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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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Welcome to Episode #245. Today, we’ll be getting into the intricate workings of crafting successful email campaigns that truly make a difference for your brand, all the way from the planning stages through the actual sending of the email to your subscribers. In the previous episode, we laid the foundation by exploring the undeniable relevance of email for jewelry brands, sharing my personal favorite email marketing platform, and unveiling some essential tips and best practices. But today we’ll be delving into the art of planning, executing, and delivering captivating emails straight to the inboxes of your eager subscribers. I’ll be sharing exactly how I set my clients up for email marketing success that drives results. I’ll be covering: Where do the ideas for email campaigns come from? How far in advance are we planning, creating, and scheduling an email? What are the steps we take to ensure the email is as impactful as possible? If you’re new to this podcast, you should know: from now through July of this year, I’m offering a free (yes FREE) six-month, podcast-guided program called “Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart” which involves weekly audio and video lessons as well as companion PDF downloads for each new episode. Jumpstart members will be getting a special email marketing project checklist. If you haven’t already signed up at joyjoya.com/JUMP, then I highly recommend you stop waiting and sign up now. And that link will be in the 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. Also, if you’re not already subscribed to the Joy Joya YouTube channel, you should know that I uploaded full videos of the 3 talks I did at JCK Las Vegas this year. They’re about utilizing social media analytics, auditing your social media marketing strategy, and leveraging ChatGPT to streamline social media content creation. If you want to check out those full recordings, you’ll find them on YouTube only – so check them out and subscribe now!

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Okay, my Sparklers! Let’s get into the next installment of Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, which is all about sending an impactful email campaign from start to finish. So first, we should talk about where do the ideas for email campaigns come from? Because obviously, you can’t plan to send an email and then actually send that email if you don’t have an idea for it.

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If you remember back in episode #236, I talked about transforming all your amazing ideas in a master content plan. If you don’t quite remember, it might be worthwhile to check out that episode again. Basically, you want to be looking out at your business 6 months ahead of time if possible. Anticipate what’s coming and what you’d like to promote, whether that’s new products/collections, discounts/promos, events, giveaways, exciting news, business milestones, holidays, etc. This content plan should really be guiding all your marketing content, so not just your email marketing but also your website content and your social media marketing as well as any other marketing. It should also be updated regularly to account for changes in plans and additions to the calendar. Once we have the master content calendar, we’ll be able to drill that down into email. Your master content calendar should have space to jot down email ideas in the cadence that you send emails. So for example, if you’re aiming to send emails once per week, then you should have a space in your content calendar for emails once per week. That way, you can just fill in the ideas that match the theme of the week/month. For example, if you’re planning to spend a couple of weeks in July promoting pieces that are perfect for summer travel, then you’ll want to make sure that you have one or more emails that follow that theme. Or if you know you’re launching a summer capsule collection on a specific date, then the emails should build anticipation up to the launch as well as coincide with the launch date.

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So how far in advance are we really planning, creating and scheduling an email? So as I just mentioned, you should have very general concepts of emails at least three months out. What that looks like for my clients on the master calendar is literally just a few words, enough so that we all know what we’re referring to. “Show favorite summer destinations and jewelry recs” would be one example. And those things are all in the master calendar and always being updated as far out as we can go. But as you can imagine, “Show favorite summer destinations and jewelry recs” does not an email make. Email is super project oriented, because there’s so many moving parts. What do I mean by that? Well to send one email, you need to make sure you’ve done the following: Create/gather/organize the visual assets, like photos Decide on the call to action Chosen the product/products you want to promote Decide whether you want links to go and potentially create a new collection/landing page to send people to Write the email body copy Write the subject line and preview text Design the email Upload it into your email marketing platform Test it Choose the audience you want to send to if you’re segmenting Decide when you’re going to send it As you can tell, it’s a lot At Joy Joya, we manage email for a number of our clients, so if you feel overwhelmed managing for your own brand, just imagine managing it for multiple brands. We have project management on lock, so I can share some tips with you Use a project management tool to help you decide on the runway you have to send an email. Start by listing all the emails you want to send in the next 3 months as tasks and then put the due date as the send date. Asana is a tool I personally like and use. Then you can have a repeatable email prep task with subtasks of all the things you need to do to prepare for an email. This way you can just copy all the checklist steps for every email. How much time you should give yourself before the email send is really going to vary based on your business, how organized you are, how many people you work with, and other variables. But to play it safe, I like to start thinking about an email and at least organizing the assets I’ll need AT LEAST a week before the send date. In a perfect world, I’d like to work even more in advance than that, but I know that most human beings cannot function that far in advance when they don’t have the urgency of the upcoming email send task. That gives you plenty of time to do all the checklist things you need to do and also leaves room for last-minute changes or fixing of mistakes. It will also help ensure that your email is as impactful as possible, so you’re not trying to figure it out at the last minute. Once we get everything planned and project managed, then all the steps get executed. Someone is writing the copy, someone is pulling all the assets including photos, someone is designing the email (we use Canva), someone is uploading the images and links to Klaviyo and then sending tests, and then we’re all collectively reviewing the email to make sure everything looks good. Occasionally discount codes need to be made, or new landing pages/collections need to be made on the ecommerce site. If you’re a one-person team, you can still totally do this, you just have to be even more diligent with the project management and give yourself extra lead time to get every step done.

