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Ready to break free from algorithms, vanity PR, and money-sucking ads? My name’s Laryssa Wirstiuk, and I’ve learned in 7 years of jewelry marketing that content is the crown jewel. My agency Joy Joya takes a holistic approach, leading with laser-focused storytelling, impactful content creation, and strategic content distribution. This method has worked for the solopreneur as well as the multi-million-dollar company, and now I’m sharing these systems and tactics with you. Here’s to standing out in the Sea of Sparkle.

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This is Episode #236, and today I’ll be talking about how to turn your ideas for marketing your jewelry into a functional content plan! You and/or your team will be able to use this plan to stay organized, focused, and on track toward achieving your goals. If you want to be a jewelry marketing superstar, then you need to show up consistently and deliver content that wows your audience. But let’s face it, consistency can be tough. That’s why having a solid plan in place is the only way to stay accountable and keep crushing it. It’s not sexy, it’s not rocket science. But it’s powerful. One of my primary areas of focus when working with clients involves developing strategies to continuously stay ahead of the content plan. Why? Because being ahead allows you to execute with greater precision and clarity. Additionally, it frees up time and mental space to improve, adapt, and optimize your content. I’ll be covering: Some tools you’ll want to consider using for your content plan How to structure your content plan and what it should include How to populate your content plan and continue to refine it over time From now through early July of this year, I’m offering a free (yes FREE) six-month, podcast-guided program called “Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart” which will involve weekly audio and video lessons as well as companion PDF downloads for each new episode. Jumpstart members will also get a BONUS calendar template for all your jewelry marketing content! If you want to sign up for the FREE full program right away and get the companion PDF download to this episode, visit joyjoya.com/jump. Link in show notes as well.

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But before we get to the solid gold, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both audio and video – so you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching “Joy Joya”. You can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe but also to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you leave a review, I might read it on a future episode – please let me know what you think about this episode or about any other major takeaways you’ve had recently. Speaking of podcasts, did you know I also co-host another podcast with jewelry marketer Liz Kantner? It’s called Success With Jewelry, and we’ve already released 25 free episodes everywhere you listen to podcasts as well as on YouTube. We also have an Insider community, where we share extended episodes, hands-on guidance, and a plethora of resources. Visit successwithjewelry.com to learn more.

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Okay, my Sparklers! Without further delay, let’s get into the next installment of Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart. And this one is all about creating your jewelry marketing content plan. This one will build upon the jewelry marketing content brainstorm episode #235. So if you haven’t already listened to that one, I’d recommend catching up before you continue with this one. So first things first, I want to talk about some tools that you’ll want to consider using for your content plan. So that you have all the resources you need to do this as effectively and efficiently as possible.

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So hey, y’all, it’s 2023. We’re not living in the dark ages of paper planners and notebooks, but also no shade I use both every day. But we have the tool digital tools available, so I highly recommend taking advantage of some of these tools that can really help make this process better, easier, more enjoyable for you. I’m gonna run through what some of these tools are, so you can explore them if you don’t already use them. So first of all, I referenced episode #235, which should have empowered you to do your content marketing brainstorm. And if you are a member of Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, then you would have gotten a template for your brainstorm. And I think that in itself is a tool because it’s a resource that you’ve created for yourself, to have that like brain dump of ideas that you’re going to be plugging into your calendar and plan. So you’ll definitely want to have that handy. You’ll also want to have a good old-fashioned calendar, whether that’s Google Calendar, or in this case, you might even want to reference a paper calendar just to have something to look at. This is simply to be able to see dates. And kind of visually, imagine how a month looks, how a week looks, how a quarter looks. You’re gonna want to have that at your side as you’re doing this process.

