Laryssa Wirstiuk 0:00
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.

Welcome to Episode #273. In this episode, I want to discuss effective email marketing design strategies tailored specifically for jewelry brands. When we mention “graphic design” or the design aspect of digital materials, it’s common to associate it with aesthetics and making things visually appealing. However, in the context of email marketing, it’s less about making the email visually pleasing and more about designing it in a way that ensures successful email delivery, along with clear and swift presentation of essential information. The primary goal is not only to secure a place in the recipient’s inbox but also to effectively communicate all the crucial details. According to a 2022 study conducted by Litmus, the average time people spend on an email is just nine seconds. This research revealed that approximately 30% of emails receive less than two seconds of attention, 41% are looked at for a duration of two to eight seconds, and only 29% are viewed for more than eight seconds. In essence, your email design needs to make a significant impact within the first two seconds of viewing. Later in this episode, I’ll also be chatting with Hilary from Hilary Finck Jewelry, who we’ve been spotlighting as a jewelry brand case study. This is actually our last podcast episode with Hilary as a guest! If you’ve enjoyed hearing the interviews from Hilary and would like more designer interviews in the future, let me know in a YouTube comment or podcast review. If you’re new to this series with Hilary, I’d suggest starting with Episode #252. Doing so will introduce you to Hilary and allow you to follow this narrative from its inception. Before we begin our conversation with Hilary, I’d like to discuss the constraints of email marketing design and explain why it’s not feasible or advisable to treat your emails as pieces of art. Additionally, I’ll delve into the current best practices for email marketing design in 2024 and cover other related topics to the look of your email marketing campaigns.

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. It’s the LAST CALL on applying to Joy Joya’s 2024 “Name Your Price” Emerging Jewelry Brand Incubator. Are you an emerging, independent jewelry brand looking for strategic digital marketing from Joy Joya? But you’re also worried that you simply can’t afford professional marketing support? Just 10 brands that will have the opportunity to “Name Their Price” for professional marketing services! We’re determined to make marketing support more accessible. Nope, this is not a joke, and there’s no “catch”. We’re serious! For all the details, visit JewelryBrandIncubator.com. Applications close in just a few days from when this episode goes live, on Wed January 31st!

Okay, let’s get into today’s episode, my Sparklers! This one’s all about email marketing design to ensure your emails get delivered, opened, and clicked on. Notice that I said “clicked on” instead of read – because you don’t want people actually reading your emails! The email should be scannable and interesting enough to pique someone’s interest, so they click through to your website. Constraints of email marketing design I’ve spoken to some jewelry entrepreneurs who get frustrated because they want their emails to look as beautiful and stylish as other elements of their brand, like ecommerce website, their packaging, or their social media feeds and photography But the reality is that making beautiful emails is actually going to backfire on you, and here’s why These are two things you need to know if you’re sending email marketing campaigns in 2024: Not all email inboxes are equal Your recipients are viewing your email on many different kinds of devices and browsers So what looks “beautiful” to you on your screen can look like a complete mess and/or potentially not even load correctly on another person’s device. Thus, all your efforts on beautiful design will be wasted. Different email clients and settings can impact how your emails are perceived. Image blocking can lead to emails appearing blank, while improper scaling for mobile devices can hinder engagement. Varying support for HTML elements means your emails won’t look the same for all subscribers. Email testing is crucial to catch rendering issues and ensure a consistent experience. More on that in just a little bit Best practices for email marketing design in 2024 Graphic design doesn’t only have to be beautiful. In fact, it can have many goals; it can make information easier to digest, help people with limitations experience your information, and be efficient and action-oriented. When you’re designing emails, I don’t want you to completely abandon the idea that your emails should look nice, but looking nice is way less important than all those other things I just mentioned. Prioritize usability over aesthetics in their emails, emphasize the CTA, make the message clear with a visual hierarchy. Make it easy to digest no matter what device or email inbox. Think about subscribers who may have special features enabled on their devices, like dark mode Minimize your designs. Keep it simple. One message per email. When deciding between being verbose or concise, opt for brevity. Include essential details in your email, infuse a touch of personality with a brief phrase or two, and then conclude it. If you find yourself wanting to say more than that, it’s time to rethink the focus of the email – or put that information on your website and link to it. Use responsive design, which means it works on any size browser/device. Keep the call to action high up in the email, spread out the links, make sure buttons are obvious and easy to click on mobile Have a modular design system that you’re mixing and matching for every email, so they look consistent, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you make a new email campaign. These also ensure that you’re sticking to the best practices every time Testing Never, ever ever schedule or send an email campaign without testing it first, even if the test is just sent to yourself Use the in-platform testing preview and send yourself a test. Check all the links, proofread the copy. Look at the email on as many devices as you have available to you and send it to multiple email addresses to test on different email inboxes, like Gmail vs Outlook. You will notice differences; the goal is to minimize anything that won’t load, look broken, cause confusion, obscure calls to action, etc. If you have friends who are willing to help you out or team members who work with you, make sure other people are testing too – there’s always something that another person will see that will surprise you because you’re not seeing it yourself! It’s pretty hard to account for all the possible quirks of email marketing, but you can do your best to minimize unwanted surprises Resources If you’re a solopreneur without an email marketing team, and all this feels overwhelming to you, I suggest starting by being a student of email marketing I really believe that you can’t effectively market anything if you’re not aware of how other companies are marketing themselves – that’s how you get ideas, and you start to understand effective best practices Sign up for emails from a few different brands, both small and large. Look at those emails both on your mobile device and desktop to see how they display. What do you like? What’s annoying to you? What seems to be broken? What feelings do you have about the email, and what actions is it inspiring you to take? Create a free account on Milled.com and start to follow brands that you admire, so you can see how they design their emails. Save emails in Milled that you love for inspiration and guidance. What do you think about that? Are you surprised to learn about all the quirks and nuances of email marketing? Do you need support? We’re kind of obsessed with email marketing here at Joy Joya, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions. In our upcoming conversation with Hilary, we’re chatting with Hilary about what it means to cultivate a signature style as a jewelry designer – and how that can help with your marketing – including your email marketing! After the interview, in the Gold Mine segment, I’ll chat more about signature style and its importance.

