It’s a double launch week here at Reverie Lane Designs. One of our fantastic clients is launching a podcast today on productivity centered around your own personal priorities called Productivity Paradox and we go to design a beautiful website for that (reveal article to come). The other launch is actually a passion project of mine, which I got to collaborate on with one of our on-going clients and definitely friend now – Janet Gwen. This leads me to today’s article with Janet as a guest for our very first example of this year’s brand-new blog segment: ‘A day in the business of…’.
With Janet we decided to join efforts (because we love working together so much) and create a shirt in honor of Valentine’s Day inspired by passion and ‘mad love’. We are launching later today so find me and Janet on Instagram to get all the details and see the shirt on the big launch!! – gah….
I am obviously all kinds of excited today for all these reasons above and I hope that my excitement can be contagious and reach you as well. I will definitely be celebrating all these launches and new things but for now here is Janet’s interview.
“Hello! I’m Janet, a twenty something entrepreneur who decided to take a different route in life and that was forging my own was as the artist and creative director behind Janet Gwen Designs. JGD is a creative studio well known for our marble cases and hand-painted phone cases. I am passionate about everything entrepreneurship. I love the whole process of creating something, bringing that to life, and marketing it with our main mission in mind which is to ‘encourage and highlight unfiltered creativity by challenging the social standards of art’. We strive to make a statement by using bold colors and textures on traditional and non traditional surfaces. We create one-of-a kind pieces of art for those customers who appreciate the little details it takes to pull it all together. We make your hustle beautiful, one art infused piece at the time. We want to start conversations, create real life connections, and inspire you in your wildest dreams. We are here to cheer you on every step because we know you got this!”
Janet in her office in Charlotte, NC.
“Tech cases, I would have to say is our speciality. My audience is the girl bosses, in every meaning of that word, not just entrepreneurs. She owns who she is and her dreams aren’t just dreams, but plans she takes action upon. She’s trendy and stylish, a true lover of fashion. Most importantly she appreciates the little details in life.”
“I noticed the trend of girl bosses when I started connecting with my customers more over Etsy messages and Instagram. Connecting with my audience is literally everything to me. Even the small conversations makes my heart so full. Once I noticed that it help me create products that cater to them more.”
Some of Janet’s beautiful work including her flagship product, the marble case.
“It’s a little of both. If I am around and see something I would like but don’t see it anywhere I may create the product. The creation of the marble and gold laptop cases and hand painted phone cases definitely followed this thought process as well as creativity in resources. As my business grew, I did start listening more to my audience and that is how I have expanded my product line. Questions that I ask myself are: Is it useful? Is it different? Most importantly does it relate to our brand and mission? If I answer yes to all of these questions, then I move the product idea into development. If there’s even one no, I move on to the next product idea.”
“Yes and no. The reason for the vague answer is that my product launches aren’t great because I don’t put forth much of the effort into it nor marketing. That has all changed since I have grown my team to help assist with the marketing skills I lack. My newer products are slow to sell but once they do they become pretty steady.”
Janet with Kensie her brand and social media manager.
“YES, the marble laptop cases. I actually created it for myself with no intention of selling it. I did my first craft show around then and had a lot of interest but no sells as it was definitely not the right audience for my products. (This was when I first knew NOTHING about target audiences.) However, because of the high interests I decided to just go ahead and list it on Etsy. My thought being, ‘WHY NOT?’ My marketing effort back then was also limited, so the extent of it was just posting it on Pinterest as well. Good thing I did, because that’s where my pin actually went viral with close to 100k repins collectively and help me create the business I have today! The marble laptop cases are still my best sellers.”
“I absolutely adore collaborations! It’s exciting and everyone brings something different to the table, whether that is in terms of skill sets and/or perspective.”
“Marketing is the key to the success of any product, especially with the power of social media. UTILIZE IT! What good is a good product if no one knows about it?”
Janet and her team made a lovely video taking you through her day and you should definitely go see!
You can find Janet here:
Shop: janetgwendesigns.com
Instagram: @janetgwendesigns
Facebook: Janet Gwen Designs
REVERIE MINGLES: How can you up your marketing game through social media? Both launch marketing (building up) and on-going marketing.