9 marketing tactics for jewellery businesses

The rise of eCommerce has been a game-changer for the jewellery industry, as it has for almost every other industry over the past 15 years. It is vital that small businesses strive to keep up with changing technology and consumer behaviours to remain viable in today’s marketplace.

Consumers are becoming more discerning, knowledgeable and demanding, and as attention spans become ever-shorter, it is more important than ever to adapt when it comes to marketing tactics for luxury jewellery products.

In today’s competitive digital world, jewellery designers and retailers have to compete with all the other luxury goods readily available to consumers online. Retailers now need to pro-actively drive sales by inspiring and engaging potential customers through a wide range of innovative marketing tactics, as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Here are 9 jewellery marketing tactics that should help you to do just that.

1. Blogging

You have a website, right? If the answer is “no”, then you need to do something about that, pronto!

Your website should be your online shop window, but it should also fulfil many other functions, such as: communicating your brand identity; informing and educating visitors / potential customers; inspiring and engaging visitors; and persuading and convincing people to purchase their jewellery from you, rather than a competitor. This is where a blog can be invaluable.

Once your website is up and running with an integrated blog, you will be able to communicate with prospective buyers about a wide range of subjects and issues to do with your business and the jewellery industry.

Your blog should aim to inform, engage and inspire people. For example, you could blog about topical current events, the latest new diamond cuts to come onto the market, or about how lab diamonds are created. The possibilities are endless!

Keep the tone of your blog posts conversational and light. Use your blog to tell the story of your brand and your business, and to educate and entertain your readers.

As well as informational and entertaining topics, you could also post stunning images of some of your most impressive products on your blog – be sure to have these taken by a professional photographer for maximum effect. If you do decide to showcase your products in your blog, it’s wise to try and weave these posts into your narrative as naturally as possible, rather than making them blatantly promotional.

For example, you could incorporate some of your products into a Top 10 list. Say, for instance, that you wish to promote your range of 4-carat diamond rings. You could write a post that rounds up the 10 best 4-carat diamond rings, with impressive images and links to the relevant product pages on your website. Be sure to give reasons for why each product has been chosen for the list so that the reader will feel informed and satisfied that they have learnt something new.

2. Local sponsorship

Local charities

Organise a special event to raise money for your favourite local charity, or offer to sponsor an event they are organising themselves. If you decide to organise an event yourself, then contribute a percentage of the ticket sales to the charity.

Be sure to contact the local media to attend when you hand over the cheque to a representative from the charity. This is all excellent exposure for your brand, and will enhance your reputation in your local community.

Local events

You could offer to sponsor a local event such as a fashion show. You could even offer to loan some of your jewellery for models to wear, in return for a mention in the event programme and having your logo appear in their promotional materials.

Other events you may want to consider sponsoring could include wedding fairs or hair and beauty events.

3. Trade shows

Retailers should attend trade shows, not just to source products, but also to network and strengthen industry relationships. This will demonstrate your commitment as a key player in the jewellery industry.

Building solid relationships with suppliers and vendors can also help to propel you to the “preferred retailers” list, meaning that you will be one of the first to know when opportunities for great buys, limited editions, or promotional giveaways arise.

This will enable you to pass on the benefits to your customers, and will also give you further opportunities to promote these special offers on social media, etc.

4. Social media

It is vital for jewellery designers and retailers to understand that social media literacy is essential for running a successful business in the 21st century. Many retailers and designers find that social media is an instrumental factor in their growth and that sales tend to increase in correlation with their social media followings and their online reputation.

We live in an age where attention spans tend to last no longer than a few seconds, and consumers are driven by and won through, visual stimuli. Jewellery is a perfect product for taking advantage of highly visual social media platforms.

Instagram, in particular, has become a very popular search tool for millennial consumers looking for jewellery. Engage with your followers and potential consumers on Instagram to promote your brand and showcase your products, and take advantage of the many marketing opportunities offered by the platform. Today, partnering with a social media influencer has never been easier or more accessible. Many software companies like Grin, Humanz, and Dovetale launch platforms for influencer relationship management that enable businesses to find and connect with influencers worldwide with little if any hassle. Humanz, for instance, provides a variety of filters that jewellery businesses can use to filter out the right influencers and offer them a collaboration opportunity.

5. Competitions

Competitions run by local newspapers, magazines and radio stations are popular, since they tend to attract a lot of interest from readers and listeners.

Running a competition in association with a local media outlet will greatly increase your brand’s visibility and enhance the reputation of your business, and should help you to attract many more customers into your shop.

Simply decide how much you can afford to give away in prizes, then contact the editor or programmer of your local newspaper or radio station to pitch your competition idea.

Competitions will either fall under the editorial or the advertising department. If your competition is classed as advertising, then you may need to pay something, but high-value prizes can often guarantee very good editorial positions. Don’t be afraid to negotiate; in many cases, this is expected.