Hey, Hilary, thanks for joining me today. I cannot believe this is our last recording, it’s gone so quickly.

Hilary Finck 16:55
I know it really has gone fast. But it’s been a lot of fun.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 16:59
So about I don’t know, two months ago, maybe we did an interview about your captured collection. But I want I do want to talk about it again. But more from the perspective that it’s become like your signature design perspective. I think a lot of customers when they see your captured pieces they can like immediately associate it back to you. And I want to talk about this because I think a lot of designers struggle with coming up with that. Look, that’s so signature to them, that it can enhance their marketing for customers to kind of associate a design back to the actual designers. That’s really what I want to talk about today. And I want to start by asking you, How long did it take you to find this signature style?

Hilary Finck 17:50
Well, it wasn’t really something I was trying to do. It came across kind of accidentally years ago when I was trying to set irregularly shaped things like seashells or you know, funky beach stones I would find. And when I started making jewelry again, after a long break, I just remember one day in my studio, I was like Oh right, I remember I used to set seashells and all right, I used to do that thing with the crossbar. And and I thought, Oh, I thought that would look really nice with gemstones. And it just kind of started happening. And then I thought it looked really good with gemstones. And so it just kind of transitioned over to using gemstones just as as, as a way for me to use gemstones because I really had not used gemstones before.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 18:43
Have you ever felt a need or desire to kind of like, depart from that or try something completely different? Or do you feel pretty committed to this perspective that you have in your work?

Hilary Finck 18:55
I feel committed to it. I like it. I think it’s fun. It’s it can be a challenging way to set especially with how I’m setting faceted stones now it’s definitely a little bit more challenging in terms of getting the measurements on the front end the back Correct. That’s that’s the challenge with the captured setting. Some people kind of wonder why certain studs cost what they are, you know, like it’s just a stud and it’s like, well, I have to measure that you know, everything really technically to get that crossbar to fit right anyway it takes it takes longer to do that. And I can see myself doing you know, regular bezel settings or something mixing it up over time, but I I liked the captured setting.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 19:41
Yeah, and I like what you said that it is challenging because that probably is the thing that kind of keeps you intrigued by it. And I hear a lot of designers especially if they’re like frustrated in their business or things aren’t working for them like they hope or they have a slow period of time the urgent To just like, try something completely different, but it sounds like for you, it’s an ongoing, like interesting challenge just to keep, like figuring out this design that you’ve created. Mm hmm.

