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Welcome to the Joy Joya Podcast, where “jewelry is joy”, and everyone is encouraged to add more polish and sparkle to the world with topics ranging from marketing tips to business development, best practices and beyond. This is the go-to podcast for ambitious jewelry industry dreamers like you.

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Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals, so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you. As we all know “jewelry is joy”, and I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

0:55
This is episode 180. And today I’m going to be talking about some consumer spending patterns I’ve been seeing in the industry this summer so far. And what you can do as a brand to adapt to how people are shopping right now, as well as for the foreseeable future. So keep listening or watching for 10 things that successful jewelry brands are doing today to weather the changes in consumer spending and also to future proof themselves.

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But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video version. So you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching “Joy Joya”. I love creating this content as my act of service to you my awesome listeners and viewers. And you can always support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating or review on iTunes which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too.

1:59
In this segment of the podcast I give out my Sparkle Award for the week. So during this segment, I highlight a jewelry brand that’s impressing me with their marketing. The Sparkle Award is also interactive so you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode. This week’s Sparkle Award goes to Frank Adams Jewelers. This store is based in Albany, New York and began as a small watch repair business in 1922, founded by Frank Adams, but is now run by Frank’s son Dave Adams, his granddaughter Kimberly and great grandson Jeffrey. Frank Adams Jewelers’ focus is always on giving. And this year they explored new giving opportunities by celebrating their 100th anniversary so amazing, with 100 acts of giving even more amazing. This is a quote from an article InStore magazine where I found out about this so “they decided to open up the process of choosing recipients to include a wider range of issues and organizations, particularly those their team members felt passionate about”. So Kimberly Adams Russell said that the company’s primary motivation is to “give back to the community and make everyone here feel they have connected to something important “. So just to give you an idea of some of the activities that they’re doing. One, they’re hosting an educational program for local boy scouts, during which the store gemologists will teach them about gems and minerals. They’re making a significant donation to the Special Olympics. They’re creating an annual scholarship for a local college to support one student supporting higher education. So like a lot of awesome ways that they’re giving back to the community. I’m really inspired. The campaign’s gonna wrap up in September with a party and a drawing for a $20,000 Cento collection pendant by Roberto Coin. As I mentioned, you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode.

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Let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles, and you can get those links by visiting joyjoya.com/signup. Once you’re on the VIP list, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.

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The first article comes from axios.com and it’s about what videos are getting the most engagement and attention when it comes to Instagram Reels. Are you wondering why your average engagement rate has been dropping on Instagram? Are you struggling to know what to do about it? Across the board when I advise clients who have a dropping engagement rate and we start investing more time, attention and resources on creating Reels, the engagement rate improves dramatically. So the numbers don’t lie. I believe this is what you need to do now on Instagram to make an impact. You’re probably wondering, all right, Laryssa I get it. I need to make Reels. So what kind of content should you be posting? According to this article from axios.com, “puppies and other animals aren’t pulling in the same kind of attention as tutorial videos. So those are the most popular on Instagram right now. Basically, how to videos are getting the most attention. So how can you apply that for your jewelry brand, show people how to style your jewelry, how to care for your jewelry, how to travel with your jewelry, how to clean the jewelry, etc. Other popular Reels topic categories are humorous videos, as well as videos that tap into cultural moments and holidays what’s going on in the world right now.

6:08
The next article comes from Retail Dive, and it’s called “Shoppers Who Use AR Are Less Likely to Return Purchases”. Are you struggling with a high product return rate? I have a few people I work with that are trying to overcome that. Some of it has to do with inventory management, but some of that can also be overcome with implementing a tool like augmented reality technology or AR into your ecommerce mix. According to an alter agents survey commissioned by Snap and Publicis Media of more than 4000 shoppers ages 13 to 49, two thirds of consumers are less likely to return a product after using an augmented reality feature. Nearly three quarters of respondents said they were likely to buy clothing after using an AR experience followed by retail beauty, travel and food and beverages. And 80% of survey respondents said overall, they feel more comfortable in their purchases when they’re using AR tools. So that’s definitely something to consider, especially if you tend to have a higher product return rate.

