In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Get a Head Start on Holiday Promotions with Hope Bellair
It's time to start thinking about your holiday marketing and begin planning for this year's busy season! Mike speaks with Hope Bellair, Punchmark's Digital Marketing Manager, to discuss how to get your site ready, what the easiest starting points are, and where to look for inspiration. This is the pre-marathon stretch, so buckle up!
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. When you're about to run a marathon and you got to stretch beforehand. This is that stretching episode. We're going to talk about how to get prepped for the holidays and this is I know it's like the holidays it's three months away. Well, they're actually about three weeks away because in our episode recently, our jewelers were telling us that the holidays really start on October 1st and we know that you can't get everything ready when they're starting. You kind of have to have a little bit of prep beforehand. So this is us trying to get you ready for the holiday sprint. So enjoy this conversation about how to get ready for the holidays.
Speaker 2:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom. Slash go.
Speaker 1:And now back to the show. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpa. I'm joined by Hope Belair, our digital marketing manager at Punchmark. How are you doing today, Hope?
Speaker 3:I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm so well. I'm really excited to get a chance to speak with you. This is going to be a little bit more casual, because we talk on a pretty regular basis and there's a couple topics I wanted to touch base on because this is like to me. This is like early holidays. You know, when I had my retailer round table recently, I was like when do the holidays start? And they're all like October 1st is when it is, when it kicks off. I was like why are we giving three months to one holiday? It's insane, but alas, I understand some people love it.
Speaker 3:Oh man, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean honestly, I start planning for the holiday season for my marketing clients in June, so it's insane. So I guess, how does the lead up to it work? Because I know that there are some things that are instantaneous, like you can just buy an ad and it's going to start displaying an ad, but when it comes to things that have like a longer shelf life, let's say like SEO, sometimes it can take time to get indexed. Talk to me about that.
Speaker 3:For sure. So holidays specifically, if we're going for a holiday themed landing page or a jewelry category under a certain amount, or highlighting a brand, we want to make sure that we're going in a few months ahead of time just putting those SEO keywords in there. So, for example, if we're looking to highlight Viraggio in November, we're going to go in July and August and start putting those low paying fruit keywords in there so that we're optimizing it and better promoting it for the holiday season, whereas if we're running ads for Viraggio in November, we're doing that two weeks out from November 1st type of thing.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So just in case someone doesn't know, like me, what are some like keywords? Because I know the kind of state of play for keywords has changed in the past, because it used to be about hitting really broad words and then for a little while it was about hitting very specific, more compound words. Where is it right now?
Speaker 3:Right now we're kind of seeing a mixture. So we want to target those keywords like jewelers near me, but we want to make sure that the location is in there. So say, you're in Kannapolis, north Carolina, we want to make sure that Kannapolis, north Carolina, is in the keyword description or meta description somewhere. If we want to get really niche, we go for, let's say, xx jewelers and we put those in every meta description out there. We'll go in and put diamond pendants if that's something that you want to do, super niche, but for sure, location-based, demographic-based. If we're looking for a certain audience, let's say Gen Z or millennials, obviously we're not going to put that directly in the meta description. But if we're saying, hey, you know, we're trending, if we want trendy jewelry, we're targeting Gen Z and millennials and all that. If we're looking for classic jewelry, we're going for that older demographic. So it can get really convoluted, for for sure. But we like to have a mixture in there because that's ultimately what works the best stick the word bet in there a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh bet, fam, that'll really target up the the gen a and and gen z groups. Oh bet fam, we got the best, best jewelry.
Speaker 3:No doubt, for real, for real yeah, like gat and sigma, we really wanted to go really deep into gen alpha right there and sigma.
Speaker 1:Wow, this went over, I bet, 95% of our listeners, but for the 5% that got it, I hope you're laughing right now. That's great. Um, what about? What about? Like old holiday pages, pages? So say they did everything you just said for 2023 and they had all those holiday pages. What should you be doing with those pages in preparation for this year? Is it best to, for example, archive those pages or de-index them, or is it just a benefit to you long-term to have more holiday pages and maybe just try to like spruce them up with changing 2023 to 2024?
Speaker 3:So that's kind of a tricky question.
Speaker 3:As far as you know, holiday gift guides or holiday landing pages, specifically, if we're going from, let's say, it's 2022 to 2023 to 2024, if we have a landing page from 2022 and you want to keep reusing that landing page, we'd recommend optimizing it image-wise every year, uploading a different video, maybe every year as well, on that landing page, as well as updating your categories and your products, because you're ultimately just going to keep highlighting that page and making it better and better every year.
