SPEAKER_01
Ready to break free from algorithms, vanity, PR, and money-sucking ads? My name's Larissa Worstik and I've learned in seven years of jewelry marketing that content is the crown jewel. My agency Joy Joya takes a holistic approach, leading with laser-focused storytelling, impactful content creation, and strategic content distribution. This method has worked for the solopreneur as well as the multi-million dollar company.
And now I'm sharing the same systems and tactics with you. Here's to standing out in the sea of sparkle. Welcome to episode 272.
In this episode, I am actually very excited to share one of my favorite jewelry marketing activities to kick off the new year. And yes, I'm gonna nerd out about this. Giving your email subscriber list a checkup.
In the world of jewelry marketing, the email list is like this lively and ever-evolving companion that it does need some TLC from time to time. Just how often you should pamper this list depends on its size, so those bigger lists require more frequent checkups, while smaller ones can enjoy a more casual check-in every now and then. But regardless, you definitely want to be thinking about the health of your email list, especially if you've never done it before.
So let's dive into this world of email subscriber list rejuvenation. Later in this episode, I'll also be chatting with Hillary from Hillary Fink Jewelry, who we've been spotlighting as a jewelry brand case study. For those joining our podcast series for the first time this season, I'd suggest starting with episode 252.
That way you can meet Hillary and follow her story from the beginning. But before we get into that conversation with Hillary, let's talk about what it means to have a healthy email list, how to regularly manage email list health, and what actions you can take to improve list health if it's looking a little bit under the weather. But before we get to the solid goals, I'd like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both audio and video, so you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching JoyJoya.
You can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Also, if you haven't heard, I'm excited to tell you about the JoyJoya 2024. Name your price emerging jewelry brand incubator and applications are only open for about another week or so from when this podcast goes live.
If you're an emerging independent jewelry brand and you're looking for strategic digital marketing from JoyJoya, but you're also worried you cannot afford professional marketing support, this may be the most amazing opportunity for you. So 10 brands will be selected from the applications and they will have the opportunity to literally name their price for professional marketing services. There's no catch.
This is serious. We're just so determined to make marketing more accessible in 2024 and get some jewelry brands to where I know they could be if they had the right resources and support. So if you want more details about this opportunity and to find out if it's right for you, visit jewelrybrandincubator.
com and remember applications close January 31st. So don't wait too long. Okay, let's get into today's episode, my sparklers.
Everyone focuses on their own health in the new year. Maybe you've even set some resolutions about things like nutrition and fitness, but I want to focus on a different kind of health in this podcast episode. And that's the health of your email subscriber list.
So first and foremost, what does it mean to have a healthy email list? So this means having a well-maintained and engaged, engaged roster of subscribers who have willingly opted in to receive your emails. A healthy list is characterized by low bounce rates, high open and click through rates and minimal unsubscribes or spam complaints. And to put that in perspective for you, in the jewelry industry, that means having a 50 to 60-ish percent average open rate and a 2 to 3-ish percent average click through rate.
However, those averages are really going to vary based on the size of the list. So as you can imagine, if someone has a list of say like 50,000 subscribers, it's going to be much harder to get a high average open and average click through rate. Those numbers will be really tough to maintain.
If you have a smaller list size, then you may even see that you have higher than average numbers for open and click through rates. And just as a side note, I also want to point out something really important regarding open rates, since this might not be common knowledge for everyone listening or watching. So a few years back, Apple introduced the iOS 14 privacy update.
I won't bore you with all the technical details of this, but essentially, this privacy update hides certain data to marketers about email opens when the emails are received on Apple devices. So this means in your email marketing data that your open rates may not be entirely accurate. So you can still rely on noticeable trends.
So if you consistently see your open rates going up or you consistently see them going down, that's something to pay attention to. But obsessing about the open rate from one email to another is actually totally pointless because that data is not super reliable, especially after this iOS 14 privacy update happened. Also, if you're the type of person who's worried about too many people unsubscribing because you get notifications every time someone unsubscribes from your emails, first of all, I want you to shut off those notifications because you should not be looking at them.