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And the last article comes from Women’s Wear Daily. And it’s about Shopify unveiling new features updates, including NFT support. So social commerce has really become the number one priority for Shopify, as they recently released a handful of new features and updates for its merchants. And those include b2b services, NFT support and more integrations with major tech platforms. A major focus for Shopify is on connect to consumers. So allowing merchants to have full control and creating personalized and meaningful experiences, whether that’s online or in store. Embracing this new era of commerce, Shopify recently launched support for NFTs in the form of token gated commerce, which allows merchants to give NFT owners exclusive access to products, benefits and experiences. I’m going to be talking more about NFTs in coming episodes. I even have an interview lined up, that’s really going to give you the basics about that. So if you’re listening right now or watching and you’re like I have no idea what she’s talking about, don’t worry, I will be talking about it more and helping you understand the role of NFTs in brand storytelling and marketing. But it’s good to keep in mind that Shopify is really forward thinking in the ways that they’re allowing brands to integrate NFTs into the customer experience. Other new Shopify integrations include i Phone tap to pay and pay later features, a Twitter sales channel, and more really exciting stuff. I’m glad to see that my preferred ecommerce platform is really thinking ahead of the times. As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting joyjoya.com/signup.

9:24
Alright, let’s get to the main content of this episode. So as I mentioned in the intro, this particular episode has been prompted by some patterns I’ve been seeing with clients as well as with people I regularly speak to in the industry. Revenue, especially in June was down for many businesses. If you’re feeling that too well, you’re not alone. It can definitely be tough to see lower numbers. But you always have to consider that drop in revenue in the greater scheme of things in the context of what’s happening in your business as well as in the world, and I do want to reassure you that you’re not the only one. And if you’re experiencing growth, heck yes, that’s amazing. I congratulate you because it seems to be pretty tough out there, especially in the jewelry industry.

10:16
I was also reading an Adobe Commerce study that says 24% of us shoppers say they won’t be able to take advantage of big summer holiday sales due to inflation and the higher cost of goods. I understand 24% is not the majority percentage, but it’s still a significant amount and could potentially represent your target customer. If you’ve been feeling a hit in revenue due to any number of reasons, some of which include customers being distracted by summer fun and travel, customers being too worried about how they’re going to cover the rising costs of things like gas and food to pay for jewelry, and customers simply pinching pennies right now and worrying about the future, you can still be doing things right now this summer to optimize your marketing and prepare yourself for the holiday season and beyond. While your competitors are sitting around biting their nails and/or taking vacation, you can be taking steps to improve your business so that you are 100% ready, when your customers are also ready to shop.

11:22
Again, you can also listen to episode 129 “Jewelry Marketing Tips for a Slow Season” for some additional tips. But I’m going to share some new ones in this episode. So even if you did listen to that one, this one will have some fresh content for you. In that other one in case you don’t want to listen to it, the tips I offer are auditing your e commerce website, putting together your holiday marketing calendar, experimenting with new marketing tactics, getting customer reviews, and getting comfy with your data. Here are 10 more things you could be doing, especially in light of this Adobe survey that I mentioned, and what customers are really wanting in 2022, especially while they’re worried about other things. So let’s talk about these 10.

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My first one is a little more, let’s say has a cheerleading kind of tone. I think that when there’s a downturn, or maybe a business is seeing decreased revenue, they start to panic, go into fear mode, and try to like quickly put out fires that maybe are not the top priorities, and maybe they aren’t focused on the things that are working, or that are sort of working in could be optimized and improved. They’re just like immediately looking for the problems and scrambling to fix those. So I would say the first thing is to not go into panic mode, and kind of lean into it and trust what you’ve built so far, and then double down on the things that are working. I think that in a time where you’re experiencing more decreased revenue. It’s a great eye opener to look at, well, we may have lower sales, but we’re still getting sales. So what’s working in that respect? And how can we invest more time and effort into the things that are actually helping us generate revenue, even if it may not be at the level that we want it to be?

