom, I’m busy, I make jewelry, I love the Lord.  Start showing the “Mystery Woman” side of me.

Lori with her son on a train in Santa Cruz, CA.

So I have been exploring the parts of me that I some times take for granted because I already know it is there and assume that everyone else should know these things about me.  I made a page in my Sketch Book for myself, the parts of me that I think other sophisticated and complicated women would relate to.  I am proud to be a wife, mother and Christian, but just saying that I am these things by no means tells you who I am as a person.

I’ve started putting together sort of “categories” to expound upon in my profile.  I think I am going to blog about each one as I explore them more.  And maybe in the process find some new ones.  Here they are in the order I wrote them down initially in my Sketch Book:

World Traveler

California Girl

Stylist

Life Group Leader & Mentor

Business Woman

Minor Gourmet Foodie

Art Collector

Just seeing those words alone already opens up so much more of the imagination than “wife, mother, Christian” don’t you think?

Every woman should have some mystery about her.  Your status or profession should not fully define you.  Life experiences and God’s design add so many unique facets to who you are.  Celebrate it!

Lori

Friday Fun

Tags

being a teacher, black, bows, day care, fashion magazine, fashionable woman, favorite place, favorite thing, inner beauty, inspiration boards, lace, magazine, mystery woman, pictures, Salt & Light, sketch book, sophisticated, style, valentine s day

I was a bit wiped out this morning.  My feet were screaming and I was not too excited about getting out of bed.  15 children at my house yesterday for a Valentine’s Day party is what wore me out.  I definitely know that I’m not cut out for being a teacher or day care worker!  So it is time to put my feet up.  How about another Mystery Woman?!

Tell me about her inner beauty.  What kinds of things does she muse on in her free time?  What is her favorite thing to do on a date night?  What does she do to relax?  What does she do for a living?  Where is her favorite place to vacation?

Have fun thinking about this sophisticated and complex woman!

Lori

Facebook Advertising

Tags

advertising, advertisment, business, facebook, free advertising, Lori Delisle, Salt & Light, target market, text

So yesterday I ran an ad on Facebook.  It was the first one I have run in a very long time.  I tried out a small business boost program and got some free advertising.  You can see my post about that here.

My ad looked something like this:

Salt & Light by Lori Delisle
Luxurious Christian Jewelry. Handmade One of a Kind, Limited Edition and Custom pieces. Sterling, Fine Silver, Gold and Gemstones.

Here are the demographics I targeted:

This ad targets 2,101,460 users:

• who live in the United States
• age 18 and older
• who are female
• who like #Art jewelry, #Bible, #Christian, #Christianity, #Faith, #Fashion, #God, #Handmade jewelry, #Haute couture, #Luxury, #Prayer, #Prophecy or style
• who graduated from college

I thought I would share my stats for that first day with my ad.  I ran one add.  The ad ran for 1/2 of the day yesterday.  I spent $48.69.  43,659 people saw the ad, or at least it appeared on their page in some way. I only notice about 10% of the ads myself.  I got 50 clicks to my FB page from the ad.  Of those 50 clicks, 25 new pages likes.  Likes are good because then I have them as an audience who will hopefully follow and engage with my FB page and eventually become customers.

I think I did a pretty good job of targeting my audience with the demographics and tags I chose.  I am happy with the results for my first attempt but not sure I would want to spend $50 of my own to do the same again.  ???

Since I generated 18 new likes myself yesterday, I am already nearly half way toward my goal of earning an additional $100 of free advertising, so I will see how that bout goes once I have the credits.

I’d love to hear others experience with FB ads.

Till next time!

Lori

Free Facebook Advertising

Tags

advertisement, advertising, boost, business, credits, facebook, free advertising, likes, Lori Delisle, Salt & Light, small business, small businesses

I was alerted to a program on Facebook for small businesses to help give them a boost.  You can earn free FB advertising credits.  The program is for businesses in the United States with a FB page and 50 or more “likers.”

Sign Up Here:  Facebook Small Business Boost

I already got $50 in ad credits with my ad up and running, and am working toward getting $100 more if I get 100 new “likes” by April 1st.  If you want to help me get to my next goal, go to my FB page here and “like” it. 

Hope some others can benefit from this program too.

