5 Tips for Using Trends in Jewelry Marketing

Laryssa Wirstiuk
Welcome to the Joy Joya podcast, where jewelry is joy and everyone is encouraged to polish and sparkle 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.

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 excited to share my passion with you. As we all know, jewelry is a joy, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

This is episode 174 and today I’m going to chat about how you can make trends work for your brand even if you’re not a trend driven business. I’ve been thinking a lot about trends lately. If you listen to episode 169, my interview with Sophie Simon, you remember that she mentioned some of the downsides of trends. For example, if a certain color gemstone is trending, it could potentially hurt the mining industry, and overstretched demand, putting pressure on miners to deliver. Coming back from conclave a few weeks ago, I was also thinking about trends because of a trend specific panel I attended, more on that in a few moments. But here’s the thing about trends. Not every jewelry brand is necessarily trend-driven. So how can you find value in trends and incorporate them into your marketing and merchandising responsibly and strategically? Keep listening or watching for all the details.

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 active service to you, my awesome listeners and viewers. You can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe but also to leave a rating and review on iTunes.

I have a special request because when this episode comes out, it’s my birthday. I would love the best birthday gift that you can give me is to leave a review on iTunes or even just comment on this video on YouTube. I love getting feedback. It makes me feel so happy and feel like my content is valuable to you. So, give me a birthday gift guys.

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 its 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 “Marla Aaron”. I read an article about the brand on today.com about how the designer hosted a Mother’s Day celebration for single moms to make them feel seen. She never forgot the loneliness of what it’s like to be a single parent. She decided to host a Mother’s Day luncheon for homeless single moms affiliated with ‘Henry Street settlement’ and nonprofit social services agency in New York City’s Lower East Side where Aaron’s son took piano lessons as a child. On Saturday, May 7, 60 women from Henry Street and its various shelters gathered at the Center for a catered brunch with all the fixings and a flower market that allowed them to create customized bouquets. Meanwhile, their combined 50 children were supervised by Henry Street staff while they decorate vases for their moms to play games and eat pizza. About 80% of the women who attended this luncheon are homeless. The women also left the brunch with Marla Aaron’s lock your mom jewelry. This is a Mother’s Day initiative that she started in 2016 to recognize single moms through the Marla Aaron. Anyone can nominate a single mom to receive a free sterling silver lock engraved with an exclamation point which she has deemed a symbol of the power of mothers. Talk about tying your brand’s story to a purpose. I love this and find it super inspirational.

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.

Let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles and you can get those links by visiting JoyJoya.com/sign up. Once you’re on the VIP list, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.

So, the first article comes from variety.com. It’s called “user-generated content represents 39% of time spent with media”. According to a new study from the “Consumer Technology Association”, Americans spend nearly as much time streaming user-generated videos on YouTube, TikTok and other platforms as they do when watching traditional TV. This survey is based on self-reported data. When we talk about user-generated content, that means content, not from brands but can be influencers and social media creators. This survey says that user-generated content accounts for 39% of weekly media hours consumed by Americans versus 61% for traditional media. When it comes to Americans 13 years and older, watching traditional TV content had just an 18% share of weekly time spent with media compared with 16% for user-generated content videos. This just goes to show that there’s an opportunity for brands to partner with influencers and brand ambassadors, and other content creators to help them create powerful content because that is what viewers and users of these social platforms respond to the most. They see it as entertainment and engaging and there’s great potential.

The second article comes from the national jeweler, and its five retail trends to watch from the conclave. It ties into this episode too, since we’re talking about trends, so definitely buy now pay later or BNPL is something that jewelers should be considering. It allows customers’ dream pieces to be more accessible because they can pay for those dream pieces with an installment plan. And some of those popular financing platforms are Klarna, Affirme, Afterpay, and Sezzle.

The second trend is “slow jewelry”. Transparency and sustainability are among the top values that consumers are looking for when they’re shopping around. Sharing the process of how you make jewelry from start to finish is a way to let your consumers understand the quality and power of fine jewelry. People want their jewelry to last a lifetime and they don’t want something that will quickly go out of style.

Number three, this one’s funny, kidcore and grandmacore are two popular trends. That’s referring to beaded jewelry that children wear as also more of a grandma. Maybe in the past it was considered a little bit tacky and old style but it’s very popular right now. Purple is also a trending color. It was at the Tucson gems show. Some trending ring styles include oval and Marquise shaped diamonds along with skinny bands and also American gemstones and jewelry are becoming popular partly due to supply chain issues.

The number four trend at conclave is the luxury experience, customers are ready to celebrate again, and they’re still looking for a luxury customer experience. So, creating experiences for your customers is essential. And then finally from my talk at conclave live stream shopping, today’s consumers are looking for digital innovation. They want to be entertained and have a fun and seamless shopping experience. If you want to learn more about that, listen to episode 172. I did another episode about that.