13:28
I had a little bit of a personal revelation over the Fourth of July. So I’m going to tell you a little bit of a personal story. Let’s call it a parable. So I went to go see some fireworks and I had with my friends I had to hike up this really tall hill and in the LA area if you know it doesn’t rain here very much. So if you go hiking and it hasn’t rained recently, the ground is kind of slick, almost like ice because it’s just so dusty. And going up and down hills can be kind of a struggle. So we hiked up this hill to go see the fireworks and then when the fireworks were done, we had to walk back down this really steep hill to get back to our cars. So of course as you can imagine after the fireworks, it’s pitch black outside, we’re outside in nature on this hiking trail, and I’m trying to walk with not proper hiking shoes down this very steep hill that is like slick with dust that basically can be equivalent to ice and I’m really terrified of slip sliding down and like breaking my ankle. And at some points I am slipping.

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And then I see because there are other people around and they’re also going down this hill I see in front of me some kids and they are also slipping. They’re not having any less of a difficult time than the adults but they almost seem like more okay with it and are almost like giving in to the fact that this is tough, but like, let’s go with it. And therefore, they seem like less prone to falling. And I realized that if I was going to get from the top of this hill to the bottom of the hill, I couldn’t be afraid of falling. Because if I was afraid, I would stiffen up. And then my body’s natural efforts to maintain balance, just like wouldn’t work. And I probably would be more likely to fall and hurt my ankle. So I had this revelation that in the times where you are most reacting to something that’s scaring you like a big change in your business, you have to trust yourself, like, I know, I do yoga regularly, I know how to balance, I am a reasonably fit person, you know, I have to almost lean into this and trust that this is really scary, there’s a danger that I can fall and hurt myself. But I have to almost like relax and lean into it and know that I’ve built the foundation physically to like be okay in this. And I think this period of time in the world as a business, you have to trust what you’ve built so far. And focus the most on that and kind of lean into those things. So that fear reaction doesn’t actually paralyze you and make you more prone to injury than you would be otherwise. So that’s one thing I really want you to think about in your business in a more conceptual way.

16:34
Now let’s talk more about marketing tactics. So the second thing I recommend is to really lean into personalization. According to that Adobe customer survey that I mentioned, 61% of respondents said that receiving personalized promotions or recommendations will make customers more likely to make a purchase. You can go back and listen to episode 114, which is all about personalization, if you do actually really want to dive into this, but let me give you some quick ideas. In the meantime, you can better or more more strategically segment your email campaigns to send subscribers the content that you know they’ll like. You can work on your optimizing your abandoned cart notifications, you can provide product recommendations on your website or in email marketing campaigns. You can have the right tools and CRM in place that allows you to look up a customer’s info and history efficiently and quickly if a customer does reach out to you and contact you for assistance. So you can give them a really personalized experience without stumbling through that. You can conduct a customer survey to ask your customers what they do really want from you. And finally, really start paying attention to your data. So you can get a better sense of what customers will want to see most in the future.

18:01
Number three, experiment with livestream event where you provide a live stream shopping experience. One, check out episode 172 of this podcast, which is all about live streaming. I also did a recent webinar about live stream shopping with National Jeweler and I’ll put that link in the show notes for you. So you can watch that as well. But I really encourage you to get started with this process, and also look into platforms that make it easy for someone to buy from their smartphone, because 50% of consumers according to this Adobe survey are now more likely to make retail purchases on their phones. So if you’re not integrating some kind of text to shop tool or some kind of live chat tool, at least make sure that your e commerce store is really optimized for mobile viewing shopping and checkout.

18:59
Number four, get comfortable with video content in general, especially for social media. As I mentioned earlier in this episode, if you’re not posting Reels, your engagement rate is very rapidly declining, I can almost guarantee that without looking at any of your metrics. So Instagram is your bread and butter. If that’s where your customers are and you’re not posting Reels, then you’re gonna see your engagement rate plummet. So I hate to tell you if that’s something that you don’t like doing Reels is a thing that you’ll have to get comfortable doing, as well as those more like TikTok style videos, because that’s the direction that Instagram is evolving in.