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Another tool that I think really comes in handy for this is Google Sheets. I love a Google Sheet. Most of the content planning that I do with clients actually happens in Google Sheets, at least at the beginning stages of the planning process. I love Google Sheets because it’s free. Most people have a Google account, it makes it so easy to collaborate with others to access on multiple devices. It’s also basically a blank spreadsheet like an Excel sheet. So you have the power to format it and adapt it in a way that works for you. But also, if you’re intimidated by the idea of starting with a blank slate and starting from scratch, don’t worry, I got you. Sign up for Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, and you’ll get my Google Sheets plan template that you can copy and adapt for your own brand. Another tool I really like is Asana. You can use really any project management tool, but I personally love Asana. This is not a paid sponsored plug or anything like that. I use it for my own business, with my employees, as well as with my clients. And I think it just offers so much flexibility. It’s pretty user friendly, easy to use, it’s great to collaborate with others, you can access it on multiple devices. And what I think makes it really accessible for people just starting out or really small business owners is that Asana has a free basic version for anyone just getting started with project management. And that makes it a really lovely way to try out the tool and see. It’s not even a trial, like you could just use that free version for all your content planning projects. So it’s super low risk, you can get a lot out of it without even having to spend money on it. I love it because it will keep you accountable for tasks related to your content calendar. It’s also great for setting up recurring tasks, so that if there’s something that you know, you need to be doing every week or every month, then you never forget what that is. And you don’t have to keep plugging it in and reminding yourself. If you personally don’t like Asana, or you want to try something different, the alternatives would be a tool like Trello or Monday.com.

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So I like to think of the Google Sheets calendar as more of like the concept, like the working draft. And then I like to think of Asana as more of the action items, of the things that you need to make yourself accountable for to ensure that what’s in the Google Sheet actually comes to fruition and happens so that it doesn’t just live in the idea phase only. And that’s it. That’s all you need to get started: just Google Sheets and a project management tool like Asana, your calendar, and your initial brainstorm. I know that seems easy, right? Well, in future episodes, when I talk about the nitty gritty of what I call micro planning, like getting into the planning of your email marketing, in your social media content, then I’ll be sharing some other tools that are specifically related to those things on a more micro level. But when we’re at this stage and kind of looking at your content and your marketing as a whole, in a really macro way, then Google Sheets and your project management tool are really all you’ll need to get started. Okay, so now that you’re totally clear on the tools that you’ll need, which are basically all free, we want to talk about how you’re going to structure your conceptual content plan, and what it should include. So once you have your master Google Sheet, or whatever similar alternative, I recommend dividing it into sub sheets, which basically means in Google Sheets, you’ll see the option to create tabs at the bottom of your screen. You can do a similar thing in Excel. Also, it kind of just subdivides your sheet into different sections. So each subsheet should be for a month, so you’ll name them like January, February, March, April, etc, all the way through the end of the year. That way, you can use this content calendar to just look at one month at a time without getting too overwhelmed, it makes it much easier to handle. Again, once we get further into Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, and we talk more specifically about micro planning with email and social media, we’ll be looking again at this in a more specific way. But for our purposes, today, we’re doing a macro, month-long plan in your Google Sheet.

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So there are different ways to format the actual sheet. You can reference my template, which again, you can get by signing up at joyjoya.com/jump. But there are basic things you’ll want to include. So you can totally do this your way, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s the way that’s going to make you want to keep up with it and keep checking in with it. But in general, this is what I recommend in the sheet. So I like making each row of the sheet every day of that month. So every day of the week, I also think it’s important to include the actual day of the week. So like Sunday, whatever day it is. And then going across the sheet, you’ll want to have columns for the following things: one column for holidays and events; one column for the concept or idea for the day; one column for the goal; one column for notes; one column for email; one for blog post; and then one for social media. That’s kind of subdivided among the social media platforms that you use. And so then what do you put in each of these columns, it’s pretty self explanatory. Looking at the date, you would find the date and then move across the row. So if there’s an important holiday for that day, you would plug that in. If you have a specific concept or idea that’s important to know, you would plug that in. The goal would be: what do you kind of want to achieve from that content, if there’s a specific end goal, which there should be. Any notes for yourself or your team members, the general concept for the email campaign, if one is going out that day, if there’s a blog post going out the general concept for that, and then a summary of what the social media posts should be doing, if you are posting that day.

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So let’s get out of the generalities and talk more specifically about how to populate this content plan, and then continue to refine it over time. So again, this is not rocket science. But you’re literally gonna pull up your content, brainstorm document, put it side by side on your screen, or if you have two screens, you know, have one document on one screen and one on the other. And you’re just gonna start plugging stuff in to the plan accordingly. So here’s a practical example to illustrate for you. Let’s talk about Mother’s Day, which is coming up pretty soon. Let’s imagine that for your business, Mother’s Day is a really big holiday. I know it’s not for all jewelry businesses, but it is for a pretty large majority of them. So you know, going into this process that Sunday, May 14 is Mother’s Day this year. So you will find in your Google Sheet the row for May 14. And under the column for holiday and event, you’ll write Mother’s Day, just to give you a reminder that that’s happening. And then moving across the columns, you would then write the general concept or sentiment that you have for that day’s content in the concept idea column. In the goal column, you’d write the goal of what you want your content to achieve. So let’s say you’re having like a flash sale that day to honor moms, then the goal of your content for that day would be to promote the flash sale and to raise awareness of it. In the notes or ideas column, you may write some, like, copy ideas that you have, or maybe you saw, like another email campaign that inspired you. So you can like link that there, so you have a reference to it. And then if there’s an email that you’re sending that day in the email column, you would jot out some general ideas for that. If you did have a blog post being published that day, some general ideas or guidelines for that. And then if you’re posting on social media that day, what are you going to put on Instagram, on Facebook, on Pinterest? Again, that’s dependent on your brand and where you’re choosing to post. As I mentioned earlier, once we get more into micro planning in future episodes for email, and social media, then you’ll have more specifics for the email and social media parts. But remember, this Google Sheet is a macro look at everything, to ensure that it’s all in alignment. That’s the ultimate takeaway that I want you to have. Everything needs to be aligned. And this Google Sheet plan will help ensure that that’s happening.

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So now that you have that one holiday plugged in, you can work backwards from that to plan the marketing leading up to Mother’s Day, and ensure that you have enough lead time to inform customers and encourage them to shop. Once you have something like that out of the way, you’re going to dip into your content brainstorm and start populating things accordingly. So I’d really recommend starting first with the time-sensitive things, and then use the evergreen content to fill in gaps when there’s no longer anything time sensitive. You’re probably wondering, “Well does each row need to have every column filled out?” No, not necessarily. How much you fill in across each row depends on how often you’re sending email campaigns, posting on social media, publishing blog posts. Right now, at this stage, while you’re kind of learning how to do this, I just stick with your current cadence of doing things. And as we continue to go forward, in Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, we’ll figure out how to determine a cadence that really works for you. So now, where does Asana come in? The Google Sheet is your concept. And Asana is where you put all the action items where you actually manage the project that is your content plan. So in Asana, I’d recommend starting a new project for all your digital marketing content. And then within that project, have sections that correspond to email, blog posts, in social media posts. And then looking at your Google Sheet content plan, I want you to plug in the action items that need to happen over the next week by each section category. Or if you can get beyond a week that’s awesome, up to a month and beyond. And be sure that you’re including all the pre-work tasks like sourcing photos, writing copy, scheduling the email. You never just want to put the final task with the due date on there. You want to give yourself lead and prep time. If there are recurring tasks that you know about, then Asana is really nice for just setting up the task, setting it as a recurring task, and then you don’t have to think about it anymore. Asana will just remind you that it needs to happen. And of course if other people need to collaborate on these tasks, then you can add them too, so that everyone’s on the same page about what needs to happen.

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Okay, that’s it for now, much more to come in future episodes. Go to joyjoya.com/jump for additional information, action items, and exercises related to this episode, including a Google Sheet template that you can adapt and use for your own content planning journey.

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Before we get into The Gold Mine, as well as my jewelry marketing news roundup, I want to share case study of a jewelry brand that I think embodies the concepts that I talked about in this podcast. These are my thoughts about how it applies the lesson to a jewelry brand in the wild. Disclaimer, this brand is not my client, so I don’t have any inside information. I’m just sharing my observations. So today’s case study is about Stephanie Gottlieb. I recently received an email marketing campaign from fashion and bridal jewelry, bridal fine jewelry brand, Stephanie Gottlieb that caught my eye, because I thought it demonstrated an understanding of their audience personas, and also approached brand collaborations in a unique way. So the subject line of this email, and I’ll link that email in the show notes too, was “Five Ways to Get Wedding Ready” and it had five tips for jewelry-related checklist items to do before the big day. Like make your wedding band appointment, get your jewelry, bridesmaids gifts and discover Bride Perks.

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Bride Perks, what’s that? So this actually caught my eye. What did they mean by that? And then further down in the email, they explained that clients who purchase a custom engagement ring, eligible wedding bands and some other qualifications are entered into the SG bridal program, which gives the bride access to Bride Perks. And those include, they can potentially borrow jewelry for their wedding day, they get a discount on fashion jewelry from Stephanie Gottlieb. They get cleaning and maintenance and something it’s not totally clear what they get. But they get something from their Bride Perks partners, which include brands like Retrofete, Fleur Du Mal, and more. Okay, so I love this concept in general, but I was left with some questions. I have some notes, Stephanie and team if you’re listening or watching. So I think it’s really cool that they’re collaborating with brands like the fashion brand Retrofete and the lingerie brand Fleur Du Mal. And some others. I think there was like a resort. There was like a fitness brand, if I remember correctly. But what kind of perks do people actually get from the partners? It wasn’t totally clear. I’m assuming they are like discounts or maybe like stylist appointments or something. It wasn’t super spelled out on the landing page. So I definitely want to know more about that.