Speaker 3:However, there is something to be said. When you have a landing page and it's just got that older layout, it's got the older images, it's maybe a little two to three years behind the design eight ball, and maybe we go ahead and hide that on your website so that it's not serving publicly, it's not being indexed. However, it is still popping up and populating, like if someone said holiday jewelry, you're still going to pop up. They're not going to go directly to that landing page, but because you have that in your backend, it just it never hurts, right? So what I would recommend every year is either a landing page refresh or a brand new landing page for the holidays specifically, because every year we see new trends, we see new designs, we see you know what's working, what's not, if it's minimalist or maximalist, all this fun stuff, design-wise, that really captures and assists with SEO, specifically with images and videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I got this marketing email. I did an episode at the beginning of this year all about this waxed canvas trucker jacket I bought. It was a really considered purchase for me. I did a whole episode about it, uh, earlier this year and it was kind of like a a big purchase for me. It was like $350 jacket and uh, so I had thought about it for a long time and I finally uh decided to pull the trigger on it. I had a coupon and they are remarketing to me and it's so well done. Oh my gosh, it's. It's the first time I mean and it's so well done. Oh my gosh, it's, it's the first time I mean it's because I I also love this website. It's huckberry, um, they do Flint and tinder and they're uh.
Speaker 1:This marketing landing page is so exactly what I think our clients should be doing and like the title is three unexpected ways to style wax canvas and it's like it's just models wearing the jacket and then they go in, they show like a couple and it's probably full of keywords and then they have like the product right on there add the cart, not add the cart, but then they also link all of the clothing that goes with it.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh, pair it with a uh, let's, let's see what does it say? Um, yeah, swap the blazer for some wax jacket. And it's like shows like the a collared shirt, some chukka shoes and some, um, some denim, denim jeans. But it was so interesting how like well it's done, but also how direct of a one-to-one copy our clients could take from it. And it could just be like how to style a tennis bracelet. It's like put that on and then wear like, um, like a cute blouse and like a skirt or something like that, and and come, combine it and maybe pair it with a set of earrings and then boom, embed the earrings right on the page and I was just like I was really blown away because it has me ready to spend more money and I was like, wow, this is really doing its job, for sure.
Speaker 3:Oh, my gosh. I completely understand. I mean, when I'm shopping on any of my normal clothing websites and they're like how to style it, I'm immediately ready to buy two or three more items that I wasn't going to do Exactly, Because I'm like maybe I don't have those items at home and I want that look, you know. So I completely understand.
Speaker 1:Definitely All right. Everybody we're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor In the Loop is so excited to announce our new giveaway for a pickup media gem loop, and if you didn't hear our episode where we unbox one of these gem loops, it is a fantastic tool that a lot of jewelers are using when they go to trade shows where they can look at jewelry on the show floor in a quick and easy way. It snaps right onto your phone, but also in your store, right in front of clients, you can document how a piece is brought in for repairs. And if you don't have one of these already, we're giving one of these away and all you need to do is go to punchmarkcom slash loop that's L-O-U-P-E and fill out the form at the top of the page. I'll just ask you a couple questions. It's a $400 value and we're so grateful to Pickup Media for enabling us to give one of these away to a lucky listener. And now back to the show, and we're back.
Speaker 1:So we had actually a conversation. There was a conversation, I think, igl exclusive Facebook group and it was about how often should our jewelers, should jewelers in general, be running sales? So there's three different options. Just I'm going to lay them out to you. You give me your, your opinion on them. So one of them is you have one big sale and it's during the holidays and it's just like the door buster, like let's go. And then you have a none during the holidays because you can already rely on the traffic to come into the store, because everybody does the majority of their shopping during the season. So why lose 10% or 20% of your sales? Or should you just be doing no matter what quarterly as like something to promote? I saw all three of those answers as results. What are your opinions as a marketing person?
Speaker 3:So it's such a it's such a difficult question to answer because obviously, holidays you do want to have that little incentive to go in and buy specifically from your store. And then quarterly Okay, let me put it this way, if I were looking at it from a sales perspective, marketing perspective if there was an absolute 100% sale every quarter, you're preparing your clients to constantly have that sale every quarter. So then in the opposite two months you're not going to get as many sales, possibly because someone's going to be waiting for a specific sale at a specific time, because you're known as a sales store. Well, I see, the best sales happening yearly is in the summer, around June and July, because those are the slow months anyway, right? So we're offering let's say you're doing that 60% offer, six hours type of sale, or you're offering an anniversary sale or XYZ sale, you know, wedding bands, what have you? That's where you're going to get a lot of the people coming in that maybe wouldn't come in because it's June and July and everybody's on the lake doing things, all this fun stuff, right, but I would say summer, and of course one at least in the holiday season Maybe you're not necessarily marking down the ones that like your bestsellers, right?
