SPEAKER_00
Ready to break free from algorithms, vanity PR and money sucking ads? My name is Larissa Worstiek and I've learned in eight years of jewelry marketing that content is the crown jewel. My agency Joy Joya takes a holistic approach leading with a laser focused storytelling, impactful content creation and strategic content distribution. This method has worked for the solopreneur as well as the multimillion 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 294. In today's episode, I'm diving back into jewelry marketing basics with a focus on the unsung hero of effective marketing calls to action or CTAs.

It's surprising I haven't dedicated an episode to this before. While I've mentioned CTAs in past episodes, I've never fully explored their importance and how to use them effectively. So in this episode, I'll break down what CTAs are, why they're crucial for jewelry marketing.

And I'll discuss the general best practices, how to tailor CTAs to your specific audience, and how psychological principles can guide your CTA strategies. Plus, I'll share tips on keeping your CTAs fresh and engaging. And in the goldmine segment, I'll also share some recent observations about standout social media content and how you can apply these insights to your own posts.

So tune in to get inspired and take your jewelry marketing to the next level. But before we get to the solid gold, 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 Joy Joya. 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 didn't know, I co-host another podcast called Success with Jewelry with my friend Liz Cantner, who's also a jewelry marketer and the founder of the Stay Golds Collective. We have a free version of the podcast and that's available everywhere, including on YouTube. And we also have a membership community with extended episodes and additional resources.

I invite you to check it out if you're hungry for more content. And in case you've missed it, I've got some big news. For the third time, we're opening an Incubator grant and it is officially live and waiting for your application.

Visit jewelrybrandincubator.com to apply and get all the details. But basically in a nutshell, we're giving away six months.

That's crazy. A free, full service, digital marketing support valued at $18,000 to one emerging jewelry brand. Last time I offered this same grant about a year ago, I had some pretty strict requirements and guess what? I got rid of them.

So all you need to do is be an active jewelry business with an e-commerce presence to enter. So you'll get access to me, to a dedicated client account manager, six-month customized content calendar, three deep dive audits, comprehensive email marketing management, including the setup of automations and flows and list management, blog post writing and publishing, a success roadmap that barely even scratches the surface, but I want to give you an idea of what you get. Also new this year, five finalists are also going to get six months free of the mid-tier membership of our new platform Joy Deck and that's a $3,600 value.

This is an all-in-one marketing support platform. That's really a done with you approach access to us for accountability and direction, a personalized plan, confidence, real-time progress monitoring and more. And if that is not exciting enough, all entrants, everyone who applies, will receive three free months of the entry-level membership to our Joy Deck platform valued at $300.

So basically just by applying, you get $300 or at least a $300 value. So if you want to know all the deets, go to jewelrybrandincubator.com, the links in the show notes, but you have to apply by Friday, July 12th at 11.

59 p.m. Pacific. All right, let's get into today's episode, My Sparklers.

This one's all about calls to action or CTAs. So first, let's define what are CTAs? So again, they're calls to action. We're going to refer to them in this episode as CTAs.

They are prompts that encourage your audience to take a specific action. Typically, you'll find them in marketing materials such as websites, emails, social media posts, ads especially. And a CTA could be a button, it could be a link, or even a simple line of text that directs the audience on what they should do next.

So why are they so crucial in jewelry marketing? Three main reasons. One, they drive engagement. So they really encourage visitors to interact with your brand.

Two, they can help you increase conversions. So they turn those visitors, those like lookyloos, into actual customers, or into someone who is one step further down your funnel by guiding them through the buying process. And three, they can help you measure success.

So they provide a way to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts through metrics like click-through rates and conversion rates. Okay, so what are some general best practices for CTAs? I'm going to give you some points here. One, you want that CTA to create a sense of urgency or even of scarcity.

So if it applies to whatever you are communicating, use that time-sensitive language to encourage an immediate action. Maybe that means limited edition or exclusive access. Because someone can see a CTA and then think to themselves, I'll deal with that later, not a big deal.

And then they forget about it. So encourage someone to take action right now. Next, you want to be clear and concise with your CTAs.

So examples would be buy now, learn more, get started. A lot of CTAs are just like two or three words. And the reason why this works is because direct and simple language makes it easy for customers to understand what they need to do without having to read a lot of text.

You always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, want to use action-oriented language. These are calls to action for a reason. So whatever language you use, there should be a verb, a verb to encourage someone to take the next step.

Like discover our new collection, join our newsletter, explore our best sellers. And these inspire action and also make the CTA feel dynamic and engaging. Make your CTA visually prominent.