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Also, I was really interested to know that this email with the five tips for preparing for the wedding was sent out to what I believe is the full subscriber list. I think it could have been segmented better to bridal customers or bridal prospects to have this kind of email go to them. And then maybe if they still wanted to tell the whole list about bride perks, it would be much more educational in nature about the benefits to maybe convince someone that they should buy their wedding ring or some other wedding-related jewelry from Stephanie Gottlieb. So why am I sharing this example? I love the added value that it’s offering to wedding jewelry customers, even though for me, it wasn’t 100% clear what all you would get from it. I think it’s really cool that they have brand partners. And I imagine those brand partners are also cross promoting them back. They’re kind of like building a community of brides through this type of program. And then storytelling on the type of experience that they want brides to have on their wedding day. Just want to share that as a great example. What do you think? Let me know in a podcast review, or YouTube comment.

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Okay, let’s get into The Gold Mine. If you’ve been following this podcast for a while, you know that I launched The Gold Mine last year as the secondary episode and now I’m rolling it into to the main episodes as a special segment where I talk about entrepreneurship, mindset, the realities of running a jewelry business, etc.

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This week’s episode is going to tackle the question: how important is aesthetic in marketing? Phew, okay this almost feels like an existential question for me because it’s so big and scale. But I’m going to approach it in a balanced way, coming as someone who is definitely a strategic and data driven marketer but also someone with a master of fine arts degree. So yeah I’m a strategy person, but also I’m a creative person, so I see and acknowledge the importance of both. When I saw down to think about how to best approach this topic, I thought of that social media meme from a few years ago that showed a grid of photos that says something like “what my friends think I do”, “what society thinks I do”, “what I think I do”, and “what I actually do.” I think with marketing, even though it’s not technically advertising and a separate discipline, a lot of people outside of marketing think of marketers as Don Draper in Mad Men, just like sitting around and brainstorming cool/interesting/beautiful concepts all day long to pitch to their clients and ultimately sell stuff to consumers. It’s like, let’s make things look as slick and cool as possible. And then yeah when people find out I’m in marketing, they sometimes like to tell me cool and slick ideas they have that are usually based on something that looks nice and feels flash/eye-catching. I like shiny things as much as the next person. I appreciate beauty and art. But the truth is that in marketing, aesthetics are less important than you think. This is a hard pill to swallow for entrepreneurs and leaders in the jewelry industry because the products they make are beautiful, so the marketing should be just as beautiful and particular as well, right? Well, it’s kind of complicated. I’ve witnessed A/B tests on email campaigns where we were really excited to try an ambitious and cool-looking new concept in the hero image and then tested it against a less-flashy and less-cool format, and the latter performed better. In some ways, I also think aesthetics matter less and less because consumers prefer authenticity over a shiny package; they can see through that. It’s not universally true, and this advice won’t apply to every single situation, but it’s something important to consider. Now I’m not saying go and make things ugly and don’t care about aesthetics. Your marketing should be polished and professional and in line with the image you want to project to your customers. But treating your marketing like it’s a work-in-progress painting is a bad, bad strategy. So the next time you find yourself getting caught up in very small aesthetic details or try to make major adjustments to your marketing simply on the basis that it will probably look prettier, I would definitely hold back and think of things like readability, clarity, contrast, best practices, etc. first before going in a direction that could actually really hurt the effectiveness of your marketing – and still probably won’t end up in a museum either. Tell me in a YouTube comment or podcast review if you can relate to this. Do you find that trying to make things pretty holds you back from making progress? I want to know.