And second of all, to put this in perspective, a good unsubscribe rate is less than 0.5%. It seems very small, a small margin of error there, but in all my years of working with jewelry brands, I have never seen anyone exceed that. If you are in good faith following the best email marketing practices, unsubscribes are not something you should be overly worried about.
Having a healthy email list also means, as I said, that people have opted in to be there. They want to be there. So it means you acquired those email addresses through an opt-in.
So customers have submitted themselves, whether that's through a pop-up on your website or other sign-up form. Simply adding people to your email list because you think they would like to receive your emails is not a good marketing practice. In fact, it can very much irreparably damage the health of your email list.
But when you are adding people to your list according to best practices, then it reflects a strong connection with your audience, meaning you have people there who want to receive and engage with your content. Also, a healthy email list is regularly cleaned and updated to remove inactive or irrelevant contacts. So that ensures that your emails reach that interested and responsive audience, ultimately leading to success in your email campaigns.
A healthy email list should also ideally include segments that hold significance for your business, such as a segment of frequent buyers or a segment comprising of customers who have never made a purchase. But at the same time, you don't just want to make segments for the sake of making them. They should serve a purpose and be in line with goals and needs that you have for your business.
So think about how you could leverage segments to better personalize and tailor your email campaigns. Also, having segments can just help you gain a deeper understanding of the diverse subscribers within your email list as well as their behavior. And then the last thing I want to say about what makes a healthy email list is that it's managed through an email marketing provider, like for example, Clabio or MailChimp, and it's not managed from like a spreadsheet or a personal email address, because when you're doing it through a platform that you are paying for, they are managing all the email marketing compliance for you and they can help you monitor your data, ensuring that you are really following email marketing best practices.
So now that you know what the health means of an email list, how can you regularly manage email list health? So one of the most important aspects of email list health is ensuring that you're always encouraging new people to sign up. So take every opportunity you can to promote your email list, especially on social media. Mention the benefits of being a subscriber and make it worthwhile for people to be on the email list.
And I'll share some more specifics in just a little bit. But as previously mentioned, you don't just want to add subscribers willy nilly because you think people would like want to be on your list. You want to follow those best practices.
So use website popups or footer sign up forms and subscribers should really have a clear understanding of what they can expect by signing up, whether it's a welcome discount or updates on new products and promotions. It's really essential to provide confirmation when they do sign up so they know they're actually on the list. If you're collecting email addresses manually at an in-person event, please ensure that the paper sign up form prominently states that by providing their email address, they are agreeing to receive regular marketing updates from your brand.
Ideally, though, you'd want to consider using a tablet or some kind of advice so people can device, not advice, so people can sign up directly. It's also a really good practice to send at least one welcome email immediately after sign up to confirm that they are on the list. The one downside of using paper sign up forms is that if you're not able to immediately upload them into your email marketing platform, there can be that delay in adding people to the list.
And by the time they receive either the welcome or the first email, honestly, they may have forgotten what they have signed up for already. I hate to say it, but I have to say it, please never ever ever ever ever buy subscribers. I get sick just thinking about someone doing that honestly and never ever just add people you know because you think they'd like to be on your list.
Nope, don't do that. Please don't do that. Regularly, it's also important to identify and create a segment for disengaged subscribers because you definitely don't want individuals on your list who don't want to be there.
It's gonna sting a little bit to archive a group of subscribers, but overall, it's a wise move for the health of your list because that ensures that those who genuinely want to receive your emails will continue to do so. The process for creating this segment of disengaged subscribers is going to vary a little bit depending on your email provider, but generally you should segment out individuals who haven't opened or clicked on an email in, let's say, the past 90 days. And you can adjust this timeframe based on your list maintenance schedule, but 90 days is a good starting point.