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Ok so what actually makes an email as impactful as possible? That my friends is the million-dollar question. First of all, it’s good to create a master email template and just work off of that rather than reinventing the wheel every time. Look at emails from some of your favorite brands. You’ll notice that the layout is generally the same again and again with some small variations. Or you could have two or three templates depending on the types of emails you send, like new product launch, roundup, events, blog post, whatever. Keeping it consistent is so important. According to data from 2022 people spend just nine seconds, on average, looking at an email. And that’s why you can’t throw the kitchen at them. Present just one concept and call to action. Don’t include a lot of text. Like just a few lines or even phrases. The goal is not to get someone to sit with your email longer or read it. The goal is to get them to take action, and most of the time that action is to visit your website in order to check out your products and/or buy. Clear and direct CTAs. Shop is totally fine. I know that sounds aggressive but it’s not. Easy to see buttons that contrast with the background of the email Keep it simple and clean, easy to read fonts Works well on mobile No confusion or friction, so a button takes them to the next logical place Look at Milled for examples and inspiration or start paying attention to emails from brands that you follow and love. And I’ll put that link in the show notes. It’s basically a database of email marketing campaigns so that you can instead of subscribing to a whole bunch of emails, just follow brands that you admire, and see the kinds of campaigns that they’re sending.

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Alright, that’s it for now on email marketing, I’ll still have one more episode on email and then we’re going to move to social media. So go to joyjoya.com/jump for additional information, action items and further resources like a project management checklist for email that you can use today. Before we get into The Gold Mine as well as my jewelry marketing news roundup, I want to share a case study of a brand that I think embodies what I talk about in this podcast.

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So these are my thoughts about how I’d apply my marketing philosophies to a brand in the wild. And today I want to talk about Nikko Leonard and his brand Pride & Pinion, and I’ll put the links to these things in the show notes so you can check them out yourself. This week’s content case study is about Nico Leonard, YouTube watch influencer and the founder of Pride & Pinion. So Pride & Pinion is a Luxury Watch Boutique with one of the most impressive watch collections on the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom. When it comes to luxury watches, they provide a range of services, including buying, selling, servicing, reselling and sourcing. Nico also has a YouTube channel with more than 1.3 million subscribers. On his channel, he comments on TikTok watch content, critiques celebrity and influencer watch collections, showing off his own favorite watches and even getting vulnerable, like getting scammed in his watch dealings. Some controversial takes, like calling out influencers on their fake fancy watches that they’re claiming to be real brand name timepieces. He doesn’t really overly promote his business on his YouTube channel. The link to Pride & Pinion is shared in descriptions, and he sometimes speaks directly about his business, occasionally he mentions the business in the intros, but the channel overall is more about him building authority and connecting with watch fans, who would be his target audience. What do you think? Let me know in a podcast review or YouTube comment. Okay, let’s get into THE GOLD MINE!

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All right, let’s get into the goldmine. If you’ve been following this podcast, you know that I launched THE GOLD MINE in August as a secondary episode every week. Moving forward, I’ll be doing THE GOLD MINE as a segment in my weekly Sunday podcast. Today’s Gold Mine is just a story about something I experienced at JCK this year, and it really made an impression on me. I wanted to share it with you, so hopefully you have some takeaways. So when I’m at the show, I like to shop around for a treat for myself, and I usually come with one specific thing in mind that I’d like to buy. I have a clear idea of what I want, and I do a lot of research aka walking the show to check out quality, reputation of the sellers, and also price points until I find something that meets what I had in mind and is within my budget. In this way, I think I would be very similar to customers that you have, especially if you sell jewelry basics that aren’t custom or one-of-a-kind. One of my favorite vendors had what I was looking for, and I was seriously considering buying from them again. But before making my final decision, I wanted to explore a bit more and see if I could find something different. That’s when a salesperson from a competing vendor caught my attention in a pretty aggressive way. They had what I wanted, so I decided to hear them out. I don’t want to reveal too much to keep things confidential, but this salesperson was so confident and almost cocky about their products. They claimed to have the “best” products in their category. But here’s the thing: who determines what’s “best”? This got me thinking, and here’s the lesson I want to share. I believe that calling yourself the “best” can be subjective. If your marketing strategy revolves around claiming you’re the best in your category, whether you’re doing that in a subtle or even more obvious way, I would advise against it. To me, the concept of “best” is personal. I was looking for specific finishing, availability of different metal colors, and other factors that mattered to ME. Unfortunately, this competitor didn’t offer any of those things. They completely ignored my needs and focused on their own agenda, rather than taking the time to understand what “best” meant to me. If they had taken that time, they could have addressed my concerns or simply been honest and said they weren’t the right fit for me. Maybe for someone else, they would have been the “best.” But making grand claims about being the overall “best” and having the best products is a losing game. This becomes even more apparent in a trade show filled with competitors. The word “best” loses its meaning when everyone is saying it. It’s like white noise. So, my advice is to focus on what makes your products or services unique and how they fulfill the specific needs of your customers. Get to know what your customers want and then speak to what they want and need, not what you think they should have. What do you think about that? Does it resonate with you? Tell me in a YouTube comment or podcast review. I’d love to know your thoughts.

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Okay, let’s get into the news roundup, where I share three relevant articles related to jewelry or marketing. So the first one comes from the official Instagram blog. And it’s called “Instagram Ranking Explained”. So the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri wrote this really in depth, explanation and blog post, all about how the algorithm ranks Instagram posts. And as I’m sure you know, Instagram uses a variety of algorithms, classifiers and processes to rank content and personalize the user experience. And now they’re really trying to be much more transparent about how all of that works. I would say you really need to read the whole blog post yourself because it’s super in depth. If you want to know more about this, but I just want to give you some main highlights specifically about how your feed is curated or about how a user’s feed is curated. So that you understanding that can potentially help you alter the types of content you create and post as well as when you post and how you engage with other accounts to ensure that your content gets delivered to your followers. So the feed for everyone, each individual account is super personalized, and it includes a mix of content not only from accounts that you follow, but also recommended content as well as ads. And Instagram considers recent posts from the accounts you follow, and accounts you don’t follow, but things you might be interested in, and factors that influence that ranking include your activity. So whether or not you liked, shared, saved, commented on posts from that account in the past, any information about that post, like its popularity, the time it’s posted, the location, and information about the person who posted it, like relevance and past interactions. And these predictions are made based on the user with the feed their likelihood of interacting with a post. So Instagram is trying to basically deliver you things that you will be the most likely to interact with, such as spending time on it, commenting on it, liking, sharing, or going to the profile. And the higher the likelihood, the higher the post appears in the feed. So my main takeaway is, if you’re looking for ways to improve your Instagram strategy, it’s really valuable to know the ins and outs of how Instagram works, as well as how content is delivered to people who follow you, and or maybe interested in the types of content that you post. So definitely check out this full article for the deep dive.

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The next article comes from Digiday. And it’s called, “How much content is too much? Agencies are starting to ask that question”. I talk so much about content on this podcast. But this article from Digiday is just such a great reminder, that content should not just be created for the sake of creating content. But it should be made and shared intentionally with the goal of adding value to your target audiences lives. Again, not just for the sheer sake of sharing it and creating it. So one really good quote from the article, “There comes a certain point in content creation strategizing in which brands need to weigh ethics and purpose alongside other more concrete goals…The goal is not to create as much content as possible, just for the sake of producing content — not to mention the mental health impact it could pose for people.” Because, you know, we’re also super overwhelmed with content. And when you think about it from that perspective, where what you put out into the universe could have an impact on someone’s mental and emotional health. It really puts into perspective, and gives you the responsibility to take the time to create content that’s actually worth interacting with, that someone would actually look forward to consuming and that truly adds value to people’s lives. So are you making content that your target audience would actually want to sit and spend time with rather than ignore? And are you really pushing yourself to create true value? Quality is so much more important than quantity in this matter. Another idea from this article is when you’re creating content, think more about long term brand equity, and focus less on getting those short term views on social media. There will always be new platforms, new channels, new types of media. And if you’re able to partner with the right target audience, even if it’s just a niche, smaller audience, and you’re delivering value that truly delights them, and makes a positive difference in their lives, that’s really the place that you want to be. So my main takeaway is, we all have super short attention spans these days. And it’s more than easy to turn a blind eye to something that doesn’t resonate with you, no matter how many times you’re being hit with it. So don’t make your audience even more immune to your message than they already are. Strive to wow them and make an impact with something that’s worth their while.

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And then the last article comes from the National Retail Federation and it’s called “Consumers to Spend Record Amount for Father’s Day”. We all know Mother’s Day is such a big deal for the jewelry industry. But don’t sleep on Father’s Day if you sell men’s jewelry. The holiday is coming up just a week after this episode is released, and more and more brands are moving into men’s jewelry. But I don’t see a lot of them capitalizing on the potential of these gifting holidays for men. Consumers will actually be spending a record high of 22.9 billion on Father’s Day this year, surpassing last year’s 20 billion, and that is while you know, rising costs of living inflation are all little bees buzzing in our head, but yet still people are spending more money on gifting. And three quarters of consumers plan to celebrate Father’s Day with the average price point spend of $196. The increase in spending is driven by purchases of clothing, electronics, personal care items, and special outings. And the most common recipients of Father’s Day are not just dads of course, but stepfathers followed by husbands, sons, brothers, friends, and grandfathers, and consumers in the 35 to 44 age category are expected to spend the most. Online shopping will be the primary destination for gift purchases. My main takeaway, even if you don’t sell men’s jewelry, and don’t necessarily have a reason to promote Father’s Day as a gifting holiday, I think it’s important to pay attention to news like this because record spending on gifts for a holiday is just a sign that consumers are still spending on gifts for loved ones for these like traditional gifting holidays. And even as inflation is happening, consumers don’t want to skimp on splurging for their family members and friends. Gifting is in.

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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