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Okay, let’s get into the news roundup, where I share three relevant articles related to jewelry and or marketing. The first one comes from Marketplace.org, and it’s called “Scientific gems are having a sparkly moment”. It’s really interesting for me to see how storytelling and context can ramp up desire among consumers purchasing jewelry, even if those consumers have never been interested in jewelry before and probably especially so. So according to this article, from Marketplace.org, scientific gems are having a moment they talk about this company called GT Advanced Technologies. And this company originally agreed to make sapphire display covers for Apple, which would replace Gorilla Glass on its screens. However, that company ended up going bankrupt. So this other savvy entrepreneur named Stephen Challener, co-founder of Angry Turtle Jewelry, found a 500 pound large sapphire crystal from a surplus warehouse, and then used a concrete saw with sledge hammers to get out a few clean areas. He now sells these synthetic sapphires and other stones on Etsy and Instagram. Some of the synthetic crystals come from scientific research, medicine, and industrial applications, and they are not easy to make. Challener’s workshop cuts and sells them, and some contain rare earth elements, change color, have colors that would never be found in nature, and some actually glow in the dark. And the customers who buy from this company, they go crazy for this. My main takeaway is I’m not saying you have to go abandon what you’re doing and start selling weird scientific gemstones. But digging deep into a story. And then finding the customers who are captivated by that story is the truest example of effective product-market fit. As the article says, quote, “People are gradually warming up to lab-grown diamonds for wedding rings, and that’s spilled over into acceptance for synthetic colored stones – especially if they have a good back story like failed industrial products or fusion generator parts.” End quote. It all comes down to storytelling presentation, and then resonating with the customers who think wow, that is super cool.

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The next article comes from Marketing Dive, and it’s called “Mobile leads e-commerce activity among fashion consumers, report finds”. Are you looking for ways to optimize the online shopping experience for your customers? Think mobile and desktop to improve the experience for these customers at different stages of the journey. The fourth annual consumer spending report from visual visual search and discovery firm Syte surveyed 1000 US shoppers and revealed the following: spending was significantly higher in jewelry 39% and fashion and apparel 37% when customers shopped on desktop computers versus mobile phones. So these desktop consumers spend about 20% more time in sessions and visited about 16% more pages per session. That definitely sounds like a plus, they’re spending more, they’re looking at more of your products, they’re spending more time on your website. But at the same time, 84% of consumers use their mobile devices to browse for fashion, and jewelry, and 81% use their mobile devices to complete fashion transactions. So there’s this double-edged sword, I guess, people are spending more when they’re shopping on desktop, but they’re more frequently checking out completing purchases, there’s like a quicker end to the transaction when they’re on mobile. So optimizing for both experiences and considering both of those journeys I think is very important for jewelry brands. 69% of fashion, consumers prefer to shop on sites that offer visual and interactive experience. And the report also found that consumers are willing to pay more for products that come with additional visual content, such as videos or 3d product models. My main takeaway, nothing mind blowing to see here, but it’s so interesting to read the stats about purchase behavior on desktop versus mobile. Even though that spending is higher when consumers shop on desktop, the majority polled use mobile to complete their transactions. So it’s really important to pay attention to your brand’s own data, and see how consumers like to shop your site. But I would say until you see very clear patterns, then you need to optimize for both mobile and desktop while providing engaging shopping experiences filled with multiple photos, and even videos.

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And then the last article is called “You may be surprised to know that luxury brands have a huge amount of fake Instagram followers”. Are you feeling bad about social media follower count and/or your Instagram engagement? As the saying goes, nothing is as it seems. So if you’re comparing your performance to bigger brands and feeling sorry about your own performance, then you may just be setting yourself up for disappointment for no reason. According to a new report from Ghost Data, luxury brands on Instagram have a high amount of fake followers. This study analyzed more than 20 million Instagram accounts across 11 countries, and found that fake followers account for 30 to 40% of the audience for luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, and Dior. And actually, according to this report, Cartier has the highest percentage of fake followers at about 32%. These brands have spent billions, billions of dollars on marketing through social media. Instagram is one of the most important platforms for a lot of them. But the prevalence of fake followers raises questions about the effectiveness of these strategies, and whether or not they’re actually reaching their target audiences. My main takeaway is, first and foremost, know and focus on the most meaningful social media metrics for your brand like engagement to determine the true impact of your social media campaigns. Or maybe don’t focus on social media metrics at all, and instead, measure visits to your ecommerce site from social media. And don’t compare your performance to others because nothing is as it seems. Simply stay focused on knowing your audience personas, and delivering the content that resonates with them.

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Did you have any questions about Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart? 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 Apple Podcasts. If you’re completely new to digital marketing, then you’ll want to purchase and read a copy of my book Jewelry Marketing Joy, visit joyjoya.com/book for more information.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai