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Welcome to the Joy Joy 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.

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.

This is episode 164, and today I’m going to be explaining why you should consider using YouTube as part of your jewelry marketing strategy and also five tips for doing so effectively. According to recent data, YouTube receives more than 2 billion logged in users per month, and delivers more than 1 billion hours of video each day to users. It can obviously be a challenge to stand out as a jewelry brand with all that video content from a multitude of genres. But if you’re optimizing your videos and being smart and strategic about choosing which content to post, you can attract your target customer through YouTube. YouTube, which you might know you might not know is owned by Google. It’s not only a major search engine in itself, but the company has been taking major strides lately to innovate the platform in an effort to meet demands with how consumers learn about and shop for products like jewelry. A couple of episodes ago I shared a news update from the official YouTube blog about all the new live stream features they’ll be rolling out over the next few months. Keep listening or watching this episode for all the details about how you can potentially utilize YouTube.

But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that I love creating this content as my act of service to you, my awesome listeners. 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 iTunes, which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too.

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 been impressing me with their marketing. The Sparkle Award is also interactive so you can participate as well just visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days. I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode. So this week, I’m highlighting the direct to consumer brand that many of you probably are already familiar with, Mejuri, which sent an email campaign on March 1 with the subject line “What an artist wears every day”. This subject line piqued my interest and curiosity not only because it wasn’t sales or product focused, but because I also personally enjoy art and wanted to see what they meant. I’m also fairly certain that Mejuri knows many of the customers in their target demographic also like and appreciate art. So I’m sure I wasn’t alone in the response and reaction that I had to this subject line.

When I opened the email campaign, I saw a photo of Toronto based artists Jeanine Brito with one of her dream like paintings of a multi layered cake. The photos and gifs in the email were absolutely stunning, showing off the artist in her studio as she creates larger than life pieces. The photos also showed close ups of Jeanine’s hands with of course Mejuri jewelry, which she wears while painting. At the bottom of the email, the subscriber or the person who opened the email has an opportunity to shop some of Jeanine’s favorite Mejuri picks. I love this approach to curating a style guide or other similar piece of content. It can be done in a social media post. In an email marketing campaign. Like the example I just shared in a blog post or really any other form of content. It breaks up the typical messaging and allows for an outside perspective, for a person like Jeanine with whom the target customer might relate. I’ll put a link to the screenshot of this email campaign in the show notes so you can check it out for yourself. As I mentioned, you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, 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 that VIP list, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.

So the first article comes from JCK, and it’s all about the jewelry industry creating celebrations around International Women’s Day. So March, if you didn’t know is National Women’s History Month and in honor of International Women’s Day, which should be just a couple of days after this episode is live. Coming up on Tuesday, March 8, “jewelers throughout the world are putting together events and fundraising campaigns that empower women”. This year’s IWD campaign theme is centered around a world free of bias stereotypes and discrimination. The 2022 hashtags to celebrate this global day, are #IWD2022. And #breakthebias if you also want to incorporate those into your own social media marketing efforts. So what are some ways that the jewelry industry is celebrating International Women’s Day this year? There are a few special events for example, rebel now has an IWD event that they are making a year long campaign that quote brings together leaders in the art fashion and wellness spaces for an afternoon of collaboration and discovery. There’s also a number of fundraising opportunities. Gorjana is an example of a brand doing that they are doing capsule collections to raise money for certain organizations. There’s a lot of exciting stuff happening to draw attention to this important day and also the month long event of the Women’s History Month. Does your brand have anything special planned for International Women’s Day? I would love to know about it reach out to me and let me know next is an article from morning brew with the title why some wearable makers are looking beyond the wrist.

So I want to share this article because I really want to encourage leaders in the jewelry industry to be thinking ahead, thinking forward. Sometimes I find there’s like an attitude of slow to adapt in this industry. And I would love to be an advocate of changing that. So wearables mainly we’re talking about watches like the Apple Watch and wristbands, things that track your sleep other behaviors during the day. And digital health tracking in general, have of course been popular since the early 2010s. More and more companies are experimenting with wearable devices beyond just the wrist, you can gather the same metrics tracked from wrist wearables on other parts of the body where you might wear other types of jewelry like necklaces or rings. One example is Whooped Body which is a fitness clothing line with compressive compression shorts and sports bras that have a fitness tracker within them to monitor heart rate and variance. So I’m just bringing up that example because I think there are so many opportunities for jewelry brands to think beyond adornment and to maybe have a functional element because that is what consumers are craving today. They want this multi-layered experience from the material goods that they purchase. So experimenting with other wearable product designs can even cross over to jewelry as I mentioned rings, even earrings and necklaces.

