How did 2017 go for your jewelry store? Whether or not you’re personally a fan of New Year resolutions, each new year is an opportunity for businesses to reflect upon the highs and lows of the past year and find ways to make the highs ever higher and improve upon the lows.
Every jewelry store is unique, so this blog’s aim isn’t some kind of magical one-size-fits-all marketing solution. Instead, I will be providing you with ideas of how you can leverage different strategies – and hopefully at least one of these could resolve one of the lows you’ve experienced in the past.
Here are the jewelry marketing ideas and factors I will be covering:
• Giving customers a reason to make larger purchases
◦ Tier-based incentive rewards
• Utilizing romance
◦ Standing out at bridal shows and trade shows
• Customer appreciation and driving loyalty
• Improving your digital marketing strategy
Incentivizing Customers to Purchase Higher-Ticket Items
Incentives are what we specialize in here at Odenza, and 20 years of working with jewelers throughout North America has shown us just how effective incentives can be. Now, whether you choose to opt for travel incentives such as those we offer or create an incentive package yourself, a fundamental key to success is in the execution.
First of all, you want to be sure that the incentive will actually excite people. If you stack an incentive of $50 bonus credit up against an incentive that gives someone a cruise for two through the Bahamas, you can expect that the cruise is going to drive more interest.
The basic rule is often the bigger the incentive, the more effective it will be. That said, you also need to account for the residual or emotional effects an incentive has on someone. Even though money is a common go-to incentive, that offer more or less presents itself as a discount. The customer isn’t getting $50 bonus credit – you’re just taking $50 off their current purchase.
Compare that to a luxurious cruise for two that, in the customer’s eyes, is worth thousands of dollars. You can see how the cruise will have a stronger emotional effect on your customers. $50 won’t create memories, but a cruise will – and they’re memories that could last a lifetime.
Consider Tier-Based Incentives
Incentives don’t need to be an either/or scenario. It’s not as though you can’t have a $50 credit incentive if you’re offering a cruise incentive. Instead, consider priced tiers. In other words, the more they spend, the better the incentive reward is.
Start with the $50 bonus credit/cashback for purchases of $500, two tickets to an event (e.g. sporting event or concert) for $1,000, a trip for two to Vegas for purchases of $1,500, a cruise for two for purchases of $2,000 or more, and so on. You get the idea, no doubt.
In the following sections, I will be focusing more so on the specifics of emotion, events, and digital marketing. However, if you want to read more on how you can use incentives for a promotion or as a closing tool, check out our Jewelry industry page here.
In the Name of Love
If there’s one emotion that jewelry has become synonymous with, it’s love. Whether it’s an anniversary or Valentine’s Day gift, an engagement ring or a wedding ring, people can make some of their biggest jewelry purchases for the person they love.
So it goes without saying that leveraging this emotional link is a powerful way of driving sales. Now and in the past, jewelry clients have often used our travel incentives in themed promotions centered around Valentine’s Day, engagements, and weddings.
It is important, however, to approach this link with proper consideration. You don’t want to exploit love for sales, but rather use it as a driving force. For example, you can offer a couple who are looking at getting their wedding rings a cruise or a trip to Vegas for their honeymoon.
Bridal Shows
Continuing on with the theme of love and romance in general, bridal shows are great events for any jeweler to showcase their products. Along with bridal shows, there are also the more industry-focused trade shows, which are another avenue to keep in mind.
A common challenge of any bridal or trade show is that you’ll be there among many competitors – direct and indirect. This means that standing out is all the more important. You need to get more eyes on your stall versus the jeweler just across the showroom floor; but how do you do that? Consider the following points:
• Make sure your signage pops: an obvious point, but make sure you’ve put some solid effort into your signage so that it has been designed to catch people’s eyes
• Promote your presence to current and prospective customers: send out emails, promote posts on social media, send out direct mail to your local area – build some buzz and tell consumers why they should be excited
• Offer something the others aren’t: again, an incentive or some kind of prize can be a great way to turn heads. Other showroom exhibitors offering gift cards? Then offer a lucky winner a trip to Vegas or a 7-day resort stay
Customer Appreciation
Showing your customers you appreciate their patronage is essential to maintaining loyalty. While there are myriad loyalty programs out there, a great option for jewelers with regular customers who buy big is to hold a customer appreciation event.
Given your best customers likely spend a good amount of money on your business, you should do the same for them. By no means are you forking over thousands of dollars to run such an event, but a couple of bottles of bubbly and cheese platters wouldn’t go astray.
An event of this nature is simple. Invite your best customers to a private event at your store, sit down with them, discuss the jewelry and products, offer them unique specials, and show them that you appreciate their loyalty. Too often, businesses feel like nothing more than faceless corporations.
Having a customer appreciation event where you sit down one-on-one and get to know your customers will show them you care. Offering them unique specials or rewards for their loyalty will only further solidify the respect and love they have for your business as a whole – and it is always important to have customers in your corner.
Develop a Strong Online Presence
Finally, let’s touch on digital marketing for a bit.
Recent research conducted by Synchrony Financial, which was shared via a Jewelers of America webinar, found that 75% of customers start their jewelry product research online, which is then followed by 59% committing to further research in-store. Once the funnel of product research is completed, 92% of all prospective customers purchase in-store.
While the majority of purchases still happen within your store, you can’t ignore that 3/4 of all customers start online. The top two resources are through the retailer’s website and search results. So, in other words, both your website and your search engine optimization efforts need to be a priority.
Remember that search results are more than just your website being displayed – your social accounts, average customer review rating through Google, contact information, and location can all show up.
If you want to succeed and heighten your marketing efforts, you need to invest in online. If it isn’t already, ensure your website is responsively designed (e.g. scales according to the device someone is viewing your site on), invest more in social media, continue with email marketing, optimize your website so it’s more searchable, etc.
Each step does require genuine effort, but as long as you just get started somewhere, it’ll be better than avoiding it entirely. I’ve included some links below that you can refer to for some inspiration on how you can get started in improving your online presence – especially on the social media front.
• Boosting Facebook Posts: The Fundamentals
• Panasonic & Spider-Man: a Digital Marketing Success Story
• What is a Facebook Like Actually Worth to Your Business?
One final note; keep in mind the rise of smart home speakers. These include the likes of Amazon Echo and Google Home. With Google Home, for example, estimates show that the company had sold approximately 7.5 million Google Homes between October 19, 2017 and January 5, 2018 – equal to almost one Google Home sold every single second.
With technologies such as these, there’s an even higher likelihood of people asking questions such as, “What jewelry stores are near me?”
Start Somewhere
I know that this blog has covered a number of areas, and chances are you may already be excelling in some of them. Maybe you run seasonal specials or customer appreciation events, or perhaps you’re absolutely nailing your digital presence. But being a master of one area, as you know, is never a guarantee of success.
At Odenza, we firmly believe in ensuring all aspects of your sales and marketing efforts are implemented in harmony with one another. This doesn’t just apply to the use of incentives, but for any campaign or strategy you decide to invest in.
It’s perfectly fine to improvise a little when you’re just testing the waters of a potential marketing channel; but if you decide to fully invest in that channel for the future, map out a comprehensive strategy complete with contingency plans.
If you’re interested in learning about how travel incentives can be used in a one-off or long-term marketing effort, be sure to reach out to us. You can call us at 1-866-883-2968, fill out the form below, or visit our contact page.