19:46
Number five, this is a great time to explore business or brand partnerships and do some co marketing. So if there are other businesses that potentially share your target audience and to save on or split marketing costs, you can do some kind of partnership marketing with another business, maybe it’s a co branded giveaway or a co branded event. There’s definitely strength in numbers when it comes to marketing. And if you haven’t explored LinkedIn or kind of touched that untapped potential, LinkedIn is a really great place to connect with other business owners and to kind of establish or even begin to research the possibility of those connections.

20:30
Number six, find ways to offer more flexible payment options. So according to that Adobe survey, I mentioned 43% of consumers said they’re more likely to purchase from a retailer that offers buy now pay later. So if you don’t already have those flexible payment options in place, this is a good time to figure out how to implement them.

20:53
Number seven, test your checkout to improve the customer experience. I mentioned in the previous episode, I did in a similar vein, what to do during a slow season, I mentioned really getting comfortable with your data. Well, in Google Analytics, there’s a whole e commerce section that helps you see shopping behavior, like what percent of your customers are actually abandoning their carts. What percent are doing what at what stage in the checkout process, you need to know those numbers, track them on a monthly basis, and find out where customers are dropping off so that you can make changes to prevent that from happening in the future?

21:36
Number eight, now’s a really great time to educate yourself on marketing. Let me tell you, the marketing landscape is changing very rapidly. I honestly learn something new every day, not because I don’t know it. But because things are changing so quickly that there’s like a new change or a new innovation or a new technology, or a new best practice that I need to learn about. Pretty much every day. I know you all listening to this and watching this would probably rather enjoy watching your favorite Netflix show with your favorite frosty beverage. Believe me, me too. But if you want to be a business owner in 2022 and beyond, you just have to keep yourself informed, and you have to make it a priority to stay at the forefront of what it means to be a business with some kind of foot in the digital space. And that is changing every day. There are a bazillion free resources out there. I suggest go back and listen to episodes of this podcast. If you missed any or if there are ones that were very interesting to you, but maybe you need a refresher or just a little bit extra motivation or accountability. You can check out a free webinar about email marketing strategy that Joy Joya friend of the podcast Liz canner and I are doing on August 4, and you can visit at @successwithjewelry on Instagram for the link to that. So those are just a few. But there literally are so many resources. YouTube is also a great place to start as well.

23:13
Number nine, get more creative with your merchandising. Start to think of new different exciting, innovative ways to tell stories about your products and collections. How can you group them in ways that really makes sense to the customer? Maybe it’s like our favorite pics for your summer weekend getaway or favorite things to wear to a summer wedding as the guests do. These are some ideas that I’ve seen recently. So don’t just say like gold pieces or silver pieces or fine jewelry, fashion jewelry, like think of new ways to present and merchandise your products to really keep them fresh, so that you can continue telling new stories about them.

24:00
And number 10. This my favorite one. Maybe don’t listen to me. Okay, here’s what I mean about that. I give a lot of advice. I do have a lot of experience and knowledge in marketing, especially for the jewelry industry. But you want to know what would make me the happiest person in the world is if you think outside of the box or try to be innovative or creative in a way that I have never even suggested before. Because what the world really needs right now is less of the same same and more of the new new. And the only way that you can be that person is to really try to think outside of the box in a way that no one else is doing. And not to be afraid to do that. So it would delight me more than anything else. If someone could blow my mind and do something that I haven’t even thought of before. That would be amazing. So that’s my final thought for you today.

25:00
Hey, what did you think of this episode? You can always email me Laryssa that’s laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on iTunes to purchase a signed copy of my book, “Jewelry Marketing Joy”m visit joyjoya.com/book for more information. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more information about working with Joy Joya, visit joyjoya.com where you can sign up to download our free eBooks about various topics in jewelry marketing.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai