SPEAKER_01
I'm Larissa and I want to help you find the best strategy for communicating the magic and wonder of your jewelry brand so you can thrive by doing what you love and filling the world with beauty and creativity. Welcome to the Joy Joya Jewelry Marketing Podcast.
SPEAKER_00
Hi, I'm your host Larissa Worstiek. Through this podcast, I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I'm passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands and I'm excited to share my passion with you.
As we all know, jewelry is joy, so I'll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it. This is episode 151 and today I'm going to be sharing my interview with Benjamin Smithy. He's the CEO of the Smithy Group, a digital growth agency that's been empowering entrepreneurs and businesses to dream bigger and achieve multi-generational integrity since 2015.
He's consulted some of the largest and most well-known companies around the globe, including Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Comcast, Disney, and hundreds of small businesses. Ben's an advisor for the Black and Jewelry Coalition and sits on the board of directors for the Women's Jewelry Association as well as Gem Legacy, which supports the artisanal mining communities in East Africa with education, training, childcare, healthcare, and business opportunities. I first met Ben at this year's JCK Las Vegas, but his glowing reputation definitely preceded him.
Ben and I were on a panel together titled The Fringe of Marketing, along with past podcast guests Jen Cullen Williams and Shane McCoy Hollander. Ben has spoken to audiences around the world in more than 20 countries across six continents, and now he's speaking on this podcast, so you can imagine I am very excited about it, and I just love his energy and hope that you love it too. But before we get to the solid goal of this episode, I'd like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video component, so you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching JoyJoya.
I love creating this content as my active service to you, my awesome listeners, and you can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on iTunes, which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too. Also, side note, I'm in the process of giving away six Amazon gift cards, four $25 cards, $150 one, and $100 one, to enter to win one of these six gift cards. Visit JoyJoya.
com slash survey and please complete a 10 question survey about this podcast. That's it. Visit JoyJoya.
com slash survey and tell me your thoughts about your listening or viewing experiences, then you'll be in the running. I really appreciate your insights and feedback and your answers to my questions will help me improve this podcast in 2022 and beyond so I can keep delivering great content to you. So let's discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing.
Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles and you can get those links by visiting JoyJoya.com slash sign up. Once you're on that VIP list, you'll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.
So first this comes from later.com. If you're trying to get more reach on Instagram, then questions about hashtags have definitely crossed your mind. One question that I personally get a lot from clients and other people who are just looking for information about Instagram growth.
How many hashtags should I use on Instagram in a post? I get this question all the time. So earlier this year, Instagram allegedly told creators to aim for about eight to 15 hashtags on a post. But wait, a recent post from Instagram's creators account said that users should use between three to five hashtags.
So what is real? Who can we believe? Well Instagram on one hand is guiding users to experiment with fewer more relevant hashtags to help categorize and recommend posts in suggested content streams as opposed to spam like hashtag use. So what is it eight to 15 hashtags or three to five hashtags later actually did their own research. So they analyze 18 million Instagram feed posts to find the answer and clear it up for us all.
So they actually found, and this is in line with the advice that I give that using more hashtags typically yields the best results posts with 20 hashtags receive the highest average reach rate. And those with 30 are close behind. Later found the average reach rate and engagement rate significantly increases as the number of hashtags increases beyond five per post.
So I don't know what Instagram is talking about. Maybe they're just getting their users to kind of streamline the way they present their content. But later in their own research found something totally different that goes against Instagram's recommendations.
So later suggests to go big or go home when it comes to hashtag strategy. There's nothing wrong with using a few hashtags, but implementing 20 to 30 relevant and targeted hashtags seems to be the best bet for your overall reach and engagement rates. Every hashtag you use should obviously be relevant to your content, audience and business.
And of course, a great hashtag strategy takes time. So it's important to experiment, monitor, use social media analytics tools and find out over time what works best for your brand and account. A new article from JCK pro has the headline experts predict a happy and prosperous holiday.
Woohoo. Are you excited to hear that? Here's a quote from the article, retail analysts and experts agree that holiday 2021 may be among the best the fine jewelry industry has ever had in terms of in store traffic, sales and revenue. That is great news.
The national retail federation forecast that holiday sales between November and December have quote the potential to shatter previous records and quote growing between 8.5% and 10.5% to reach 843.
4 billion to 859 billion dollars. Without a doubt, at least according to these, this data and these predictions, holiday spending will increase and the jewelry sector's strong growth will continue throughout the season. While this is good news, retail analysts also urge the industry not to assume success will continue in 2022 and beyond using data about your customer behavior during these next two lucrative months of the year will help your brand understand what to do to keep that revenue rolling in the new year.
And then finally, this is an announcement from YouTube. So as we know from listening to this podcast, live streaming is becoming more and more popular as it helps businesses reach and interact more people across the world. As I've mentioned a number of times on this podcast before live stream shopping is set to be the future of retail.
It already is kind of the future of retail. Have you as a brand ever considered adding YouTube to your digital marketing mix? YouTube's shopping team is working hard to build an organic live shopping experience on their platform in an effort to strengthen relationships between brands and fans and viewers or even influencers and creators and their fans and viewers. On November 15th, YouTube launched a new way for people to connect with their favorite creators.
And this week they have a week long YouTube holiday stream and shop, which is featuring a handful of creators along with exclusive access to new products, exciting giveaways, exclusive discounts. I think this is a really exciting way that YouTube is pairing the live stream shopping experience with a more curated hands on shopping experience. So YouTube created YouTube.
com slash shopping as a temporary destination that allows customers to revisit these live streams, discover new ones and browse products as they're shown in the video categories. They built this shopping feature so that viewers can easily learn about products in the videos or discover new products they might love. And as a whole, the goal is to build a platform that allows anyone with a mobile device and a product to easily host a live shopping stream.
That is very exciting for brands that want to invest in this live stream shopping and providing a more immersive customer experience. So I would definitely pay attention to these developments with YouTube. If that's something that interests you as I as a brand, as I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting JoyJoya.
com slash sign up. So further delay, let's jump into my interview with Benjamin. Hey, Ben, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.
It's really a pleasure to have you.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00
So tell our listeners about the Smithy Group, your company. What is like the origin story and how did you build it to the agency that it is today?
SPEAKER_02
Well, I think to tell that story, there's a couple of preceding stories.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, okay. Let's hear it.
SPEAKER_02
Because it was never, it was never going to be a group actually. It was just what I called it. So my background, what it is today is a digital growth agency and we focus a lot in the jewelry industry, but we do inside the jewelry industry outside.
We do have a digital growth agency, which is content, marketing, paid media, you name it. And then the other side of it is consumer insights and brand strategies. So we do big qualitative research studies for corporations and enterprises.
So the background is actually that my background is actually not in the jewelry industry. It's not in the digital execution side. It's actually in research.
So I started my career doing consumer insights work. I started one of the first global qualitative research firms that was focused on the millennial market. That was back when we were still deciding if we were Gen Y or millennials.
And then how you spelt millennials was a big thing too, whether it was two ends, one end. And so I started that back in 2009 with my business partner at the time. We grew that and we did a lot of fun stuff.
We did stuff for like General Mills, Coke, McDonald's, you name it, EA games, like a lot of the fun stuff that brands are really trying to understand next generation consumer. And that's what we still do on the research side quite a bit today too. But I fell into the jewelry industry actually in 2011.
I got a random call from a company I'd never heard of before and it was Signet and that was the first company.
SPEAKER_00
Like the biggest jewelry company in the world.
SPEAKER_02
So that was interesting. We did a lot of their Gen Y millennial research that it was store the future product mix. We did a lot of secret shops.
It was really fun work. I have to say doing it at scale and I learned the jewelry industry kind of like drinking from a fire hose, right? And then the connection story is from there. Actually, my second jewelry client was Ria Tinto.
Shout out to my dear friend Rebecca Forrester who is leading North America Ria Tinto at the time. And then WJA was my connection. So I actually just finished my sixth year on the board and so finished my term.
I termed out of the board for Women's Jewelry Association and that's when I really really got connected in the jewelry industry and found a lot of mentorship and partnership. And so when I moved to New York from Dallas in 2014, 2015, I started TSG. Again, it's called the Smithy Group, but it was never going to be a group.
It's just the LLC I started. I was just going to consult on my own and pay myself through there for my speaking engagements and things like that. But then met a lot of really great people and friends and they were like, Hey, I'm working at this agency.
I'd left some side work or whatever. And so I was like, Oh, I can go sell stuff. So I sold work and pitch contract work.
And all of a sudden I had all these like friends working as contractors. And I met Alex, who's our VP of operations. She came on board and she's like, No, no, no, okay, if we're going to do this, we're going to run, we're going to do this right.
And so it became a company. It became all these things together. And that's the growth that TSG we really started in 2015 as a full-fledged organization and taking this thing to growth and scale.
So long answer to a short question, but that's kind of how we got to where we're at today.
SPEAKER_00
So I need to know, because I'm still sitting here waiting for the call. What is it like to have Cygnet call you to ask them to do their marketing?
SPEAKER_02
What was the research? And it was, it was interesting, right? Because it was for research, there probably, there's only a handful of companies that do large scale consumer insights work in our industry that have the budgets for that type of stuff, but everyone should be doing it. And it's scaled out a lot now, right? You can do a B ad testing on Facebook instantly, right? We couldn't do that back then really. It was awesome.
It was fun. I honestly, like they're an easy target because they're a big company, right? They're the giant, but I had a great time. I learned so much about the industry.
The team there at the time was absolutely brilliant. The people that we worked with were awesome. And we got to do a lot of fun stuff and they did things, they did things right.
They, I never, the one thing I was excited was I never saw them like, like just play the like, oh, we're the major player in the field. So we don't have to understand that. They're like, no, let's take a deep understanding of consumers.
That's why we're where we are, you know, so it was interesting.
SPEAKER_00
That's really refreshing to hear.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And I know they faced like struggles and things like that since, but I can only speak to when I worked with them and the experiences that I had personally.
SPEAKER_00
Great. So your company has a really big presence at like jewelry trade shows. Like for example, we met at JCK.
So even though you don't specialize in jewelry, I really feel like you have kind of a passion for this industry, especially serving on the board for WJA. What is it about jewelry, the industry that kind of like captivates you?
SPEAKER_02
I think it is a couple of things. I think it's from a market. Let's just talk from a purely marketing perspective because you're from the same, you're from the cut from the same cloth from a marketing and advertising and content perspective.
It's a marketers dream. The industry is right. It's built on image and aesthetic and value and created value and supply and demand and all the things that as a marketer, you're like, Oh, this is, this is where you get to shine.
Right. That's it is what differentiates products and brands and all those things. So I love the jewelry industry because of that professionally.
And then personally, I have a heart for, for small and medium sized businesses. It's largely small businesses. So, you know, the vision for TSG, our vision is to inspire and empower people to create generational success.
Right. And we do that through integrity and impact. And I think that when we look at that, small businesses are the future of, I think it's it's our growth economy here in the States.
I think it's the growth economy for a lot of things around the world, you know, and when you look at that and small business impact paired with the marketing sort of playground that it is, and then you look at just the meaning and like, I love the science behind jewelry and diamonds and colored gemstones and I love that stuff. So I think it's all those things together. And it's just, we just, it's a family.
Like I like knowing the, like the, the tight knit family of people that run in and make this industry what it is. So like, I'm glad we finally got to meet up at the trade show, like all this type of stuff you hear and you run about in the same circles, but then you get the chance to meet and do life together and experience things together as a, as a, as really as a family industry. And that's cool.
SPEAKER_00
I dig that. I like that. That's amazing.
So for someone who's like a little jaded and maybe thinks the market in this industry is too saturated and how can anyone stand out? What would you say to that person?
SPEAKER_02
That sounds like a personal problem. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, if you think about that, then you would really hate being in the beverage industry. You'd really hate being in the clothing industry and fashion.
You'd really hate being in the cereal industry for sure in the quick serve industry. Man, don't get into canned goods or, you know what I mean? Like there's a million other industries that are, that have a ton of competition and saturation. And then you have an industry that is locked up like the automobile industry.
And for every person that's in there, you have like an Elon Musk that comes around and just totally like disrupts it. So everything is what you make of it. You know what I mean? So the, like if people want to feel jaded, they're going to feel jaded.
If they want to feel inspired, they're going to feel find ways to be inspired and find inspiration and motivation. And if they want to be successful, they're dang well going to find ways to be successful. And so for our industry, like I, why not sell diamonds and gold and jewelry and fabulous things because I find that a lot more exciting and differentiating than, um, corrugated boxes.
No offense to the corrugated boxes industry. I'm sure there's somebody out there totally geeking out about this new interior fold design that uses half the weight of, of corrugated boxes previously, but also twice the durability. You know what I mean? I'm sure there's something exciting about that too.
SPEAKER_00
I love it. So that's what you said is inspiring. I'm glad that I'm glad that you shared those thoughts.
SPEAKER_00
So tell me some examples. I mean, you mentioned signet, you mentioned Rio Tinto. Are there other examples of jewelry brands you've worked with and what kind of results have you helped them achieve?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, for sure. So those were early days and those are where I cut my teeth. I think since then, I'll tell you the brands that people would recognize, uh, working with, uh, the manufacturers that launched like Enchanted Disney Fine Jewelry, um, working with, uh, and got to help launch the, um, Serena Williams jewelry line.
Those have been notable brands that people know about and things like that. Um, we're one of the partner brands for DeBuris Forevermark, um, for partner agencies, but the, I'll be honest and I love those. And so no offense to the brands and everything like that.
Um, but I, I love working with the like startups, startup designers that are just going and starting and then also with the retailers. Like I think the biggest opportunity in the market is with the retail, your local retail jeweler. And in tons of ways that they can expand their market, both in person and online, there is a sea of sameness that is out there right now.
And so there's opportunities for them and I'm sure we'll get into that, like opportunities for people and businesses and brands to grow and scale like never before. Um, and, and I also just like, but I just like the small nature of it. Like I'm, I'm sort of on the board for, um, Jim legacy and that's, you talk about the smallest of the smallest.
It's the artisanal mining communities in the color Jimstone industry, but you take a niche of jewelry, color Jimstones, and then you take a niche of artisanal miners and, and I love that type of stuff because you can see the impact that one, literally one person or one family can then trace and exponentially grow throughout a global economy. And to me, those type of stories as marketers, those type of campaigns that we can create, those type of brands that we can develop, those are it. That's it for me.
Like that's what gets me going. That's what gets me excited and really amped up about this stuff.
SPEAKER_00
I love that. So let's talk about trends. 2021 is pretty much done.
SPEAKER_02
Right? I was sitting in the office yesterday and Alex, um, who many of you are listening probably have had the chance to meet or have heard on podcasts and things like that. Um, she's our VP of operations. Um, and she goes, Hey team, only three full work weeks left in the year.
SPEAKER_00
Wow. I didn't even think of it that way.
SPEAKER_02
I was like, what the heck? Like don't say that. That's, but yeah. So 2021 is in the books.
Let's just call it that. And if you're trying to plan for things now, you're just, just cross your fingers and hope because like you got to be rolling at this point.
SPEAKER_00
So 2022, what can we anticipate? What are some of the trends coming down the pike? Let's hear about it.
SPEAKER_02
So I can speak, um, from a marketing standpoint, from a digital standpoint, we're focused. We already have like, we're already working on releasing release every year. An annual marketing guide and we already have our two points of focus and we, we, we try to keep it very, very simple and to, to not try to overwhelm people, but try to give them the two pieces that I focus.
So you're going to hear us talking about this all next year. It's two core points. I think the only two things that people need to focus on next year, one is brand.
So brand creative things like that. And the second is intelligence data. And so we're talking about impactful brands, like how do you make true brand impact? And then how do you use data intelligence for, um, really smart media buys advertising, things like that.
So those are two air, our two core areas of focus. And it seems really simple, but it's arguably the two most complex things that businesses and brands in our industry are getting wrong. So brand and data intelligence.
SPEAKER_00
Is there something about 22, 2022 that makes that different from like other years?
SPEAKER_02
Like, is there something that's 22? That's it. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00
What was it? Like why wasn't brand important this year or last year? Like what is it about 20? I mean, it was always important, but like, why is it really the central focus?
SPEAKER_02
Because I think a lot of people in the business world and especially when you get into small businesses, um, they're focused on everything because they have to be. I get that. Right. It's easy to say, well, you need to focus on yada, yada, yada, but they're also the, they're number one salesperson on the floor. They manage HR.
They're trying to hire people like crazy right now because the, there's a work in a staff shortage. They're managing insurance premium updates and healthcare premium, like all the things, right? Making sure people aren't saying, you know, crazy stuff about them online. Like they're up to a million things.
And so my point in that is saying that most business owners and businesses only can focus on the thing that is their biggest area of liability. And so when we look at why now, I believe that this is one of the biggest areas of liability for future success in the two playoff of each other, because intelligent part of intelligent advertising and what we call like smart advertising is not just the data intelligence to create and target and build audience personas, but it's the contextualization of content that gets mapped to that data intelligence. Right. This is where I geek out in the researcher and me really shows like that. I love that type of stuff.
But if you take that back now in order from a content creation and brand distribution, all that type of stuff, you have to have the solid foundation of brand. And I think arguably that is the number one biggest gap. And I'm interested in your thoughts on this too.
Like to me, that's the number one biggest gap that we see it for quote unquote, I'll use my air quotes for those of you listening that brands in our industry, in whether it's a retailer or a manufacturer that brands are missing. They think if you say brand to people, most people think it's a logo, a tagline, a trademark, and maybe some colors. And that's like a visual identity, but that's not a brand.
So we're trying to get people like if I could at the end of the year say that I've gotten our industry to understand what the real definition and what a real brand is, and then what do you do with that? That's a win to me. I'm like mission accomplished for the year.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. I think a lot of jewelry businesses lean into like product features and they try to differentiate themselves on product. But as we know, there's a lot of diamond jewelry, there's a lot of gold jewelry and a lot of it kind of looks the same.
So the brand is the differentiating factor. And I think you're right. A lot of people don't realize that or lean into that.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And so for us, like brand is a big thing. And if you look at coming from the research standpoint and where we've really been in some of these brand developments and pieces, people pay millions of dollars.
Like corporations pay millions and tens of millions, really understanding and developing this elusive brand. And so to us, like the way I define brand and there's, you can look up a million different definitions, but I say that a brand is a promise that a business has the opportunity to fulfill. And to me, that's what it is.
So a brand is this like intangible thing. Right. And if you ask me the next question that everyone asked is like, well, okay, well, what's a good example of a brand and the brand promise to me, I use, I'll use Red Bull. Right. And most people think, you know, the tagline, the brand for Red Bull is Red Bull gives you wings and it's an energy drink, but that's not it. The energy drink is its product.
The, the Red Bull gives you wings is a brand promise or a statement, how they communicate that brand promise. And so the brand to me, the brand of Red Bull is about excitement. It's about energy.
It's about adrenaline and it's about enthusiasm. Right. And so they give you different ways to experience that brand through its content, through its everyday adventures, through its professional sports people, through all these different things, there are ways to consume the brand, but the brand promise is still the thrill of, you know, flying the adrenaline rush of doing something that above that you're what you're trained to do and the enthusiasm of seeing professionals do things that normal human beings could never dream of doing. Right. So all of that is brand and we tend to water it down to it's a bowl with red and blue and silver and it's Red Bull gives you wings and it's an energy drink and you totally miss out what the actual brand is. If you think of it that way.
SPEAKER_00
Sure. Do you think there are any really memorable or impactful jewelry brands?
SPEAKER_00
Putting you on the spot.
SPEAKER_02
Yes, I do, but they just haven't done a great job of communicating it. I think that your local jeweler has a great brand and people feel it. The jewel where the local jeweler tends to miss it is they don't take full advantage and capitalize on cementing that brand.
They let the consumers feel the brand, but we just haven't done a great job in the industry of then recreating it and fulfilling that brand promise consistently over time repeatedly. Right. The consumers feel the brand when they walk into a retail jeweler, they get the great service, all these other things, but that memory when they deliver your product, that's really your brand. Right. If you think of you helping them fulfill a promise that they've made to a loved one, that's where your brand sits as a retail jeweler. That moment, that feeling, that space is where your retail brand fits.
I think that's what we have to do a better job of communicating. That's how we have to identify. That's what we have to put looks and feelings and colors and words to that feeling and that emotion.
That's the promise that a jewelry store fulfills, I think.
SPEAKER_00
Totally. I think for a lot of small businesses too, the brand is kind of accidental. It happens out of the great customer service that they offer, the way they merchandise their store, the way they present themselves.
It's not necessarily like planned or thought about, but then they're so far in the weeds of that that they can't step back and say, Oh, this is our brand. Let's capitalize on that. As you're saying, it just kind of like happens and becomes a thing.
SPEAKER_02
Which is not scalable. No. And because it's not planable or, you know, you can't strategize around. It just happens.
So that's intention is a great aspect of it. It's like, you know, we talk about content creation and slight tangent, but we still are content creation model like blatantly from 11 Madison Park and Daniel Hume, the chef there, right? Three Michelin star restaurant, voted like best restaurant in the world many times. And his rule of thumb, and I ripped it off a podcast interview that he did is that in order for anything to be on his menu, it has to be delicious.
It's all creative and intentional. And that's the, that's what brand and marketing and content should be, right? Is it delicious? Do people want to consume it? Is it beautiful? Gosh, I hope so. Is it creative? Meaning does it take an innovative, very different approach? Or is it the same way? Is it just another beautiful piece of art that people put out there? Content and creative is different than art.
Art is anything you want it to be content and creative has to do something with a purpose. Right. And then is it intentional? Like did we choose this for a specific reason? Or is it just another post to put in our feed? Right. But I forget where we were going right before that, but that was the, the intentionality piece is what you're saying.
Like rather than just falling into it, the brand, like, are you intentionally creating something for there? And that's part of like the whole brand impact framework that we're going to be talking about next year. Part of that is meaningful. Like, is there meaning behind it?
SPEAKER_00
What can jewelry brands be doing to kind of prepare themselves for that? I mean, of course, working with you, working with me, working with another brand expert. Is there anything else internally that they can kind of be working on to prepare themselves for these trends?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I think part of it is just getting back to the roots of, you know, putting it down with pen and paper, like thinking about it, intentionality. And I think, excuse me, I think that's where you were getting out with the intentional piece or the opposite as happenstance.