Hilary Finck 20:12
For sure. And there’s, I mean, just like with all gemstones, there’s a million different ways to design. So things can be added to the design, I can be doing multiple stones, there’s just there’s so many ways to get creative with setting stones.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 20:31
That’s so true. Have you ever been influenced? Or are you continuing continually influenced by other forms of art,

Hilary Finck 20:38
I’m definitely influenced by architecture. I really like brutalist architecture a lot. And I also like art deco design, which I think is fairly evident in some of my pieces. And I really love modernist, like the modernist period, or just modern art, I suppose. Just simple clean lines, minimalist type of art, I also really liked dontist. Art. And In the past, I’ve been like, I wonder if the crossbar is kind of like, the Dada setting. It’s kind of like, it’s kind of the anti setting, you know? So it’s, it’s not really that exact translation. But yeah, there’s a lot of different types of art that I’m influenced by. I love going to art museums and just walking around the city, you always see really cool buildings and things like that.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 21:39
Oh, yes, that’s so true. Cities can be very inspiring with architecture. Yeah. So recently, you’ve introduced new variations on captured into the mix, like you just launched a faceted stone collection. So how does that make you feel like continuing to evolve this style and kind of push the boundaries with it?

Hilary Finck 22:02
It’s exciting. It opens up a whole new layer for me. You know, faceted stones are just gorgeous. I mean, I love Cat Cat machines. But I have to say going shopping for faceted stones was, oh my gosh, I think I said like ooh, like, you know, 900 times when this woman that I was working with kept pulling out trays, I was just like, just this sparkles so great. I love working with them. And I’ll still work with camera shots and other things. But I’m excited to continue on with faceted stones. It just makes the pieces more expensive. I think that’s the one thing that I’m a little like, huh, I hope this goes over well with my clientele. I think they’re really gorgeous. And I know that my clientele also thinks they’re gorgeous. It’s just a matter of will they spend more.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 23:00
That’s so true. I do know a lot of designers too. I mean, obviously making the most opulent, beautiful things often that requires more money spent on materials and you don’t want to neglect your current audience. But I think with you it’s been an evolution and a build up to that. Like you’ve kind of taken your your collectors on this journey of like, more intricacy like new materials and things like that.

Hilary Finck 23:32
And I’m hoping what it does is it shows it just adds another price point. So people might say, Oh, well, if I want something really really special, I can get that from Hillary think jewelry. And if I want something that’s a little bit more, I don’t know if economical is the right word, but you know, not as expensive that could be there.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 23:54
Yeah, yes, definitely. So how would you say that having this signature style kind of sets you apart from other designers or people who are in like competitive price points with you?

Hilary Finck 24:06
Well, as far as I know, there’s no one that sets stones the way that I set stones. Client clients have sent me pictures on Instagram, they’re like, hey, this, I came across this person and they’re copying your style. And so I mean, that hasn’t happened for like, a year or two and I’ve had to get in touch with that person and be like, that’s just a blatant copy. But I mean, it just I think it’s just that no one’s setting stones that way so it’s that’s just the thing that sets it apart. Just straight and simple with with the crossbar.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 24:38
Well, I meant to ask you about that too, about like the copycats if that’s something you encountered, and it sounds like you have

Hilary Finck 24:45
It wasn’t really anything I was worried about. It was you know, I mean honestly, the the couple times that it has happened, it’s people that are just starting out or haven’t been doing it for very long, I suppose. And, you know, I was very nice when I reached out to them and just let them know, like, you need to find the whole point of art is to find your own style and express yourself differently from others. And you shouldn’t copy other people’s work like you just straight and simple. You just shouldn’t copy people’s work. And you know, we’re all influenced by things. And there’s so much that is maybe, you know, generated ideas that you can see little influences here and there, but straight up copying is just, it’s just not cool.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 25:34
No, it’s definitely not. Well, it seems like with you, there’s a technical element that you’ve mastered by doing it for so long. And I feel like it would be hard for someone to copy it unless they literally spent years like working on it the same way you have.