And finally this comes from Fortune.com. In a recent episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, Gina Drosos. The current CEO of Signet Jewelers shares some insights into how she keeps her employees and customers engaged. Business has been booming for Signet, and Drosos states that while they were behind in E commerce, they really started transforming the company when the COVID pandemic hit. When she became CEO, the company really leaned into a cultural and strategic transformation. So one quote is that she went on a listening tour where she did focus groups with the employees throughout the world and asked them what was great about the company and what wasn’t great to really get a better understanding of what the company can be doing differently and how they can improve. So what she got from that is emphasizing a connected journey where customers can connect, both in store and online. People are always looking for advice when it comes to purchasing jewelry. So what Signet has focused on is providing some sort of consultation or education along with visualizing how the piece will look. They really focused on merging this consultation and visualization process both online and in person. So customers can shop wherever and however they want. And that is the ultimate benefit of the omni channel experience. Signet is really focusing on customer convenience by enhancing all their storefront experiences. And the main idea, the main takeaway of this is that they’re not just focusing on one or the other, so ecommerce versus the physical storefront. But instead, they are combining these two things to really optimize their overall store footprint.

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

Without further delay, let’s talk about using YouTube as part of your jewelry marketing strategy. And as always, I need to put a disclaimer on this that just because I recommend something doesn’t mean it’s automatically right for your jewelry brand, or even your competitor or any other jewelry brand. You really have to know your customer, and then make decisions based on who your customer is, where they spend time, and what they want. So take this advice with a grain of salt. But it’s always good to consider new ways to market your jewelry brand and to see if these things can potentially fit into your marketing strategy.

So as I mentioned in the intro, YouTube receives more than 2 billion logged-in users per month, and delivers more than 1 billion hours of video each day to users. Just try to wrap your head around that. It’s definitely considered a powerful search engine, and can help you be more visible in Google search engine results since Google, of course, displays YouTube search results for regular searches. And also if you’ve ever searched anything on Google, everyone, there’s a tab at the top where you can filter your search results by video. So video can definitely help you get seen. But in order to be successful with YouTube, you need to understand first why people watch YouTube content and what they’re hoping to get out of it. The top two reasons that people consume YouTube videos are one because they want to be educated. And two, because they want to be entertained. You may even want to consider your own YouTube watching habits if you spend any amount of time on YouTube. I know personally, that I frequently check out YouTube to learn about how I can bake better bagels. And also so I can drop my jaw while watching tours of ridiculously expensive houses that I don’t understand how anyone can afford. For me that first example with the bagels falls into education. While the second example with the expensive houses is entertainment for me. So those two reasons, definitely check out at least for me, probably for you to jewelry brands today have so many opportunities to both educate and entertain their customers. And those are two things that consumers are already craving.

Think about your average customer, someone who’s maybe not already a regular jewelry purchaser. But this person is potentially interested in buying a gift for a loved one. Or maybe they’re ready to build their jewelry wardrobe for the first time. Now that they have advanced in their career. Maybe they have a little bit more disposable income. Maybe they understand how jewelry can help them improve their professional appearance, and they really want to take the time to invest in that the same way they might a professional clothing wardrobe. This person likely doesn’t know very much about things like the four C’s. The difference in gold carats and the intricacies of responsible color gemstones sourcing. All these things that you as someone in industry probably take for granted because you’re so intimately familiar with them. There are so many opportunities for education in the jewelry industry. And that informative content can all be presented in a video format if you are creative and strategic about it. When it comes to the entertainment side of things, consumers are craving that too, even from jewelry brands like yours. Don’t believe me if you haven’t already listened to my previous episode number 163. For all the ins and outs of having fun and being entertaining as a jewelry brand, and why that really matters to today’s shoppers. Consumers want to be entertained by things like styling videos, collaborations with influencers introduced to your behind the scenes content, etc. They want to watch your live streams, not just because it’s informative, and because it will help them through their shopping journey. But because hopefully, if it’s done right, it’s fun. Have you ever watched QVC for fun? Is that just me? Can anyone else relate?

