Top 5 Jewelry Marketing Trends for Holiday 2022

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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”, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

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This is episode #205. And today I’ll be sharing the top five holiday marketing trends I’ve been seeing so far for 2022. At this point in the game, you should already have developed a strategy for your holiday marketing, and you’ve begun executing on it, hopefully. But I want to share these trends anyway because I think it’s really interesting and informative to see how things are going out there in the world of the jewelry industry. And once you hear about my trends, you can also potentially make some small pivots to adjust to current customer behavior, and I also suggest some of those adjustments in this episode.

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So I’ll be covering: 1) what are the five holiday marketing trends in 2022? 2) What pivots, if any, can you be making at this point? 3) And what can you learn for next year?

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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 component. 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 support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too. I want to read my favorite review of the week. Thank you to rockcandy3418 who said, “Joy Joya Jewelry Marketing Podcast really stands on its own and offers smart advice for jewelry businesses of all sizes.” Thank you. I really appreciate that review. And if you leave one, I might read it on a future episode. So please let me know what you think about this one, or about any other major takeaways you’ve had recently.

2:57
In this segment of the podcast, I give out my Sparkle Award for the week. 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 Stephanie Gottlieb, the brand well known for its highly aspirational and colorful Instagram feed, featuring the designer and founder herself. The eponymous brand recently opened a virtual jewelry store in the metaverse in an effort to continue modernizing “fine jewelry for today’s consumer by revolutionising the traditional jewelry shopping process”. So according to an article I saw about this new virtual jewelry store in the publication Mobile Marketing, “the store transports shoppers to a rainbow colored jewelry dreamland filled with endless immersive experiences, virtual jewelry, triathlons, exclusive product launches, styling tips and tricks from Stephanie herself, interactive games and much more.” That honestly sounds really fun and innovative. So when a customer enters the first room of this virtual jewelry store, they can see more than 15 of Stephanie Gottlieb’s best selling pieces. Not only can customers shopped the room, but they’ll also get access to educational videos, with tips and tricks about styling and wearing the jewelry. Customers can also virtually try on the pieces with Instagram filters, which they can wear and share with their friends online. My personal favorite feature that I read about in this virtual store is the Electric Hoop tunnel, which users can slide down to arrive in a gemstone cave. There’s a Pantone wall offering shoppers a total of 50 enamel colors that are exclusively available to virtual store customers only. And people who shop this virtual store have also an exclusive opportunity to unlock early access to the highly anticipated once a year sale when they play an interactive game. I have to say the Stephanie Gottlieb brand is definitely thinking outside the box, and I am here for it. 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 articles. And you can get those links by checking out the show notes. The first article is from retailtouchpoints.com. And it’s called “Pop up strategies that power unique shopper journeys”. I want to know, have you fully leveraged the power of in person events and experiences for your brand? And more, especially if you primarily sell online. Are you really unlocking the power of these experiences? Pop up shops are a type of experience that can really support a brand’s values and amplify them. So if you’re interested in doing a pop up shop, how do you really build out the basics of a pop up strategy? Here are six action items. So I would definitely take notes if this is something that you’re interested in. And also check out the article I linked in the show notes from RetailTouchPoints. So one, you want to identify the preferred type of pop up that you want to do, whether that’s seasonal or innovative or limited edition items, whatever kind of brainstorm the category or the concept. And then think through the design elements, which you really want to align not only with your brand identity, but also with the purpose, with the theme, with the mood, with the location, where it’s going to be. Number three, think through the marketing initiatives that are going to be surrounding this pop up launch. So this is where you really come up with a plan leading up to that activation, the pop up and how you’re going to market it and invite customers encourage customers to come. Four: train whoever’s going to be helping you to contribute to the customer journey. Or if it’s going to be yourself, maybe you want to come up with guidelines for how you’ll be talking to your customers how you’ll be interacting with them. Maybe even write out a script, you don’t necessarily have to follow it. I’m not saying like be a robot, but have an idea of the type of language you’re going to use to do storytelling around your brand and around your products. Number five, you want to also find the opportunities to sell beyond the pop up experience. So how are you going to collect information from people who visit that pop up? Are you going to get their email addresseses? Are you going to have a strategy in place to continue connecting with those people? Are you going to encourage them to follow you on Instagram? And then after you have all that, you want to move into planning the details and having a schedule for executing on them. And it does take a significant amount of time. Just to plan for one event, I would say maybe even three to six months depending on the scale, and what you hope to get out of it. So you can also take what you learn from the pop up and then implement it into your regular customer experience. So this is a really good reason to put yourself out there and do this kind of event. In this article they happen to quote this person named Kori Whitaker, who’s the head of stores for the yoga apparel brand Beyond Yoga. This person says, “We learned from the pop up that extended sizes were incredibly important to the in store experience. And we were able to then put that into the brick and mortar and create an entire area in the store just for that experience”. So they learned from doing a pop up what customers really need and want and then they were smarter about the investment they made in brick and mortar or whatever, you know sales channel moving forward. So my main takeaway from this is, not only can a pop up help you truly embody your brand story, but it can also help you source really vital customer feedback in real time.

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So the second article comes from modernretail.com And it’s called “Brands are investing in original sound on marketing on TikTok”. It’s one thing to be posting on TikTok in an effort to increase brand awareness for your business. Yes, that is a step that is a thing that you might want to try. But some companies are going even further, and they’re beginning to develop their own original TikTok sounds in the hopes of going viral. For example, American Eagle and TikTok singer Katherine Lee teamed up to create a custom version of her song “Happening Again” as part of its back to school campaign. So why is this so important when it comes to TikTok strategy? Why are some of the bigger brands kind of leaning into this, so when a creator uploads a video on TikTok with an original sound, other users can essentially use that sound to create new videos of their own, and a sound ends up going viral as more and more people use that original sound. For brands that can get a viral sound, they can gain visibility and a higher likelihood for them to reach more users’ For You pages. My main takeaway from this article is, you may or may not be at the stage in your business growth to be investing in original sounds on TikTok. But if you do have a brand presence there, and you’re starting to experiment and learn how to best leverage this platform, you should really be aware of the importance of sound and how it’s being used on TikTok.

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And then the last link is actually a podcast episode that you may be familiar with. This podcast, the Rough Cut podcast for NYC Jewelry Week on October 3rd released an episode called “Does she even go here”, and hosts Alain Simic, former Joy Joya podcast guest and JB Jones, NYC jewelry week co founder, were talking all about jewelry PR. As they say in the description of the episode, “we talk red carpet placements, PR celebrities, stylists, and if anyone truly gives a damn.” I’ve been listening to every episode of the podcast so far. And I think this was actually one of my favorites. One because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about PR and the role it plays in a jewelry brands overall promotional strategy, but two it’s so fun to hear Alain and JB just banter in a really honest and compelling way about PR and what they’ve personally seen in their own experiences. Or even in their observations of jewelry PR. It was really nice to hear their take, and it could be an excellent wake up call for any jewelry designer out there who’s not necessarily ready for PR but thinks that it might be the overnight key to success. So my main takeaway from this podcast episode is that PR can potentially benefit a jewelry brand. There’s no doubt about that. But the complete foundation really needs to be in place for PR to have a maximum impact. PR should also have an intentional long term strategy driving it. For more information about any of these articles, check out the links in the show notes below.

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Alright, let’s get to the main content of this episode. First, I want to talk about what are the five holiday marketing trends I’ve been seeing in 2022. So far, number one, and I’ve mentioned this before, so maybe it’s not a surprise, but I feel like it’s important enough to mention it again, promotional sales, discounts, bundles for any sort of holiday promos are happening much earlier this year, as well as releasing or previewing holiday products and special packaging, even now, even like two weeks ago, and we can probably thank Amazon Prime Day for that. I think customers are shopping earlier. Brands can also really capitalize on this trend and set themselves apart. Because that noise around Black Friday, Cyber Monday weekend is always going to be loud. There are always going to be brands doing promotions around that time. But the more you as a brand can get out of that crowded space, the better chance you’ll have of reaching your target customer and also the early promotional strategies. I don’t necessarily think it’s just brands pushing marketing and brands dictating that. I think the consumers actually do want that in some way, shape, or form. According to the National Retail Federation 44% of holiday shoppers say it’s better to shop now, because inflation will continue to impact prices, and 31% believe the deals won’t get any better. So, I mean, if you’re trying to compete with Amazon, and you don’t want everyone to just buy all their holiday gifts on Amazon, you have to kind of get in front of the calendar too and be offering compelling messaging that encourages people to get away from that, like, “Oh, let me just add everything to my Amazon cart and be done with it and never think about holiday shopping again.” So it’s tough, there is a lot of competition. But if you can experiment with different dates in your holiday promotional calendar, you might be able to get some more visibility that way.

15:48
So the second holiday trend that I’m seeing, I’m holding up three fingers, but it’s number two. The second holiday trend I’m seeing is that more brands are finally experimenting with livestream shopping, even though this should have been a thing years ago. Hey, it’s a fun and festive time of year, make shopping a party for your customers, even if you’ve never done it before. Now’s as good a time as ever, maybe even a better time to start. Many of your customers once we get even closer to the holidays, especially around Thanksgiving, they’re taking time off from work, they’re probably spending more time at home with their families, they’re leaning into that winter mood. Connect with them, they’re there for you to connect with. And live tream shopping, especially for jewelry, affords so many opportunities for storytelling, for really getting into the heart of the products, the details of the products that an ecommerce photo or product page simply cannot do. So I really encourage you to lean into that if even if you haven’t already started with livestream shopping.

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Number three. One other trend that I’m seeing with holiday marketing this year is the rise, the saturation of in person events and activations. And maybe we can even build on number two, livestream shopping is one that’s like the virtual version of this. And then in person version. Again, it’s a festive time of year. You want to make holiday shopping fun, you want to show your customers that you’re also in the spirit and the mood of the holidays. So think of in person events, you can do like pop ups, trunk shows, parties, and it takes that one step further. Even if you are connecting with your customers at an in person event, don’t assume that they are going to finish their purchase, their check out. Of course that would be amazing. And you want to like close that sale at an in person event. But they might need to go home and think about it. So have a way to follow up. Encourage them to sign up for your email list. Encourage them to sign up for SMS or text marketing if and maybe that’s something you want to be putting in place now. So that you can continue to connect with those people that you had such a good holiday cheer with at your popup trunk show or party. And also, so many people now this is called mcommerce, mobile commerce. So many more people are really comfortable checking out, making purchases on their mobile devices that you need to make sure as a follow up to an in person event that your ecommerce website or however someone can check out online is totally optimized for a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone. So that’s a really good way to kind of follow up and build on the in person event experience.

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Number four, a trend that I’m really seeing is the customers who are shopping for gifts, especially this year, they are looking to social media specifically to be inspired for their holiday shopping. So what I mean by that is maybe they’re not looking to go to Instagram to check out or to make that purchase or because they already know what they want to get someone, but they’re looking on places like Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok actually for gift ideas. Or maybe they have like a general idea of what kind of gift they want to give themselves or a loved one. But they want to see it more like in action activated like how is it going to look in pretty packaging? How is it going to be easy to gift and fun to gift? So ways that you can kind of like cater to this and help customers be inspired by your social media. Showcase imagery of your gift wrapping packaging, show how your product can make a great gift, demonstrate the emotional resonance of your products, which usually when something has emotion, emotional resonance, it lends itself well to gifting. And maybe even consider doing cross promos with other partner brands who also have great holiday gifts.

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And then trend number five that I’m seeing is personalization, especially in direct mail marketing. If you want to know more about this in general, go and check out episode 197. I’ll link that in the show notes. And especially pay attention to my tip about including an offer within a box or package. So when a customer orders something from you, and you make that shipment, you need to be making the most out of that postage, especially if you are the one covering it for the customer, I recommend inserting something into that package. And that in a way can be like your direct mail, it could be a postcard or some other type of offer. And the great thing about this is that it can be highly targeted. So is it a new customer? They could get one type of message like an invitation to sign up for a customer loyalty program. Or to claim points on this first purchase. Is it an existing customer? Send a thank you note and share your appreciation. And for personalization, if you’re not doing direct mail or you want to build upon that, you can also do this through email marketing. So you can send personalized product and gift recommendations or even share something like a holiday gifting quiz to help the customer arrive at a personalized recommendation.

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So now that you’ve heard about my five trends, what pivots if any, can you be making at this point in time, mid October ish? You can always start now with livestream shopping, even if you’re new to it. And if you’re not already utilizing live video, you can start now even if you start small. Create a postcard or other insert that you can be including in packages. Send handwritten or personalized cards to show gratitude, especially around the Thanksgiving season. Do a test run on your mobile experience your mobile checkout to see if anything can be optimized or changed. And finally, start having your customers also opt in to SMS even if you only send a welcome message and don’t yet have your full SMS strategy in place. What can you learn for next year? Well, definitely, the trend of early holiday shopping is only going to continue. So make notes about anything you’ve tried this year. Did you experiment with some early promos? What did and didn’t work? And start brainstorming that full strategy early in 2023 so you can truly set yourself up for success for holiday for next year.

23:19
What did you think about the trends that I just shared? Let me know your thoughts. Leave a comment or review. You can always email me Laryssa that’s laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you love this episode, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe to purchase a signed copy of my book jewelry marketing joy. 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