Lori

Burn Out

Tags

artfire shop, burn out, creative juices, customer service, customer service department, energy, etsy shop, frustrations, growing pains, new web design, pictures, spring collection, web design, web design software

Blech.  Some days are great.  I have had a lot of orders rolling in lately.  That is awesome!  But I am also having some growing pains.

I just spent an hour on the phone with the customer service department for my new web design software trying to iron out some kinks.  I was already frustrated that I had spent so much time on my own trying to do things that I thought should be “easy” to figure out.  It was exhausting!  I am not a very verbal person, so trying to explain to them what my problems were was difficult, especially because I do not in any way consider myself fluent in computer-ease.  And repeatedly telling someone, “yes, I did do that and it did not work” can be a bit frustrating too.

But I am thankful that they stuck it out with me to figure out what the problems were.  One key one was that a window that was essential to editing my pages was hiding, so even when it was supposedly toggled on, we could not find it.  Eventually I found the corner of the window hiding under the task bar on my desktop and that solved a lot of the problems. 

Anyhow, things like that exhaust me.  I think I will be able to fix all of the things I wanted to fix on my web page now.  But I am a little burned out on the experience so I will put it aside and come back to it when I am a bit fresher and pick up some other project in the mean time.  That is one of my main keys to not feeling too fried with the whole overwhelming process of this complete re-brand.  When I’ve lost my inspiration or energy in one area, I move on to something else where my creative juices can flow fresh, and then re-visit the whole thing at another time.

Speaking of, updated all of my shop banners and avatars for my Spring Collection.  Releasing it this weekend after much time editing photos etc.  In the process of writing the text and then we are good to go!  Here are some pics to share!

Don’t let burn out get the better of you, figure out how to re-direct that energy so you can still be productive.

Lori

FUMBLE!!!

Tags

business, consolation, envelopes, Lori Delisle, mistakes, nerves, packaging, pricing, profit, Salt & Light, staples

I was so excited about my envelope order and how I had saved myself some money.  And I was so excited to share it with you all in this post.  I was even more impressed when my order showed up at my door the very next morning!  Awesome!

And then I opened the box …

And pulled out what I had ordered …

I ordered 500 envelopes that were TOO SMALL!!!

I was completely out of the envelopes I had used before and thought that I knew what size they were.  I WAS WRONG and I was devastated.  Well, devastated is a strong word.  Lets just say I was pretty mad at myself for making that kind of mistake.

Let’s see what my mistake cost me.  … I’m not sure I want to know!!!

I was credited the $32 that I paid for the original envelopes, but I had to pay to ship them back.  … $12.35

The new envelopes cost $44 instead of $32, and I had to pay for shipping again, so the order total was $62.79

So the total cost for the new envelopes was $75.14
That is $0.15 per envelope.

I guess the consolation is that it is still WAY cheaper than if I had purchased them at Staples, but not as good as if I had not made the mistake in the first place and paid for the extra shipping.  The biggest cost was to my nerves.

Ah well!  Time to get shipping! 

Lori

Tell Her Story

Tags

branding, designer, fashion, fashion magazine, fashionable woman, inspiration boards, magazine, mystery woman, sketch book, words

This lady has a life all her own.  What do you think it looks like?

Where does she live?  What does she do?  What kind of car does she drive?  What is her favorite movie?  What is her favorite book?  What is her favorite flower?  Where do you find her on a Thursday morning?

Lori

New Site – Bare Bones

Tags

Delisle Designs, ftp, Lori Delisle, loridelisle, sitebuilder, web design, webeasy

Hey everyone!  I have been slowly trying to figure out WebEasy and rebuilding my website from scratch.  I’m am trying to get it together because I need to reprint some materials for the line and I want to have all of the urls worked out.

The layout and placement of different tools in WebEasy is very different from the sitebuilder I was using before so it has taken me some time to find my way around.  Still don’t have it all figured out yet but I got a sort of bare bones site up.  I am a bit frustrated because even though everything looked great in my previews, now that it is live, parts are sort of broken.  Not all of the links are active and some of the text has moved itself around.  This is exactly why I wanted to switch programs so why am I still dealing with this???

I am also very frustrated because my ftp connection was not working so I had to upload the entire thing manually, file by file.  That was not fun.

Here is its current state.  Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

http://delisledesigns.com

Lori