Laryssa Wirstiuk
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 #280. Today, I’d like to share some strategies to help ease the pressure of meeting your ecommerce sales goals by instead zeroing in on more digestible metrics that can be tackled in bite-sized pieces. I stumbled upon this method of achieving sales targets back in 2014, thanks to an article on BigCommerce’s blog. Sadly, the article is no longer available, but I managed to save the ecommerce formula that they share. Over the years, I’ve revisited this formula countless times because of its straightforwardness and its effectiveness in demystifying online sales. Consider this: you probably have a clear income goal in mind. But have you broken down what that goal means in terms of website visitors needed, conversion rates to aim for, and the average order value you should target? The essence of what I’m sharing today is this: if you’re selling jewelry online, it’s crucial to stay informed about your key ecommerce metrics. This doesn’t mean you need to be an expert in Google Analytics or a data guru. In fact, we’re going to keep things simple. Our focus will be on the most impactful metrics, devising marketing strategies that directly influence those metrics.

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.

Okay, let’s get into today’s episode, my Sparklers! This one’s all about breaking down your ecommerce sales goals for your jewelry business and making them feel completely achievable – as long as you know the right levers to pull. Setting Revenue Goals So first thing’s first, you need to set a revenue goal for the year. The number you choose depends on so many factors, like past performance, market conditions, and growth potential, among other things. If you’re starting completely from scratch, then the advice I’ll be giving you about pulling levers may not completely apply to you because you may not have enough data to use my tips. But please bookmark them for the near future because they’ll be relevant before you know it! But here’s a tip for the newbie business owners in the meantime, it’s better to set a conservative, attainable goal and exceed it than to set an overly ambitious target and fall short. For a new ecommerce jewelry business, a modest goal considering the profit margins after covering all costs could be a good starting point. For example, aiming for a steady monthly increase in sales might be more practical than setting a high revenue target right away. Instead of focusing solely on an annual figure, break your sales goal into quarterly or monthly targets. This makes the goal seem more manageable and allows you to adjust strategies as you learn what works for your business. So again, that’s my advice for the more newbie business owners out there who don’t really have a revenue goal.

If you’ve already been in business and have some data and sales under your belt, then you’ll want to: 1. Analyze Past Sales Data Review your sales performance over the past year(s) to identify trends, peak seasons, and any growth patterns. This analysis can provide a baseline for setting your future revenue goals. 2. Consider Market Conditions Look at the current market conditions for the jewelry industry, including consumer spending habits, competition, and economic factors that may influence sales. This understanding can help you set more realistic goals. 3. Evaluate Your Business Capacity Consider your business’s capacity for growth. This includes production capabilities, supply chain logistics, customer service, and marketing. Expanding too quickly without the infrastructure to support it can lead to problems. 4. Set SMART Goals Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, instead of saying “increase sales,” a SMART goal would be “increase revenue by 20% in the next 12 months through online sales and expanding our product line.” 5. Account for New Strategies If you plan to introduce new products, enter new markets, or increase marketing efforts, factor these into your revenue goals. These activities can significantly impact your ability to grow sales.

Now that you’ve set your revenue goal – or revisited the one you’ve set for this year, how can you pull your levers? You should know that all the metrics I’m about to mention can be easily found in your Shopify Analytics dashboard and probably in the dashboard of any other ecommerce platform, so you don’t even need to use Google Analytics to get this data. The first metric you’ll need to know is your Average Order Value (AOV), which represents the average amount of money each customer spends per transaction with your business. It’s calculated by dividing the total revenue by the number of orders over a specific period. First of all, I want to pull your average order value for the entire previous calendar year. Ask yourself, is the average order value aligned with your average price point? If it’s less, then you may want to ask some questions about why that might be. If it’s more, then you may want to consider taking advantage of that by offering some higher-ticket items – because it seems like your customers are open to spending Now that you know your average order value, you’ll be dividing your revenue goal by your average order value. Assuming that your average order stays the same this current year, the answer is the number of orders you’ll need to get your revenue goal. As you can imagine, if you can increase your average order value, then you’ll need fewer orders to hit your goal. That’s the beauty of knowing a metric like AOV. You’ll also want to know your Conversion Rate, which measures the percentage of visitors to a website or landing page who take a desired action out of the total number of visitors. In our case, the desired action is to make a purchase. The average conversion rate for luxury and jewelry stores is typically around 1.46%; I’d say anything between 1-2% is good to shoot for if you’re not quite there yet. Make sure you’re looking at your Conversion Rate for the entire previous year to account for seasonal patterns in sales. To know how many Website Visitors you’ll need to achieve the number of orders that will bring you to your sales goal, you need – YES – use some basic algebra and solve for X. X*(Your Conversion Rate)=The Number of Orders. And X should be the number of website visitors you need.