The last article comes from New York Times, it’s called “rings fit for all fingers”. We all have insecurities and for some people, one of those is hand and ring sizes. When it comes to jewelry frustration, some consumers have mentioned that they’re struggling to find rings that fit their fingers. The article says, “the average US Women’s ring size is somewhere between a six and a seven. The industry-standard sample size ring is 6.5. The most commonly stocked women’s size five to eight, follow the supply and demand business model accordingly”. Fingers come in all shapes and sizes, so consumers are pushing for more inclusivity in ring sizing and some jewelry brands are beginning to catch up. This article highlighted ‘atomic gold’, ‘portray’ and ‘learn Shawn tour’. I was recently at a women’s jewelry Association mixer. And I was chatting with prep la President Lauren McCauley about how jewelry brands that she works with are starting to be more inclusive in their sizing and partnering with influencers who push that size inclusivity and how it’s launched for them because honestly, not a lot of brands are doing this. So, if you can differentiate yourself with more inclusive sizing, it could be a selling point for your rings.

As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting joyjoya.com/signup.

Let’s talk about trends and how you can make them relevant for your business. As I mentioned in the intro to this episode, in episode 169, I had an interview with Sophie Simon and we talked about trends and how they can sometimes be detrimental to the jewelry industry. She said, “trends are not a good thing for the gemstone market and for the people finding the gemstones because there is a lot of pressure. When trends appear, basically all the consumers go for those gemstones and put a lot of pressure on the miners and the market. So, trends are a bad thing.” Before speaking to Sophie, I had never thought about this before but I can see how it could be an issue for gemstone mining in particular.

So how can you leverage trends responsibly and also adapt them to your business even if you’re not necessarily trend-driven in your merchandising? I’m going to share five tips.

Number one, ‘create social media posts around trends’. One of the most fun things about social media, in my opinion, is the fast pace at which it moves, as well as the sense of community there. It’s one of the only places these days where we see cultural phenomena, way back in the day before streaming platforms, there were only a few television channels. It felt like everyone would be watching the same thing and talking about it. But that doesn’t happen anymore because there’s so much choice out there for people. However, on social media, if you’re a heavy user of social media, you’ll see trends. Those come in the form of memes, trending music and themes. If memes aren’t your thing for your brand. I know that doesn’t work for every type of brand. You can also do this by participating in national days or social media holidays, you can go to nationaldaycalendar.com for a list of those. For example, when this episode is released, May 16 is the national piercing day, which can be a good way to participate and you could call it a trend. It’s something that a lot of people will be participating in.

Tip number two is ‘merchandise what you already have in your inventory around trends instead of buying new inventory’. For example, I have one client that I’m working with right now, they have many green gemstone pieces already in stock. It happens that green, especially lime green, is a trending color right now for summer. So, they may not have emeralds for May’s birthstone but they have a plethora of other beautiful green gems that are more affordable than emeralds and still very beautiful. So, we just pulled all those pieces together into a new Shopify collection. We’re doing some email and social campaigns around it and ‘wallah’ something old is new again.

Tip number three is ‘do a lifestyle shoot around fashion trends’. This requires you to buy no new inventory. So let me give you an example, this summer the following things are trending, the color yellow, white suiting and polka dot patterns just to name a few off the top of my head. I’m sure with these three trends any jewelry brand in the world can somehow style a look incorporating one or more of these trends in apparel, throw it all on a beautiful model and then there you go. Suddenly your jewelry is very on-trend.

Tip number four, ‘pay attention to trends in consumer behavior and expectations. For example, today’s customers are getting more accustomed to the live stream shopping experience, which allows them to have the best in-store shopping experience in the comfort of their homes. While they’re wearing pajamas, sipping on a glass of wine or their favorite beverage. You can listen to episode 172 for more on the other trends this year in customer experience. Augmented reality tries on Tools and then always looking for new ways to be able to speak to and communicate with customers like live chat texting, DMs, etc.

Tip number five, ‘trends in live events. I was inspired by an article I read this morning in JCK about Hamilton jewelers. This is a jewelry store based in Princeton, New Jersey that held a live trunk show event in April to highlight their favorite designers including apologia and Roberto coin. They went above and beyond for this trunk show, installing a dazzling floral arch on the store’s exterior and inviting three local social media influencers/fashion bloggers. The ideas for the details in this event came from trends in the event industry, the floral arch would make an amazing Instagram ready statement and invite people to take selfies in front of it. Russell, Executive Vice President of Hamilton jewelers, said, “her ideas came from New York’s lavish holiday displays and her time in Palm Beach, Florida for special events such as the Natural diamond Council’s launch of its book diamond stories”. If you host live events or if you don’t and you want to, you can check out what’s trending in events by checking out an event industry publication, Bizbash.

What do you think? Are you looking for ways to incorporate trends into your merchandising and marketing? You can always email me at Laryssa at Joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please subscribe and share it with a friend who would appreciate it and don’t forget to check out my book “jewelry marketing joy”, which you can find on Amazon or at JoyJoya.com/book. Thanks for listening and 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.