Obviously, if you haven't sent an email in 90 days, then that's not going to make sense. And before you do the actual list cleanup, you're going to want to start sending regular campaigns again to see if people are actually interested and who is going to stick around for your regular campaign sending. If you're a larger brand with a sizable email list, then you can automate the creation of this disengage segment and that allows people to enter it automatically when they meet the criteria.
Then that altogether eliminates the need for the manual cleanup efforts. So what actions can you take to improve list health if it's looking a little bit under the weather? I mentioned before, it's important to always look for ways to keep growing your email list. So what are some ways to do that? First, make sure you're actually giving people a compelling reason to subscribe.
Maybe it's a welcome discount. Maybe it's exclusive access to sales. Maybe it's a first chance to see new products.
Maybe it's a chance to win a giveaway. Whatever it is, give people an actual reason to want to sign up for your emails. You can also potentially get valuable content.
Like maybe you have a really great styling guide or a care guide or a sizing guide. And in order for someone to receive it, they have to trade their email address for that content. That's a potential idea.
Continue to promote the email list often on social media platforms like Instagram or whatever other platforms that you're on and emphasize what are the benefits of joining referral programs. So if you do have a devoted and engaged existing subscriber base, maybe you can give them something in return for referring friends and family to join your email list. You can run contests or giveaways where one of the requirements to enter is subscribing to the email list.
Or you can do a collaboration like partnering with a complimentary brand to cross promote, do a giveaway, do some kind of promotion and gain access to their audience and earn new email subscribers. Also, in person events is a great way to meet people to sign up for your email list. So I mentioned creating that disengaged subscriber segment and kind of left you hanging a little bit.
So let's circle back to that. What are you supposed to do with the segment of subscribers who don't engage with you? Well, if you're manually doing this for the first time, then you're going to manually send those people a re-engagement campaign. Or if you're going to automate this whole process because you already are very regular with your email marketing, then you can automate a re-engagement campaign to send to anyone who enters your disengaged segment.
The goal of this re-engagement campaign should basically be to say, hey, we haven't seen you in a while. Are you still interested in getting our emails? Click the button to confirm your subscription and or to update your information. And if you don't click, we'll ensure you no longer receive our emails, but you can always re-subscribe in the future.
Basically, that's the whole thing. And anyone who doesn't click on that email, they should get archived. This can be really painful to do, but again, it's a really necessary part of maintaining the health of your email list.
Because the more people that are not engaging with your emails, the higher the likelihood is that your emails are ending up in spam folders. And the more spam folders that your emails are getting ending up in, the more that email providers will think you are spam. And people who actually want to receive your emails won't get your emails.
We don't want any of this to happen. But bottom line at the end of the day, if you ignore or don't want to do anything I said in this episode, the one most important thing you can be doing to maintain the health of your email list, full stop without a doubt, one major takeaway is to actually email your list consistently and regularly. The more inconsistent you are, the more you're damaging your list health.
That is the one thing I want you to take away from this episode. So how are you going to commit to that in 2024? In our upcoming conversation with Hillary, we're not going to talk about email marketing at all. We're just having a fun conversation because we want to celebrate her acceptance into the New York Now emerging fine jewelry designer incubator.
So we'll dive into her experiences of preparing for her first trade show ever and her aspirations for this event. Hillary will share all the exciting details about embracing this incredible opportunity. Hey, Hillary, thanks for joining us today.
Hey, Larissa. Good to see you. Good to see you.
So if in case people didn't hear, you were accepted to the New York Now emerging fine jewelry designer incubator. So why don't you tell us in your own words what that even means first of all?
SPEAKER_00
Sure. So it's organized by the fabulous Liz Cantner and Robin Kramer. And I think what they've realized is there's kind of difficulty for emerging jewelers to kind of get into that trade show loop, I guess.
Just like financially and just it's difficult to set up your booths and all that stuff. It just takes a lot of time. So they just put together this incubator where they selected 12 designers internationally.
And what they did is just make it really simple for us. You know, it's like a fraction of the price and also a fraction of the size of the booth. But it's just this like turnkey, you know, case display with a sign behind you.
