A promotion is a good way to generate some fresh buzz for your jewelry store; but as is the case with any sales or marketing-driven endeavor, the execution is paramount. Half-measures and missteps can cost you valuable sales and undermine the entire promotion.
In this article, along with giving you some quick ideas on potential promotions you could run, I will outline some common pitfalls so that you can navigate your promotional efforts around them.
• Ideas
◦ Engagement promotions
◦ Valentine’s Day and anniversaries
◦ Promotions to help move higher-priced items
◦ Contests
• Pitfalls / what to be mindful of
◦ Budget
◦ Your audience
◦ Tone
Ideas
When it comes to jewelry store promotions, there are plenty of great ideas out there worth considering.
As we specialize in travel incentives here at Odenza, these will be the primary giveaway examples we’ll use; but remember that no matter what you’re offering, you can work many offers into a range of promotional themes.
Engagement promotions
Engagements and jewelry go hand-in-hand, and as a huge milestone in anyone’s life it’s the perfect opportunity to give customers a reason to buy their engagement ring from your store.
As I touched on in a previous article about marketing your jewelry store, an engagement-themed offer is a great way to close sales – especially if the offer is something that will help your customers with their wedding, honeymoon, or future lives together.
That’s why previous and current jewelry clients of ours have utilized travel incentives such as a cruise for two or trip to Vegas as a way of saying, “Buy your engagement ring from us, and we’ll give you the perfect getaway for your Honeymoon.”
Valentine’s Day and/or anniversaries
In a similar vein, you can theme promotions around other romantic occasions such as Valentine’s Day or customers’ anniversaries. These could be “buy and receive” promotions or “buy and be entered into the draw to win a romantic trip for two” promotions.
Promotions to help you move higher-priced items
Have specific, more expensive jewelry you need to move? Promotions can really help. When you run a promotion and put these items in front of more eyes, you have a better chance of finding that customer (or customers) who is interested and has the necessary finances to spend.
A promotion, such as a trip or major event ticket, can help you upsell more effectively. A customer with the money to do so may still be hesitant to make a $3,000 purchase at your store without some extra push. After all, they’re spending big on you – so you should want to offer something to them as a thank you.
Contests
Remember that not every promotion has to outright require a purchase. Why not run a contest instead, be it online or in-store?
For example, every person who comes into your store can fill out an entry form to win cash, in-store credit, a fine piece of jewelry, a cruise, etc. All they have to do is provide their name, email, and phone number.
By doing so, you capture leads and prospective future customers. As long as the contest is fun to partake in and the prize(s) is worth it, then you’re going to have a wealth of people who build a positive association between your store and themselves.
Just remember, as I’ve noted in the past, the more required of the customer to enter the contest, the higher value the prize should be.
Pitfalls
Whenever you run a promotion for your store, there are always going to be potential pitfalls. Whether it’s the budgeting, getting the tone of the promotion wrong, or targeting the wrong audience, the best strategy is to ensure you put the right amount of time into research.
Budget
You should always overbudget rather than underbudget. Under-budgeting, for clear reasons, can be problematic to how effectively (and for how long) you run your promotion and can put you in financial strife.
When talking about overbudgeting, I DO NOT mean investing more money than you can afford. Rather, if you have $6,000 to spend on marketing and advertising for a promotion, then create a framework for a budget of $5,000 and have $1,000 in reserve for contingencies.
If you simply used the entire $6,000 and had no additional buffer, then that would be underbudgeting.
When determining where the money will go, you likely have some clear numbers for the costs of physical collateral such as posters, flyers, and shop displays; but digital can vary across platforms.
These variations are minimal, but keep in mind that if you set a limit of $50 on Facebook ads, for example, the final cost could end up being a few cents or dollars over that amount (based on the costs per click or impressions).
If you’ve already spent $49 but another click may cost $1.59, then chances are Facebook will let that click occur before the ad is then paused according to your budgetary limits.
It’s a minor discrepancy in and of itself, but if you have multiple ads and boosted posts running on several social platforms, as well as search ads, this could tally to amounts that are a few dollars or more over your set digital limits.
Your audience
If the main platform of exposure for your promotion is digital, then you have a little more freedom to experiment with the audience you want to reach. After all, social networks and search engines offer a plethora of targeting options; all of which can be customized at any time if you feel your ads aren’t garnering the results you desired.
However, if you will also be implementing traditional channels into your promotion – print ads, mailouts, radio, TV, etc. – then you need to know the exact audience you want to reach. Because pulling and editing radio, TV, or print ads is a lot more involved and cumbersome than with digital ads.
Research, research, and research some more!
Who is your current demographic? Who make up the demographics you want to reach? How will you best craft your ads and promos to appeal to these demographics, and which platforms are the best for reaching them? These questions matter because you need to invest wisely.
Want to reach millennials? Then go online. Consider Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat over Twitter and LinkedIn.
What about older users such as baby boomers and even earlier generation X’s? Radio, TV, and print can be better platforms for them; but social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook also command a respectable chunk of older users.
Tone
Tone is important in promotions. Depending on your audience, your tone (voice) could and should vary.
For example, if you’re running a promotion focused on couples who are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversaries (a silver jubilee), then your wording and tone would be different than a promotion aimed at couples who could be close to an engagement.
People at different stages of their lives – personally, professionally, romantically – view the world differently, and the tone of your promotion needs to reflect that. Other factors, such as age, location, profession, and income can all play a role in determining the tone you should use.
Get in touch
I hope the information provided in this article has helped you think up some new ideas for how you can promote your jewelry store and its products. If there are any promotions you’ve run in the past that you have found to be particularly effective, we’d love to know about them in the comments below.
Want to learn more about travel incentives and how they can be used in jewelry promotions and contests? You can reach out to us by calling 1-866-883-2968 or by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