You can also run competitions online, through your social media channels. Try running a competition on your most popular social media platform for an attractive piece of jewellery, and make sharing the post (along with a stunning image, of course) a pre-requisite of entering.

This can be a great organic form of brand marketing, attracting more click-throughs to your website and increased visibility online. For even more traction, you may want to run the competition as a paid campaign, either on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

6. Special offers

Special offers can work well, either with local magazines or online as social media campaigns. Try running an offer where the first 10 readers to respond get a discount on a diamond ring, for example.

7. Special events

There are many types of events you could consider organising to promote your jewellery business. Here are just a few ideas.

Diamond exhibition

Why not invite a diamond cutter to come and work in your shop for a week, to demonstrate how diamonds are extracted from rough crystals? You could tie this in with a special exhibition of products featuring the latest diamond cuts.

Talks

Consider contacting local schools and colleges to offer a talk about how diamonds are mined, cut and graded.

You could also invite a fashion expert to your shop, to give a talk about how to use jewellery to create different looks for different occasions.  Or you could invite a local jewellery designer or goldsmith to come and talk about their work, or to explain how lab diamonds are made, for example.

Bridal show

Partner up with a local bridal wear business and organise a wedding-themed evening event for your joint customers. Both of your businesses will benefit from exposure to potential new customers.

8. SEO campaign

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential for any seller who engages in e-commerce. If your business relies heavily on online sales, then driving targeted traffic to your website is paramount.

Most small business owners want to know how to get higher Google rankings for their website, but achieving this is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. Running a targeted SEO campaign involves implementing a range of coordinated measures over time. These can include:

• Adding your business listing to local online directories.
• Claiming your Google My Business and Bing Places listings, and making sure that these are detailed and highly accurate.
• Fully optimising all of the content on your website – this should include carrying out extensive keyword research and incorporating relevant keywords into written copy, meta-titles, meta-descriptions, and images. It should also include optimising for voice search, using long-tail keywords.
• Improving your website’s user experience – making sure your website loads within a couple of seconds, investing in good design; making your site easy to navigate; including clear calls-to-action, etc.
• Optimising technical aspects of your site – for example: implementing schema mark-up; creating a site map; modifying content for viewing on mobile devices; and fixing any 404 error pages on your site.
• Ensuring that you add quality content to your blog, consistently.
• Acquiring backlinks to your site and blog from other reputable, high-quality websites, through guest blogging about issues related to your industry.
• Measuring the effect of all these SEO techniques over time, and adapting your approach accordingly.

9. Google Ads campaign

Also known as PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, Google Ads campaigns can offer small businesses many benefits, the main one being significant increases in traffic to your website. Here are a few more examples of how Google Ads campaigns can play a key part in a wider marketing strategy.

• Your ads can reach customers in real-time, right at the point they are searching for, and are ready to purchase the product you are selling. This can increase your conversion rates significantly.
• You will see faster results with PPC compared with other, organic SEO efforts. As soon as your ads have been approved and go live, they will display at the top of the search engine results for the keywords you are bidding on, with immediate effect.
• You can narrow your reach and target your ads at a specific audience demographic, meaning that your ads will only be seen by those who are most likely to be interested in what you are offering, and those who are most likely to convert.
• The effectiveness of your Google Ads can be easily measured and optimised, with constantly updated metrics and data available at your fingertips at any time of the day or night. You can view the number of clicks, impressions and conversions for any specified time period, which will show you whether your campaign is working well, or whether it needs a rethink. It is also simple to amend campaigns in real time, whenever you need to.
• Google Ads can be used by both large and small businesses, whatever their budget. Business owners are always in control of how much they want to, or don’t want to spend on ads. Ad spend can be limited (to ensure budgets are not exceeded) or increased (when things are going well) for the overall campaign, or for individual keywords and ad groups.
• Google Ads can increase brand awareness and help to establish your brand as an authority within your industry.

There are many different types of campaigns available to choose from in Google Ads. These include retargeting ads, display ads, video ads, shopping ads, to name just a few.

Google Ads offers many more benefits for businesses of all sizes and can play an important role in any digital marketing strategy, so is well worth considering.

Summing up

Hopefully, this article will have given you some fresh ideas to add to your armoury of marketing techniques. In today’s competitive environment, the challenge for jewellery designers and retailers is to keep pace with a fast-changing marketplace, whilst also anticipating future changes in technology, retailing, and consumer behaviour.

As choice increases and quality improves, it is more important than ever to attract potential customers with exciting and powerful messages. Your marketing strategy should evolve,  along with the changes occurring within the industry, society and the marketplace.

Jewellery businesses that are prepared to keep abreast of these changes, and are willing to adapt, innovate, and anticipate what customers want, will retain a distinct advantage over their competitors.