But if you can put some intentionality behind it and sit down and think about your brand and it's a much bigger thing, right? What promises are you trying to make? And what is your business really good at fulfilling? What promises is your business really good at delivering on time and time again? And if you answer those questions and if you can go and put some intentionality behind answering those questions, that's the only place to start. I think that is the place to start, if you will, right? And it doesn't have to be anything more or less than that. But then you can dive into a whole big brand discovery, big brand development and distribution strategy, all of that.
And that's where you can work with a professional. But regardless if they work with you, me, anyone out there, they have to know that and have an idea of that. And then we can walk with them through, okay, well, let's do a big brand discovery program, a development program, all that type of stuff.
SPEAKER_00
So you mentioned before that you come from the research background and the consumer insights background. And I think that does play an important role in like the building the brand, making sure it's effective for the target audience. Do you find there are ways that smaller businesses on a smaller scale can kind of conduct that kind of research or get those insights without paying, as you said, millions of dollars?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like to do what you can do in real time, A.B. testing ads today in messaging today is ridiculous. Right? But let's say you wanted to A.
B. test an ad with the 21 to 34 year old market household income top 50%. 50% males, 50% females and three geographical regions, right? You would have had to figure out survey sample size, all that.
You could be paying up to 200 bucks to recruit each individual. This is like a focus group. You're looking at incentives on top of that recruitment fee.
You're paying a moderator to moderate those focus groups and ad test it. And you got two hours of time. And you're looking at about 30 to 60 days worth of research time.
Right? And if you're spending, if you're about to launch a $10 million ad campaign, definitely do that. Please don't just A.B. test it on Facebook home. But if you're a retail jeweler and you're trying to spend your $1,500 ad budget, right? Spend 10 bucks on each ad, 20 bucks, 30 bucks on each ad variant.
Let's test it because we can A.B. test the content. We can A.
B. test the creative. We can A.
B. test the call to action and do that in real time. And what is your real liability if people don't like one of the ads that you put out there? You turn it off, people forget about it, it stops serving, and now you put all your budget to the B version instead of the A version.
Right? It's easy win for ad testing. But a lot of people think that it's just, oh, go boost your posts and you're done. Right? But that's where I think that we're going now is like, I think that social 2.
0 was really like, okay, let's get people to run ads. Like that was our whole mission. It's like, how do we get people to actually spend money on this platform that they think is just free, which is social media, and run real paid ad campaigns, Google search display, paid social, all those type of things.
But honestly, like as much as that's important, people have to now go one step further if you're trying to win because everybody's doing that. And that's where we think that data intelligence is really the next wave and where people need to be focused on.
SPEAKER_00
That makes a lot of sense. So I'm guessing that your agency manages social media advertising for clients as well.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, absolutely. So we both content on the organic side as well as paid media. So managing the budgets, creating campaigns, all that type of stuff.
SPEAKER_00
Yep. In the past year with like changes to data privacy, iOS 14, et cetera, do you find that social media advertising has changed a lot? Or do you still find that it's effective for the brands that you manage ads for?
SPEAKER_02
I think it can be super effective. And this is where you and I can geek out a little bit here. Yes, I think it can be super effective, but the old approach isn't going to work.
We've even broken down our old approach. Like we've basically blown up like our old approach to ads, paid ads on social because of iOS, third party cookies, elimination, like iOS changes, elimination of third party cookies, what you see happening on like Google Chrome and just in browsers. And then also just what that means for pixel data and accuracy of pixel data and all of that.
So we've seen a huge discrepancy on where we've seen that stuff. It all works still. It's just not where you should be heading.
So social ads as a platform work, but what we're doing now in sort of like our smart approach to advertising is getting data pipelines. So we partnered through our data partners to get third party data that we can map to. So if you give us your email, so we take the client email and name list, right? That's basically personally identifiable information for the web.
We map that to on average 1300 different data points that we can map up to like 97% on average accuracy back map to that email list. And now you get 1300 points of data on each of those names and email addresses and we customize those data points to build those audience personas. So rather than building audiences through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, that's what the building part has been.
What's been misconstrued now because of all the third party data, all that type of stuff or third party pixels and all that. So building audiences is what we're reconfiguring how we build audiences to target ads. Then we build our custom audiences outside of Facebook, pull them into Facebook and run our ads through Facebook, Instagram, et cetera.
So that part is how we really started to rethink different things.
