3 Misunderstood Facts About Online Jewelry Marketing

by Charles Pobee-Mensah, Director of Digital Marketing

Marketing your jewelry business online may work differently from what you imagine. Here are three important, yet commonly misunderstood facts you need to know:

1. Online Isn’t All That Different from Traditional

You may hear a lot about tracking, conversion rates, and “big data” when it comes to online marketing. The impression you may have is that online marketing is a simple equation. After all, if you can double your money on your online ads, it’s an easy decision.

But in the jewelry industry, online marketing isn’t all that different from traditional. This is because of the nature of fine jewelry. Customers want to see and be sold to in-store.

For example, online giant Amazon knows what you bought and how to make that happen faster and more often because the sale happens online. Take that same customer to a brick and mortar store and digital marketing starts to look a lot more like traditional. You can tell that a lot of people saw your ad, but you don’t know for sure which ones bought.

Online marketing can be targeted and measurable, compared to traditional marketing, but it is ultimately a branding and messaging tool which is very similar.

2. Online Marketing Is the Fuel (Not the Fire)

There is a great saying that goes, “Great marketing will make a bad product fail faster”. In the jewelry industry, your product is your service. As a jeweler, your marketing depends on it.

The great experience that you deliver in-store serves as the basis for your marketing message. It also becomes confirmation to the customer that everything they’ve heard was true. It’s up to the jeweler to light and keep a warm “fire”. Once lit, online marketing can spread the message faster and further than any other medium ever before.

3. You Win When They Search for You

Being discovered is quite possibly the single greatest thing that a jewelry retailer thinks they want. If only you could get more clicks. More eyeballs. If only you could show up #1 on Google. Then making sales would be easy.

In a recent podcast episode, marketing author, Seth Godin, points out that SEO has led to some weird side effects. Some businesses have started making all sorts of changes to their sites, “not seeking to serve the customer, but seeking to serve some sort of mythical wizard” (the wizard being Google).

He argues that businesses that lose sight of their customers in order to game the SEO system are ultimately doing themselves a disservice.

Being found online for the search term “engagement rings” is a great goal, but it’s not the point at which you win. You win when that same person comes back and searches specifically for your brand name. Or when that person recommends you to a friend and that friend searches for your brand name instead of “engagement rings”.

How do you do that? With great marketing. Great marketing that feeds from great service.

The Bottom Line.

Getting more people to hear about you is just the start. It means nothing unless what they hear is delivered in a compelling way through a great website and great advertising. And a great website and great advertising mean nothing if it’s not backed up and supported by a great customer experience in-store.

The truth about great online jewelry marketing is that it runs deep. It doesn’t just get eyeballs. It reflects your service and works hand-in-hand with your store efforts to (as Seth Godin would say) turn “strangers into friends and friends into customers”.

Looking for a great marketing agency who understands online? Contact us at suits@fruchtman.com.