Hilary Finck 25:53
Yeah, it just takes careful measurement. And I don’t always get it, right. I mean, the other thing that’s nice about this is that you can tell that the pieces are made by hand. Because sometimes I mean, I try as hard as I possibly can to get that crossbar on straight. But you know, sometimes the drill moves like half millimeter and you’re like, oh, you know, but then I’m like, Well, you know what, that just kind of that makes it see it, you can see that it’s made by human, you know, my hand is in every piece. So it they’re never going to be perfect. I don’t ever really want a piece to be perfect just because I’m not striving for perfection. But they are. They can be challenging to set especially the faceted stones. That’s a whole other thing with having to you know, measure from the, you’re making basically making two settings and measuring from the back and the front. And maybe that’s how people do it with with prong settings. I don’t know I’ve I’ve never gotten into prong settings. So maybe this is not as hard as I think.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 26:59
Yeah, definitely. So moving forward, how do you imagine yourself like continuing to find inspiration and keeping things fresh for yourself?

Hilary Finck 27:09
I think it’s really all about the gemstones. Just seeking, keeping, keeping looking for more interesting gemstones, more unique gemstones, things that present a challenge. And then my clients are like continuously sending me custom requests with really cool stones that they have. I just got one in the past few days, this woman is going to buy a faceted stone from some expert, Gem cutter, and she sent me a picture of the stone and it’s really cool. I was like, wow, I’ve not seen something like that before. Something like Mysterion or mon Styria i Anyway, just like a little bit different. And so that helps keep it interesting too. And through custom work. Sometimes I’m forced to set something differently than before. And then it just awakens new ideas. So that’s really nice.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 28:04
Yeah, I love that. Well, thanks, Hilary. And thank you so much for sharing so much on the podcast. Over the past few months, you’ve been so generous with insights into like your design process and your business. And I know that everyone has been really appreciative of it as well.

Hilary Finck 28:22
Oh, you’re so welcome. Thanks for this opportunity. It’s been a really, really awesome six months, just getting to know my business in different ways. And it’s been great working with you and your team. I’ve loved it. Thank you.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 28:36
What did you think about the interview? Are you excited to follow Hilary on this journey? I highly encourage you to check out Hilary’s website hilaryfinck.com and follow her on Instagram @hilaryfinckjewelry. Link in the show notes as well. Let me know in a podcast review or YouTube comment what you think about this new journey. Okay, let’s get into THE GOLD MINE.

Welcome to another edition of THE GOLD MINE – a segment where I get personal and share insights on entrepreneurship, mindset, success, growth, and all things business. THE GOLD MINE allows me to share topics and insights close to my heart. This week’s GOLD MINE is about having a hero product or best-seller. About a month ago, I came across an insightful article on Business of Fashion (I’ll provide the link in the show notes) that discussed how beauty brands can foster the growth of their hero products. Although the article pertained to the beauty industry, I noticed striking parallels between beauty and the jewelry sector. In the article, the author highlighted that hero products contribute up to 30% of a beauty brand’s revenue, a phenomenon also observed in fashion. For instance, Chanel’s iconic 2.55 handbag and Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers transformed their respective brands into industry giants. Levi’s, too, is renowned for its timeless 501 jeans. Identifying a hero product involves understanding what resonates with your customers, identifying a bestseller, and then maintaining unwavering focus in your marketing efforts, steadfastly believing in the product and consistently conveying its message over the long term. These hero products should possess the ability to withstand evolving trends or adapt to them by introducing various offshoots. The article provides an insightful quote: “For any product to become beloved, it has to deliver on its promises and transform how customers look and feel about themselves at the same time.” For a jewelry brand, the key to leveraging a hero product that defies trend cycles lies in crafting a timeless narrative around it. Craft compelling stories that accentuate the product’s enduring beauty and quality while emphasizing its versatility in complementing different fashion styles and occasions. Moreover, harness the power of customer testimonials and reviews that showcase the product’s durability and adaptability, reinforcing its status as a must-have item and a cornerstone of the brand’s marketing strategy for years to come. If you’re relatively new to the industry, it might take time and some evolution to discover your hero product. Often, customer preferences can be surprising, making it challenging to plan for a hero product. However, as you begin to notice customers gravitating towards a particular product, even in the early stages, start incorporating it into your marketing efforts with confidence and enthusiasm. What are your thoughts? Do you have a bestselling product that you believe could be leveraged more effectively? Do you already have a hero product, and are you fully capitalizing on its potential in your marketing strategies? Feel free to drop me a message via Instagram DM, leave a review on the podcast, or comment on our YouTube channel. Let’s engage in a discussion about it!

Did you have any questions about today’s episode? You can always email me Laryssa at laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you loved 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