Just really easy for us to just get our foot in, get started. And, you know, they both believe in wholesale as a way to grow your business. So this is just their way of helping.
SPEAKER_01
So what caught your attention about it in the first place? What attracted you to apply to it?
SPEAKER_00
I've been wanting to do a major trade show. I applied to Melly a couple years ago and I got in, but then I decided not to do it because I was just like, oh, it's so expensive. And there's just like a gazillion designers in Melly now, right? So anyway, you know, and then you look at New York now and you're like, oh my gosh, how do you even get started? And so it's something I've always wanted to do.
And this just was like, bam, this is such an incredible opportunity. Just to kind of have your hand held, I mean, Robin Kramer is pretty much an expert in wholesale trade shows. So to just get her guidance is super important to begin with.
So it just it just made sense because this is already something I've been wanting to do. I want to grow my wholesale business and I'm I am not great at that part of it. I'm not great at sending out the emails and all that stuff and all that, you know, the connecting that way.
So this was just a great opportunity.
SPEAKER_01
What was the application process like for you?
SPEAKER_00
It was super easy. It was just a form of basic questions. I was actually really surprised by how quick and easy it was.
SPEAKER_01
It was great. And then when you did find out that you got accepted, how did you feel?
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my gosh, super excited just for all, you know, all the all the reasons I just stated, just having so much guidance and help getting your foot in the door with something as tricky as, you know, a big wholesale trade show. And it's just a great opportunity to have, you know, so many eyes on my work, you know, stores that I have sent line sheets to in the past. A lot of them have said, oh, do you do New York now or Melly? You know, they want to see my jewelry in person.
And so I'll be following up with a lot of those stores to say, hey, you could now see me at this New York now incubator. And then, you know, I'm I'm nervous. I think that's just totally normal.
You know, it's a financial commitment. And it's just taken up a lot of time making jewelry and getting ready for it, you know, right in the middle of my busy holiday season. So it's just kind of been like, it's a little bit all encompassing right now, which is fine.
I'm not complaining about that at all. It's just it's a little bit nerve wracking.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It is a tough time of year to like prep for that. And it's not a lot of time.
Like you have to do it pretty quickly too.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So what are you hoping to get out of this opportunity? And what are you most excited about?
SPEAKER_00
I mean, OK, so top number one goal. I mean, kind of always is my top number one goal like Bergdorf Goodman, baby. Of course, it's like not likely to happen.
But, you know, like that would that's just kind of like my all time dream. Like I would love to be in Bergdorf Goodman someday. I I mean, I don't know.
That's just silly. But, you know, overall, I just would love to get into a few more stores that I've been wanting to get into or, you know, learn about some new stores that I didn't even know about. You know, I have about 50 stores on my list to contact.
And I mean, of course, there are a gazillion more that will be at that trade show. So that's just it. You know, it's like get into, you know, hey, two more stores would be amazing.
I I think I hear from a lot of designers when they do their first trade show, they don't get into any stores. So I'm also I'm also preparing myself to not get any wholesale orders. But it's really about like making those connections and then also connecting with the other jewelers.
I'm really excited to just kind of have like a bunch of days in a row, just meeting them and learning from them, too.
SPEAKER_01
So I think like a big mystery around trade shows is like all the prep that's involved or what is involved and all the things you have to do. So I love if you could break that down for us.
SPEAKER_00
Well, this is this is simpler because it's a turnkey booth where we don't have to do any designing except for like what's going to be in our display case. And then we had to design a sign for behind our booth or behind the display case. So it's really not a lot of like designing for the booth, which is great.
But you know, initially like right away, bought my plane ticket, bought my hotel rooms. And then I started going on a gemstone purchasing spree, which is so much fun. Just because, you know, I do have a good amount of jewelry in my ready to ship section, but I want to have some new knockout pieces for this show.