Depending on how happy you are with your Conversion Rate, Average Order Value, and your website traffic, once you see what’s necessary to reach your sales goals, you can pull the lever or levers that will help you move the needle. In next week’s episode, I’ll do a “Part 2” to this episode and talk about tactics for actually improving your Conversion Rate, Average Order Value, and your website traffic. Another thing to think about, even though it doesn’t factor into this formula that I shared is your percentage of returning customers, which also can be found in your Shopify analytics dashboard. Benchmarks vary from company to company, but most ecommerce businesses have 25-30% percent returning customers. If you notice that your returning customer rate is significantly lower than this, I would say this is low-hanging fruit to engage the customers who already know, like, and trust you – this is the most obvious group of people to market to when trying to increase your revenue.

So what did you think about that, I feel like you may need to rewind and re listen to the episode a few times to fully let it sink in. But the main takeaways are that you need to familiarize yourself with your average order value, your conversion rate, your website traffic, and no crystal clear what that revenue goal is, and understand where to find those things and how they all influence and impact each other. I think that’s the main thing I want you to really understand from this episode. And as I mentioned, next week, I’ll get more into the specific tactics for manipulating all of those metrics.

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. Let’s chat about something that might make us squirm a bit – the fact that sometimes, we’ve got to let parts of our business just fall apart. Yes, it’s true! Sometimes we need to let things break in order to build them back up stronger. This should especially hit home for all the creative jewelry entrepreneurs out there who like to keep things fresh, since breaking aspects of your business could also help keep things more interesting and inspiring. If you’ve been cruising on autopilot, not really seeing your business grow or change, and everything’s feeling a bit stale, it’s probably a hint that it’s time to shake things up and let some things crumble. I’ll throw in a personal story to make this more relatable. Last year, the back half was all about hitting pause on my business ideas to dive headfirst into wedding planning for my September nuptials. As some of you may know, wedding planning eats up all your spare creativity and then some. I had to accept that my business would just maintain the status quo until after the wedding and the crazy holiday rush for my clients. But oh boy was I bursting at the seams with ideas and things I wanted to try out. I’m usually amped up at the end of the year, dreaming up goals and changes for the new year. This time around, January felt like a dam had broken – all my pent-up ideas came flooding out. My team’s used to me stirring the pot, but this was a whole new level. I kept a lid on some of the organized chaos because I know our limits, but I definitely nudged us right up to the edge, fully aware that some things were gonna crack. Thankfully, my clients were none the wiser, since we’re pros at keeping the messy bits of change under wraps, but wow, did we hit a learning curve. Adapting to all the new processes I had in mind has been one of the toughest growth spurts for my business. It’s been all about revamping how we handle projects and crafting a “standard operating procedure” for a totally new role. One of my team members hit the nail on the head by saying it feels like we’re “building the plane while we’re flying it.” And yep, it’s been tough, especially on me, because I’ve had to pick up the slack to make sure my team isn’t drowning in work. But here’s the thing that’s kept me going through these growing pains – I believe that letting these parts of my business break is actually going to make us stronger in the long run. Keeping that end goal in sight is what keeps me going, even if it means I’m burning the midnight oil for a bit. Thinking about flipping your business on its head and welcoming change might not sound super appealing, especially with the extra stress and work. But if you’re feeling stuck, unhappy, or you’re just not hitting the marks you’ve set for yourself, a bit of discomfort is part of the deal. No two ways about it! If you’re in the thick of it right now and need someone to talk to, I’m here. Let’s chat it out. What do you think? What have you been wanting to overhaul in your business, but you’re a little bit afraid of that awkward period before things are figured out? Drop me a message via Instagram DM, leave a review on the podcast, or comment on our YouTube channel. I want to hear about it. Let’s have some solidarity.

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