SPEAKER_00
I want what Ben is saying right now to our listeners. I think that like mythology of Facebook is that they make it seem very easy for small business owners to take the power of advertising into their own hands. And it is way more complicated than Facebook kind of makes it out to be.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Well, yes and no, it is super easy. You're right.
And they, like, I don't want to misconstrue that. It's super easy. You can dive into it.
But if you want to be competitive and spend your money wisely and actually be effective, it's the hardest thing you'll do for your business.
SPEAKER_00
I totally agree. I mean, and I just think it's such a myth too. Another thing is this, like, if you don't have someone in your corner helping you manage that, Facebook support abysmal, like you're not getting any help from them.
You really need an expert to help you make sure that you're like spending your money wisely for sure.
SPEAKER_02
I'd love anybody that doesn't have a personal relationship, right? Like a free hour call to them if they can get someone from Facebook on the phone with them. I love that. It's not going to happen.
Like, so, I mean, I'll be honest, even from a, and this is to the downside and it's just because of scale, but even as an agency that helps put the amount of capital that we put through their support that we get is relatively slim to none compared to other things that you would get support from. Like we get a ton of support from our payroll company and our benefits company, right? But we get like to the amount of money that we put through Facebook and Instagram and Google, like the support there is relatively low for agencies even.
SPEAKER_00
It's pretty ridiculous. I once had a ticket open for like over a month and I don't even think it was ever resolved. I had to like hire someone on Fiverr to help me because it wasn't cutting anywhere.
SPEAKER_02
Well, look at people that get locked out of their accounts. You have zero, zero support. It really is a crapshoot on whether you will ever get back into your own verifiable verifiably your own account, like send them a EIN, send them your tax number, right? Send them your photo of your ID, send them all that type of stuff and you still got a 50, 50 shant 50, 50 shot of ever getting to that point and then 50, 50 shot of you ever get it results.
It's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00
It's a pretty embarrassing way to run a business. Anyone else that run a business like that, they would be out of the game in like a month, but Facebook can get away with it.
SPEAKER_00
So at JCK this year where we met one, we spoke on the panel together about fringe marketing, which I was kind of like fringe. What the heck is that?
SPEAKER_02
It was just a buzzword that I wrote in the title.
SPEAKER_00
It was about the platforms that are more like underutilized, especially in the jewelry industry or lesser known. So what are some of your favorites that we touched upon on the panel or even have, are there any new ones that have emerged since August?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. So I think a sleeper fringe platform that caught a little bit of fire and then fizzled and people, it didn't really fizzle just the public awareness and utilization of it fizzled as Pinterest. I think that what they're investing in, it kind of like how Snapchat people think it's a social app, but Snapchat really is a camera company, right? Snapchat really is trying to just revolutionize the phone camera.
But I think for Pinterest, the visual search space that they're in, if you haven't tried the visual search function of Pinterest, it's scary good. So I think that for what we're in, in the jewelry industry, visual search is going to be a big thing, especially if we start pairing jewelry with fashion and those type of things. But the visual search feature at Pinterest is really scary good.
That's one of the platforms, I think. The other thing is less of the platform specific because the platform may win or die, but I think it's what it represents, which is Discord. So Discord, like discussion communities, it's kind of like Reddit in these threaded conversations and specialized conversations.
But I think what it represents bigger picture. So I don't know if it's like Discord is going to change the world, but what it represents as a trend is these niche communities forming again. And that's really interesting to me because I think we're going to see a shift in 2022 moving from audience to real community.
And in that space, rather than people just listening, you have people participating, whether just people participating, you have people really engaging in making actions based on that. So you're going to start to see a proliferation of small niche communities forming around something that are actively engaged. And I think Discord represents that and it gives people and brands a really good platform to create their own niche community and chat communities and things.
But I think the bigger picture, like what it represents is huge, I believe.
SPEAKER_00
Do you think, can you maybe describe a specific way that a jewelry brand might use Discord or is it more just like an abstract idea of a platform?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think in the world of like expose tell all behind the scenes, everybody wants that stuff, right? Like, you can't, like, we watch my wife Nicole and I watch Yellowstone. And we don't just watch the episode of Yellowstone, you then watch the behind the scenes episode, then you watch the commentary of it. Then you want, you know what I mean? It's like, that's the world that we live on when it comes to content consumption.
So for Discord and these niche communities, I think it's sort of the behind the scenes where it becomes this sort of open source customer service, customer engagement platform that a jewelry can sit there and when someone says, hey, you know, I had this experience, I probably went to my local jeweler and someone switched out my diamond or something. Another local jeweler can probably step in and be like, there's a good chance that that didn't happen because jewelry stores are not going to stay in business doing that. You know what I mean? And that type of stuff.