So I also bought a bunch of new faceted stones because I'm going to be putting out a new faceted gem collection. And then it's just like, you know, making a list of the jewelry I want to bring that I have in stock, making a list of the new things I want to design. I've been making the jewelry now for a couple weeks.
And then it's the like organizational admin stuff. It's like making the list of all the stores you want to get into drafting those emails, designing a postcard. And I've gotten as far as like, I'm trying to fill in the spreadsheet with all the contact information for all the stores I want to send to.
So and then I have to plan my outfits. Of course. So, you know, I'm going to have to buy some new outfits.
I bought some new shoes I'm so excited about. I bought a new winter coat because it's New York in February. Yeah. Just, you know, shoes.
SPEAKER_01
You should do a trade show outfit of the day on your Instagram stories.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, gosh. I mean, that would be fun. But I'm also I know myself.
I'll just probably go like really simple, just like easy black dress. I know I should do something more than that. But I know myself.
I feel most comfortable in black. So.
SPEAKER_01
So how many new pieces are you actually making?
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I listed out that I would make like 30 new pieces and that includes like some of my like hand hammered collection, like small production pieces that I just don't have in stock, but also, you know, a bunch of new pieces. So it's really probably more than I need because I already have like 25 pieces in my ready to ship section. I can bring two.
But even though the case won't hold all of that, I can still have some kind of an on a tray underneath to show people. It's a little bit more jewelry. So yeah, I mean, I was just mentioning I have this new faceted gemstone collection.
I'm really excited about it's going to be five pieces, really bright and beautiful and sparkly faceted gems. It's just, you know, I've done like I've done a couple custom pieces with people's faceted gemstones, but I've never actually done a whole collection for my clients with faceted gemstones. So I'm excited about debuting that there.
Yeah, I'm just making pieces.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And it's cool. You're going to give your email subscribers kind of like a first look at that before you do bring them to the show.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I couldn't resist. I just feel like my email subscribers are so awesome and so dedicated and my collectors are just so they're so important. To me and to my business, I thought why not reward them and kind of give them a first look at this collection and and see if anyone wants any of the pieces.
SPEAKER_01
So in all of this prep, is any aspect like especially challenging for you or feels like extra time consuming?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's the admin type stuff. I don't know what it is. And I don't think this is, you know, out of the ordinary by any means.
The idea of just sending emails to stores, I just can't stand it. And I don't, it's like, it's so silly because it's just what we're supposed to be doing, right? And so it's that that is, you know, causing a little bit of stress, designing a postcard to send out, you know, it's just the stuff that it's the like sitting at home and doing. It's, you know, of course, I love being in my studio and making the jewelry.
So that's the easy part, even though that's the most like time consuming and fingertip, you know, erasing part of the work. Like my thumbprint is so messed up right now that my computer won't turn on with like, it won't recognize my thumbprint. I actually have been having to type my password.
SPEAKER_01
So anyway, that sounds like some crazy criminal stuff like erasing your fingerprints. Totally. What what feels surprisingly like easier fun about the prep?
SPEAKER_00
I find the gemstones has been so much fun. I went, I've been buying the faceted stones from Noel Habib downtown San Francisco and just being able to go into her office and just like see Trey after Trey after Trey of all these gorgeous faceted stones. And I'm just so surprised at how attracted I am to faceted stones because I've always just done like cabochons.
And I'm loving it. These new pieces I've made, I just am so in love with the depth and the sparkle of these stones. And I'm like, uh oh, I might just go total faceted stones.
SPEAKER_01
You never know. Yeah, it's dangerous. I did see pictures though and they're pretty amazing.
So I don't blame you.
SPEAKER_00
Thanks. Thank you. It's really fun and it's it's been a challenge to figure out kind of a new type of setting for some of them.
And it's like the long, I think I'm like so falling in love with the long termolines like the emerald cut. Oh my gosh, I'm just, I just want all of them.
SPEAKER_01
Well, Hillary, it's really cool to hear about the prep and to get a little bit behind the scenes. And I know everyone will be cheering you on as you actually get to the trade show. So thanks for sharing your experience.