Speaker 3:Diamond, studs, pendants, all that stuff. But you're offering discounts on older jewelry that you kind of want to clear out. You want to get it out and refresh it with some new inventory. That's what you're going to see the sale for for the holiday season. So I guess it's kind of a mixture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I when.
Speaker 1:I spoke with. When I spoke with Vincent from Arezzo for the retailer roundtable just a couple of a couple of episodes ago. He says that he always runs at least one holiday sale because people will call into the store and be like, do you have any sales? And it just feels bad to be like no, but we have awesome stuff. So he just always has something so that people are enticed to come in and it's like that's a. To me that makes sense and we are kind of, I think, as like a society, we're like addicted to the thought of discounts and sales and stuff like that. Like who doesn't love that? But I do think, even if I go in and I see that you have a sale, it might get me through the door but like not necessarily saying I'm going to buy the item that's on sale. Hopefully I buy anything, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and that's it's something to be said too, when you're in the display cases and maybe you have a section, just one section, that's for sale, whereas the other sections are regular priced, and you're enticing those, those purchases, as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess the other option for sales is kind of more like a, an exclusivity or like this kind of experiential sale, which is sort of the way I categorize the Antwerp buying trip that I mean we're doing a campaign around it. Can you do like a quick overview? We talked about it last year extensively but we haven't really talked about it that much this year. The Antwerp campaign that we have is like a plug and play option for people that are going on that trip. Can you explain that for the listeners?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have a customized landing page. That's beautiful. Honestly, our design team does a really good job where you have images, videos, copies that are all SEO based for Antwerp and your store. Based for Antwerp and your store.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And from there, people can join the Diamond Club an exclusive Diamond Club, right. So once they do that, they're subscribing to your emails and you're getting a notification that they're interested in an Antwerp Diamond. Additionally in this campaign we have eight emails. That is scheduled out and designed by our design team and sent out on your behalf on a certain schedule based on when you're leaving. We have a gradual lead up, so it starts at like one email per week to a list of however many subscribers you'd like, and then it slowly ramps up like oh my gosh, hey, we're four days away, don't forget to pre-order your Antwerp diamond From there.
Speaker 3:We also have a pre-order your Antwerp diamond. So there's a form that pops up says what you're kind of looking for, what size, cut, clarity, the whole thing that people can go and look at. Additionally I think this might be the last thing we have banners and social assets for our clients to use for their organic social media posting, if they'd like. Additionally, if you want to run ads on this, we also do that as well. That's just a little bit of an additional fee, um, but yeah, it's. It's an awesome campaign. We've seen a lot of success with it. A lot of clients love it, so I think this is going to be something that sticks around for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember we had talked extensively about Antwerp last year and it was really successful, and I was really interested in again how it's marketed.
Speaker 1:It's not so much that, like, you're getting like a better deal on the diamonds, it's that you get to like handpick the diamonds, essentially through the jeweler, and that is maybe an alternative solution to what we were talking about with sales, where it's like, you know, in the end you're going to be losing out quote unquote, losing out on dollars because you have to mark them down.
Speaker 1:So, like, one of the options always is to like mark them up so you can mark them down. You know, and I don't really know if that really is a great solution. But with this, you're offering some type of exclusivity and some type of like yeah, club nature to it, and I think, as humans, we're sort of taught to really really like that. But I'm with you. It's cool, though, that we have it as like a recurring thing, because I know a lot of people yeah, vincent and Scott Stambaugh and all those guys they all kind of build their season with these kinds of things and having that opportunity to be like we go out and we just we do this, we're not just offering anything to our clients, we're offering this exclusive thing to our clients, kind of sets a store apart instead of just being a generic store.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely, and especially like, think about it right, if you're, if you're a guy and you're buying an engagement ring for your, your soon to be wife, um, and you're, you tell her I got this from Antwerp. I FaceTimed my jeweler and said no, that's the diamond I want for my fiance. That's like, as a you know, as a woman myself, I'm like, oh my God, he put so much thought into it that would work on you.
Speaker 3:So sweet, absolutely. I'm like, wow, he didn't just go pick out, you know, some engagement ring. That doesn't mean anything, you know.
Speaker 1:Doesn't mean anything. No, I mean it means something.
Speaker 3:It means something, but you know, this means more. There's more thought.