Anyway, when I searched for the very broad keyword jewelry, on YouTube as a little case study here, and then sorted by videos with the top views. These are some of the relevant topic categories that I found. Behind the scenes video of the making of a pair of 24 karat gold earrings. One jeweler shared the most valuable piece that he ever designed. There were tips about accessorizing in an on trend way and one of my personal favorite more entertaining ones was from the GQ YouTube channel about a jewelry expert who critiques rappers, grills, all the finer points of that I personally liked that one. So even if you just focus on educating and entertaining your target customers with your YouTube videos, you will be golden.

I want to share my five tips for filling your YouTube channel with valuable content. Number one, expand upon the video content you’re already making for social media and then republish it to YouTube with more detailed descriptions and links to relevant pages on your website. Because one of the beautiful things about YouTube is they give you a pretty hefty space to write a caption and allow you to post links in that caption which as we all know you can’t do on Instagram. If you’re doing social media, quote unquote, the right way, then you’re already likely posting a lot of video content. Have you made an Instagram reel? Or do you use TikTok and make videos for TikTok? Do some of those videos really resonate and go viral with your followers or maybe just get really excellent responses and engagement? You can repurpose that content and upload it to YouTube, which YouTube is really realizing lately with the rise in popularity of things like TikTok the value of short form content. And they’re experimenting with features like Shorts, which is YouTube’s version of short form content. So there are definitely opportunities for you to post shorter videos on YouTube as well. Or you can take the same concept that may be worked for a short Reel or TikTok piece of content. And because you’ve already proven it with your followers, maybe build on it, elaborate it and create a longer video based on that same content. You already have the story and concept outlined. Now just expand upon it and use it as YouTube content.

Tip number two, make videos out of your FAQs. If you’ve been running your business for any period of time, you know the questions that you commonly get from your customers. And maybe you’re kind of tired of answering them over and over, make a YouTube video for each one and then host them even in the FAQ section of your website. That way you can send a customer a video before you even get the question that you might be anticipating from them. Even better, this can help you reduce your product return rate. For example, if you sell a bracelet that you know is kind of tricky to put on or maybe has some kind of mechanism that your customer might not be familiar with. And you already know for some reason that your that some of your customers don’t get it and that increases your return rate. With the thank you for your purchase email, you can send them a video that explains how to use the clasp or whatever, before the customer even has trouble using it. Imagine how amazing that would be in reducing your customer service load and even your product return rate.

Number three, product comparison videos. One of the biggest challenges that consumers face when they are shopping online especially, is deciding between one product and another, especially when size is involved in the picture. So let’s say you have a product and there’s a small and large version of it like different scale in size. I see this a lot with jewelry brands, or you have different color ways of the same style, or there’s some other variation between one and the other. Doing product comparison videos is a great way to help your customers choose what will work best for them. And again, also help you avoid returns and exchanges in the future.

Number four, meet the team and let your employees shine. Jewelry feels so much more special when the consumer can remember and realize that it’s made by actual real people. You can use videos to spotlight your team members, and to showcase what each person does behind the scenes. Not only is this potentially a great way to entertain and enlighten your customers, but it can also be a really fun way to boost employee morale and help you expand upon your company culture. Many people just love talking about what they do. They light up and they shine when they can share their passion their life’s work with others. And that is such a wonderful thing to showcase through video.

Number five, chime in on a trending topic. For example, if there’s an awards show with a jewelry heavy red carpet, maybe you can make a video explaining how you would have styled celebrities with your jewelry. Or you can offer commentary on the looks that were on display on that red carpet. Get creative. You can do this with so many different types of trending topics. It doesn’t even have to be fashion or style related. I would encourage you to experiment and have fun and try to be in the overall conversation of what is happening in culture. Find a way to fit into that because people will respond more readily to that and it will also help you be more searchable on YouTube and beyond.

What do you think about all this? Are you ready to incorporate YouTube into your jewelry marketing strategy? 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 iTunes 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