So in email campaigns, those would be buttons with contrasting colors, maybe larger font sizes. Make sure they're not getting lost. Make sure they're high up visually in whatever you are showing your audience.

Because you don't want those CTAs to get buried at the bottom or hard to see or understand how to use them. Another best practice to consider is to personalize where possible. So examples would be get your personalized recommendation, find your perfect match, customize your ring.

Personalization makes the CTA more relevant and appealing to individual customers. If you can, if it's relevant, I want you to highlight benefits. So save today is less compelling than save 20% today.

Free shipping, okay, but more specific, free shipping on orders over $50. That provides clarity and helps the customer understand what they need to do. Exclusive member access.

So emphasizing the value or benefit of taking action makes it more enticing. Of course, you want to align with user intent. So download now for a free guide, schedule a consultation for personalized services.

When you match that call to action with what you are expecting the user to want to do, that increases the likelihood of conversion. And ultimately with the CTAs and also with the action that will hopefully follow, you want to create a seamless experience. So continue shopping, add to wish list, add to cart, proceed to checkout.

Make sure the thing that happens next works and that it's easy, not confusing. That way you can reduce friction and encourage that customer to actually follow through and complete whatever action you want them to take. So how can jewelry brands craft those compelling CTAs? The first essential thing that you need to do is understand your audience.

Could you have guessed that I would say that maybe there should be like a drinking game that goes along with my podcast and you guys can take a shot every time I say understand your audience. But don't do that because it probably wouldn't be good for your health. Everything in marketing revolves around understanding your audience.

So knowing your customer personas and not only that, but if you have different segments of your audience or they're at different stages of the purchase journey, you're going to want to tailor your CTAs for each of those categories of customers. So knowing your audience generally is one thing, understanding their intent, what they want from you, where they are in your journey, in their journey is another level of that. And then understanding how to tailor those CTAs to all those different segments.

So perhaps in your business, you have a wedding jewelry segment, or you have a fashion forward segment, or you have a segment of collectors. All those people are going to need different calls to action. So just as examples, throwing it out there, if you have wedding jewelry customers, these might be engaged couples, maybe they are family members looking for bridal jewelry gifts, or perhaps anniversary bands, something like that.

I'm just thinking off the top of my head. So effective CTAs would be find your perfect engagement ring, say I do with our wedding bands, book a consult with our bridal expert, explore wedding jewelry sets. And these CTAs address the specific needs and emotions of couples that are planning their weddings, emphasizing personalization, special occasions, also the significance of the purchase too, like if there's a way to add like a more emotion filled sentiment there, I think that really works for this category of customer.

And then thinking about more fashion forward customers, if you sell a lot of fashion jewelry for self purchasers, maybe these are trend savvy individuals, maybe they're just people that want to build their jewelry wardrobe and they're not necessarily driven by trends. For those trend people, it could be stay ahead with our latest trends or just shop the look or join our style squad, whatever makes sense for what will resonate with the customer that you're trying to target. And then finally, my last example is for collectors.

So maybe you sell to people who are jewelry enthusiasts, they're collectors of rare or unique pieces. These people appreciate fine craftsmanship. Examples of CTAs would be discover rare finds, add to your collection, learn the story behind our pieces, exclusive access to new collections.

These CTAs really cater to the collector's passion for things like rarity, uniqueness, storytelling, and they enhance the perceived value while bringing them into whatever action you want them to take next. Another kind of fun thing about CTAs is there's really like a psychology behind it. So if you're interested in human behavior, or you like studying people, I think this should be like a fun, interesting exercise for you.

And you want to think about how people feel before taking an action, what really motivates them, what's going to turn them away, what's going to pique their interest. And so perhaps you want to infuse some emotional appeal into your CTAs. Some examples might be express your love, cherish the moment, celebrate your milestone.

Emotion drives decision. Emotional triggers resonate on a deeper level with people, especially in the midst of considering a jewelry purchase. And it connects the product with significant life moments and personal feelings.

So try to use CTAs, again, only if it's relevant, that evoke emotions associated with things like love, celebration, aspiration, personal milestones. You also want to think about connection. So perhaps some CTAs there would be find your perfect match, make it yours, create your legacy.

Personal connection really makes the purchase feel more meaningful and tailored to the customer's life. So encourage personalization to enhance that emotional value of your product. As you can probably imagine from everything I've said so far, language is so important here.

Being specific and precise with your words is really going to help you have an advantage. Think about power words and phrases. So examples would be discover, unlock, transform, free.

