This time of year, I hear from many jewelers who want to talk about how to hit their goals for 2024. It’s even more interesting this year, given how last year ended up going. Many jewelers reported having down years. Meanwhile, others held steady or even grew.
These differences didn’t happen because of random chance. There’s a specific reason these businesses succeeded while others didn’t: they focused on their marketing. There are plenty of ways to do this, but we’re going to share three surefire tips that we know get results for jewelers.
#1 – Build Your Audience Throughout the Year
You may have heard this advice before, but do you really understand WHY it’s so important?
The reality is the majority of sales, especially from big events during the holiday season, come from what we call your “warm” audiences. Warm audiences are your past clients, email lists, social followers, and website visitors – people who know your brand and have already bought from you.
This past year, we ran a Black Friday promo for one of our clients. Their business sold around $20k in products on an ad spend of $2500.
Seems like great numbers, right?
But if you break them down, you’ll find that nearly $17k of the sales came from their warm audiences. Only $3k came from non-connected customers.
These results are typical of many campaigns we run. Don’t rely on one-time buyers for your revenue, warm audiences are what produce big results.
Lesson learned: If you want a massive return on ad spend, build your audience throughout the year.
#2 – Train Your Warm Audiences
As much as people crave surprises, customers like to know what to expect. If your brand has an annual sale or event like Black Friday, you’ll want to keep things consistent, and it’s likely your customers will buy every year.
On the flip side, here’s something interesting: our best clients never run sales. They run special events, but they never have sales or even discounts on their products. Yet they manage to sell big numbers.
It may seem counterintuitive, but what this strategy does is train their client base to not expect or wait for a sale during the year. Instead, they emphasize their competitive pricing positioning at all times.
Then, during peak times like the holiday season or Valentine’s Day, they offer things like new merchandise or customized shopping experiences. They know their warm audience, so they’re able to offer things that have big value to those audiences, much more so than a discount.
Since people who follow their brand aren’t expecting a discount, it doesn’t influence their buying decision. And the client protects their profit margins by not discounting in the first place.
Lesson learned: Train your audience to not expect sales. Instead, offer specialized events and products during peak seasons.
#3 – Don’t Get Overly Focused on Channel Attribution
While everyone wants to know what their best-performing marketing channels are, I caution you not to get hung up on the ROI from any one channel. Instead, keep a close eye on the bottom line.
Today’s marketing attribution models are flawed despite all the advances in technology. Plus, the iOS and privacy laws have made direct channel attribution even trickier. Throw in branded advertising like radio or TV, and it’s anyone’s guess which marketing channel gets credit for store traffic or sales.
Take, for example, the client I mentioned earlier – the one who ran the Black Friday promo. $2,500 was spent on social media ads. The direct, attributable sales of $20,000 were from Facebook and Instagram.
However, the client recorded $120,000 in total sales over the weekend.
The client used a mix of tactics, including organic social media, emphasizing the special offer on their website, and email marketing. But can we be 100% sure that only $20k of their $120k haul came from the social ads? We don’t think so.
Watch the bottom-line numbers to evaluate how your campaigns are performing. You’ll be glad you did.
Lesson learned: Don’t get hung up on one advertising channel. Instead, focus on your bottom line.
Summary
Many jewelers watch their competitors run sales during the holidays, and they can’t help but wonder if those campaigns are working better than theirs. Don’t take the bait.
Focus on building your list throughout the year, train your audience on what they can expect, and deliver value to them throughout the year. Then, you’ll be ready for the big times of the year and have a stable audience you can rely on. And when the time comes to look at the numbers, don’t get too focused on which reports show the best numbers. Stay focused on the bottom line.
Source: https://southernjewelrynews.com/columnists/jewelry-marketing-lessons-for-growth-in-2023/