SPEAKER_00
You're welcome. No problem at all.
SPEAKER_01
What did you think about the interview? Are you excited to keep following Hillary on this journey? I highly encourage you to check out Hillary's website, HillaryFink.com and follow her on Instagram at HillaryFinkJewelry. The links will be in the show notes as well.
And let me know in a podcast review or a YouTube comment what you think. All right, let's get into the gold mine. This is a segment of the podcast where I get personal and share insights on entrepreneurship, mindset, success, growth and all things business.
I get a little bit. We go, we go heart to heart in this segment. In this week's gold mine, I want to dive into the concept of busy work and how to avoid it.
First of all, what is busy work? So busy work refers to tasks or activities that may seem productive, but in reality don't significantly contribute to your overarching goals or objectives. So it can consume time while creating the illusion of productivity and then it ultimately diverts your attention away from more important and meaningful tasks. The things that could really be having an impact on your business.
Honestly, many of us were conditioned to see busy work as positive during our school years. Much of the homework and schoolwork that we did growing up lacked genuine purpose. Yep, I'm saying it.
And certainly to keep us occupied, but it also at the same time gave us a false sense of accomplishment and praise. And I observe a lot of jewelry business owners engaging in busy work where when there are other activities they could be doing that will have a greater impact on helping them reach their goals. Busy work isn't inherently bad.
It can have some positives. It can make you feel good. There are some ways that can add to your business, but there's a lot of deception involved in it.
Busy work often fails to advance our goals. So we spend all this time feeling like we put so much work into our business and we've tried everything and we've done all of this stuff. But the truth and reality is I hate to say it.
A lot of it was just a lot of time consumption that could have been better spent on impactful, but also uncomfortable and challenging tasks. That actually propel us from point A to point B. So how can you break free from this cycle of busy work and achieve more with less time? Doesn't that sound great? Start by examining whether you're using other activities to avoid tasks because you feel nervous, scared, uncertain.
Not able to maybe not smart enough, don't know enough, whatever it is. Are you substituting these tasks with other activities that still give you that like endorphin hit, that sense of accomplishment, but don't have real impact? And then imagine you had just one hour a day to focus on your business. How would you then streamline your efforts to concentrate solely on the most crucial tasks, the ones that would actually help you make money, honestly.
And a lot of those have to do with business development, sales and marketing. I want you to define those tasks and prioritize them. Also, consider your attitude.
This is some self-reflection stuff. Toward busyness. Do you kind of like being able to tell other people how busy you are? This is like an American problem.
Especially if you live in a big city, I think with like high achieving people. Everyone likes to talk about how busy they are. I know that I have fallen into this.
And then I started hearing myself tell other people how busy I was and thought, that is just so boring. So it's worth considering how is this busyness actually adding depth, impact and meaning to my life? And think about that. And ways you can kind of avoid busy work and get to the more impactful things.
You can try time batching. You can look at the tasks you're doing that are repetitive and how can you template them or standardize them so they don't take so much time. And even if you're not in a place to hire right now in your business, I want you to start imagining who you would hire as your first hire.
What would they do? What position do you want to create to kind of take some of these busy things off your plate so you can do the meaningful work that you know deep down if you really were super honest, you know what that work is for you. Also investigate outsourcing tasks that demand attention, but maybe don't need you to be personally involved. So look at platforms like Fiverr and Upwork as valuable resources.
I think too many people see that as oh I'm spending money on something that I could just do. But when you value your time and you see that you putting your time into tasks that will move your business forward, you can't see outsourcing as spending money. You have to see it as freeing up your own time, which is money, which is money the business could be making for you.
And you need to acknowledge that significance. It's a really hard mindset shift to make. But 2024 I know is the year that you're going to start making that shift.
So are you ready to break free from busy work this year and shift toward meaningful, impactful tasks that drive progress? Feel free to drop me a message via Instagram DM, leave a review on the podcast or comment on the YouTube channel. I want to talk to you about it. Thank you.