Now, power words capture attention and inspire action in their persuasive and can significantly increase the effectiveness of a CTA. And the last thing I want you to remember about CTAs today in this episode is striking a balance between creativity and clarity. I think people try to get a little bit too creative with their CTAs because they don't want them to feel generic or repetitive.

So they try to like do play clever plays on words or use words that are like a little bit uncommon. And I would say, while it's nice to get creative with your CTAs every once in a while, you don't want your audience to be confused about what step to take next. So even if something feels kind of repetitive or overdone or boring, there's a reason for it because it's a tried and true action, action word that will inspire someone to take the next step like shop the sale, view our best sellers.

You might think, oh, that's so boring. Everyone says that. Well, there's a reason because it's clear, direct, easy to understand.

So I want to know, how are you using CTAs? What could you improve? Let me know in a comment on YouTube or DM me on Instagram. I'd love to chat more about it. All right, let's get into the gold mine.

This is a segment of the podcast where I get a little more personal and share insights on entrepreneurship, mindset, success, growth, and all things business. And in this week's gold mine, I want to explore the question, what makes the most engaging social media accounts today so compelling? Why do some brands just seem to have such a strong handle on Instagram? And I think we know them when we see them. But sometimes it's hard to replicate it because we can't quite put a finger on what they're doing well.

It's this just this like, Jean-Acequois. I'm not sure if I even pronounced that right, but I think you understand what I mean. So I have some ideas about what this thing we can't put our finger on is, and I want to chat with you about them.

First, I think their success has so much to do with the sense of novelty that they offer. These accounts invite you into a world that's intriguing. When you can't fully grasp maybe, or you're not a part of, but you want to be a part of, it's like the cool kids in high school or something like that.

They continually surprise you with new content or they're presenting familiar ideas in fresh, exciting ways. Now I have a caveat about that. When I mentioned to clients that they should try to infuse more novelty into their content, I sometimes get totally reasonable pushback like, but I can't be releasing products every week, Larissa.

I want to be clear that being novel doesn't mean you always have to show something new. It's more about keeping your brand feeling fresh and giving a new perspective on your products, even the ones you have now. And that can mean showing how to style them in new ways or just telling stories that you haven't yet shared.

Another thing I've noticed is that watching the top-notch Instagram content can kind of feel like spending time with a curious child who's in awe of everything around them. And I'm sure you've had this experience, whether it's with your own child or a friend's kid or like a niece or nephew, their energy is contagious and it makes you want to immerse yourself in their world, even if it makes no sense to you. And I would say if you personally do not feel enthused and immersed in your content in creating and posting your social media content, unfortunately, that is going to come through.

Even if you're not meaning for that to happen. And I think if you want social media to be part of your marketing strategy, you have to commit to it pretty strongly and as best as you can, not complain about the algorithm, but feel determined to connect with your current audience by pushing through that annoyance and being determined to connect, push those boundaries. It's also really important to remember that social media is not reality.

Let's repeat that to ourselves. Social media is not reality. We often forget this because it's so integrated into our lives.

And I think then we just take reality and we communicate that on social media. However, if you realize that what is being presented on social media is not reality, it doesn't mean I want you to lie. But it means that you have a unique opportunity here, where you can craft a carefully curated story.

I want you to think of this like a magician's performance. Okay, the magician is not presenting you reality. It's more like a very carefully curated story to get you to see reality in a certain way.

And the goal of the magician is to leave the audience in awe. Magicians really only reveal what they need to. And the key is they're guiding your attention with precision.

And your social media content should be guiding your audience, like follow this ball bouncing here. Don't look over there. Look only here.

And then you decide the version of reality that you're presenting. And if you can think like that, thinking like a magician, or even your favorite storyteller, like think of the best page turning novel you've ever read. How can we keep everyone on the edge of their seats? So you're probably like, wow, Larissa, it sounds so easy.

It's all just food for thought. I want to know how are you feeling about social media content creation? Do you feel burned out by this? Do you like hear what I have to say and kind of chuckle to yourself because or maybe laugh maniacally because you just hate the algorithm so much? I know, okay, I know what burnout feels like. But if you're feeling that way, it might be time to take a little break, which I encourage.

Reassess the role of social media in your overall marketing strategy. And then come back with these fresh eyes and maybe a creative brainstorm for how you're going to tackle content moving forward and make it less like a chore for you. Because nobody wants to consume your content that feels like a chore.

So let me know in an Instagram DM or YouTube comment what you're struggling with the most. I would love to hear your thoughts. Did you have any questions about today's episode? You can always email me Larissa.

That's L-A-R-Y-S-S-A at joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please share it with a friend who'd appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe as well.

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