We're also like, hey, I'm a first time, I'm getting engaged. I don't know what to do. Yada, yada, yada.
And those people will jump in and have a long discussion educating that person about diamond jewelry, whether they're in their market or not. But just because it builds equity in the industry as a whole. So I think education behind the scenes, those type of tell all type things, that's what these niche communities are really for.
And collectors engaging with collectors.
SPEAKER_00
I like that. So what opportunities do you see for the jewelry industry moving forward? Where should brands be focusing their time and attention beyond what we already talked about? Anything else you want to add?
SPEAKER_02
I think it's that blend of art and science. So creative and then data. I think if they're focused on those two things, that's the only thing that makes them stand out in the future.
Like how creative can your brand be? And then how smart can you distribute it? That's the future of business. I think that if you want, I mean, I could get real techie and say like VR and all of that. If you look at what Metta is trying to do and where Zuckerberg's focused with Metta, the focus in the future is really going to be heavy, Oculus and VR because it's just where things are going.
You know, I think that there's a big thing that this like when you look at NFTs and digital currency and digital assets, that's a big area where our industry hasn't played in yet, but has huge upside potential for our industry because it's adorning these virtual avatars. It's adorning and creating virtual assets, digital assets to the physical assets where you are alive in a time where you and I will both for sure. If we have kids, our kids will live in a world where there is this digital equilibrium or digital parity to where virtual assets and currency that we own are equal to our physical assets and currency.
If you think about real currency, we already have that, right? I don't carry around as much cash. I'm a cash person. I still don't carry around as much cash as I do in my digital currency, right? And 99.
9% of people don't, right? So it's not unfathomable, but when you start looking at other digital currency, NFTs, crypto, other areas like that, digital fashion is going to be something that surprises a lot of people because people are like, oh, digital fashion, like what is that? But it's a real thing. Trust me, it's going to happen. NFTs, I think that's a big area of focus for people, but it's all data.
It's all data.
SPEAKER_00
So interesting digital fashion. I don't even know what the heck that is.
SPEAKER_02
Well, if you think about more people spending time online, how we differentiate ourselves, we are no less going to want to create and stand out and represent ourselves virtually than we do physically with our fashion choices. Even if you say you're not into fashion, that still is a fashion choice, right? So online, the more time we invest in online platforms, the more we're going to invest in our virtual avatars. And if you look at kids growing up today, they see no problem turning real currency into digital currency and buying things in the digital world with that.
So whether it's in Fortnite or Twitch or Apex, like Apex League or those type of things, like you're going to be leveling up your characters and your avatars and skinning them with different clothing and jewelry and all of these different features. And what will happen then is if you get access and you buy a line of, let's say, spring 2023 Chanel fashion virtual from their runway show, well, now if you're an owner of that NFT and that avatar clothing, you get private access to a live stream of their virtual fashion show New York Fashion Week 2024 because you held that virtual asset. And so all of a sudden that virtual asset, that virtual dress that you bought, yes, it helps you skin your avatar, but it also creates meaning into this niche community of ownership that gets private access to these other things in the virtual world.
Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it totally makes sense. And it sounds like we might be seeing digital jewelry and accessories as well at some point.
SPEAKER_02
I would hope so. If we're smart, we will.
SPEAKER_00
Very cool. Well, Ben, it was so fun to have you. I love your energy.
Super smart. It's fun nerding out with you on marketing stuff. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you. Thanks for the invite. Thanks for having me on.
You're a rock star. I'm getting to speak with other industry folks and leaders in the space. And I'm so happy that you do this and you continue to do this.
It's important for all of your listeners. So thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate it. Thank you, Ben. It was such a pleasure to be able to chat with Benjamin.
I'm sure you could like feel me nerd out and light up over some of the things that he was talking about. I love his energy and I just think he's so super smart, a really talented marketer. If you'd like to learn more about Benjamin and his company, The Smithy Group, you can visit www.
TheSmithyGroup.com and that's S M I T H E E is how you spell Smithy in case you're wondering, what did you think of this episode? You can always email me Larissa. That's L A R Y S S A at JoyJoya.
com. If you loved this podcast, please share it with a friend who would appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on iTunes to purchase a signed copy of my book Jewelry Marketing Joy.
Visit joyjoya.com slash book for all the information. Thanks for listening.
Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more information about marketing services for your jewelry brand, visit joyjoya.com
SPEAKER_01
where you can download our free ebook, proven conversion strategies for e-commerce jewelry retailers.