Speaker 1:Exactly Okay, I, I think it's a. It's really interesting. It kind of goes along with finding those moments that you can leverage for your store is uh, to me it's just like a really creative way of of marketing, uh, even like just to tie back to in loop a little bit. We are we're just finishing up this, this giveaway, and the thing that's really interesting with giveaway is I was talking to Ross about it hey, should we be marketing this outside of in the loop, like that we're giving away a gem loop? And it was really fascinating because Ross was like absolutely, if we have anything to capitalize on, we should be. Otherwise we're just leaving chips on the table. And I thought that that was a really good way to look at it, because I was like a little bit like I don't know sheepish about it. I just didn't really want to kind of get outside of our outside of our like territory a little bit and like promote something outside of the episode. He was saying, if you have anything that can be a leg up, you should be using it.
Speaker 1:And I kind of wanted to tie that into one of the final topics I wanted to ask you about, which is capitalizing on accolades. So I saw a couple of our jewelers, especially in the different exclusive Facebook groups, and a couple of our jewelers have won some awards and they're pretty awesome awards, like you know best in Michigan and and and you know best of the uh, you know 30 under thirties and things like that. And I wanted to ask about how do you recommend a store, kind of capitalize that, whether that's going into the holidays or just in general? Uh, what do you recommend is do they brag about it? Do they post about it? Is it like a social asset sort of thing? Do you attach like a sale to it? I don't, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like people are a little bit too humble for their own good and they, yeah, leave chips on the table.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I agree with you. So one of the things like let's say, right, best in Michigan. You're kind of getting a bit of like free marketing there just because you're getting the word is spreading via other outlets, um, whether it be newspaper websites, all that fun stuff. When you do win an award like that, for sure post about it, story post, make a little video about it, say this is why we are the best in mich, michigan and create that quick 15, 30 second video that just shows the store, shows who is, you know, michigan's top jeweler. In this case, um, and you know, maybe attach some sort of a discount if it's like a new customer that heard about you through this award, right. So if you heard about us, you're brand new, you're new into the store, enjoy 10 off, um, just so that you know you're. You're bringing new clients in, creating new clients and then ultimately building relationships so that you can capitalize on those in the future.
Speaker 3:Now, as far as returning clients obviously those who may do the best in Michigan let's say, offer them some exclusive VIP club. You know talking about exclusivity here with Antwerp. I think that ties directly into longstanding clients of who has made you who you are as a jeweler as well. So there's a lot of different things that can be done, and especially I mean easy, low-h hanging fruit. Put that on your website as a banner and advertise it. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I saw. I saw something from from Steven Barnes I mean, he's president of IJO now, but before he was a jeweler and someone was asking about like a holiday marketing and campaigns and stuff like that just a couple of weeks ago and he said the best marketing he has ever done is they picked out 100 of their VIPs their biggest seller, biggest spenders and they went to a like a confectionary or what is that called, like a dessert shop and they picked, they ordered I think it was like six cookies or something, or maybe it was three cookies for each of those top client, top clients and then they had them mailed out and it was like, hey, no strings attached, we've got awesome sales and apparently it was the best sale possible. And to me it's like, yeah, capitalizing on that feeling a little bit in a more thoughtful way, and also just like not always expecting it to lead to dollars. Sometimes you're just doing rapport building and I think that that is just as good. It's like priming the pump for later. So I think you're right on, though, hopi.
Speaker 3:For sure, thank you.
Speaker 1:Hope. One last question. If someone's listening to this and they're all fired up and they want to get ready for the holidays this is a pre-holidays marketing meeting what is one thing that they could go and do right now on their Punchmark website to get ready? Is there anything that's within reach?
Speaker 3:For sure. Yeah, easy, low-hanging fruit. Create gift categories. So if you're going in to your Punchmark site, create a category of gift under a 500, gift under a thousand, gifts under a 1500, and then let's say, gifts over 5,000. Those are super easy. You can categorize them, get them ready for the holiday season so that when you are ready to move forward with, let's say, a holiday gift guide, an email campaign and stuff like that, it's already predetermined. There you go, easy peasy, we put it right in.
Speaker 1:There you go, and if you don't know how to do that, you can email marketing at punchmarkcom and I'm sure Hope will walk you through it. I'm sure you guys have this already down to a science. But thank you so much, hope. This is really great. I wanted to get something out that was before the rush starts, because I feel like people are like about they're stretching for the marathon and they're like at the starting block, but they haven't yet gotten in yet and this is like the episode to kind of give them the pep talk. We're about ready for the final sprint. Thank you again, everybody. We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers everybody, bye, all right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1:This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpau. My guest this week was Hope Belair, the digital marketing manager at Punchmark. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E or in the text me link in the show description. Thanks everybody, and we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Cheers, bye.
