September 16, 2025 • 42 mins
Digital marketing expert Hope Bellair shares insights from HubSpot's Inbound 25 conference and tailored Q4 marketing strategies for different types of jewelry businesses.
Reach Hope Bellair at hope@punchmark.com or 704-910-4774, extension 318 for more information about holiday marketing strategies.
Learn about our sponsor JewelerOS: trytheringbuilder.com
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to In the Loop.
So we discussed that and whatshe learned and how she plans to
take what she learned at thisconference and educate our
clients.
But we also talk about Q4.
Q4 is a big time for jewelersand retailers in general and
we're talking about how thedifferent types of jewelry
approaches can be served bymarketing and what she would
(00:41):
recommend if you have e-commerceor if you're trying to do
custom jewelry design oranything in between.
It's a fun talk.
I hope you enjoy it and youhave a great Q4.
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:15):
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Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
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(01:37):
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Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And now back to the show.
What is up everybody?
I'm joined by digital marketingmanager Hope Belair.
How you doing today, hope?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm doing swell.
How are you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So well.
I'm very excited to get achance to speak with you.
Q4 starts like in the middle orbeginning of Q3, but we kind of
just pretend like we're in Q4already.
We're in the beginning ofSeptember.
Lots of exciting things, butmost excitingly, you just went
to a big conference in SanFrancisco.
How was that?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was lovely.
I went to Inbound 25, which isHubSpot's marketing conference.
It was huge.
There was at least 15,000people there Got to watch the
Hot Ones episode live.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Seriously, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
With the ex-CEO of, or the co-founder rather of,
hubspot and Colin Jolt, the SNLcomedy guy.
He was there and present and itwas funny, his marketing jokes
were quite cute.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So to give everybody an idea why we're talking about
this even remotely is so.
Hubspot is sort of the backboneof how Punchmark runs our
business, so it's a CRM.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
So CRM it's kind of how we runour infrastructure.
We use a combination of HubSpotand a custom built one that
Ross actually built from wayback in the day that we lovingly
(03:13):
refer to as admin, and HubSpot,though, is how we also do our
marketing and a lot of our kindof broader outreach tools, but
what's really interesting issome other people use different
ones.
It's sort of a B2B marketingtool.
What is it that they mainlydiscussed?
That made it so that you feltlike you should attend and that
(03:34):
you learn new skills to you know.
Help our clients.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So the way Inbound was marketed was it's kind of,
you know, the biggest marketingconference in the nation, at
least, if not the rural, whereevery marketer and business
owner from different walks oflife are coming and going from
this marketing conference.
So, for example, I actually satnext to a guy on the first
keynote seminar there and he wasan agricultural marketing
(04:02):
person that used HubSpot for thebackbone of his business in
Bend, oregon, and I thought thatwas crazy because, again, over
here I'm on the East Coast,jewelry marketing is our big
thing, so getting differentperspectives and really being
able to network with high levelmarketing professionals really
(04:23):
sets us apart, I think, you know, in the long run, when we're
able to kind of continuouslylearn and stay curious about new
marketing techniques and howthat relates to the jewelry
industry.
So, specifically with Inbound,we were able to go through
HubSpot's new marketingofferings that were just
launched while I was at theconference, as well as what AI
(04:45):
is doing to reshape the spacethat we're so used to in the web
space.
Right, web and marketing aresynonymous with Google, search
and SEO and all this stuff andthey really came out with hey,
ai is here, we either embrace itand we exceed or we ignore it
(05:07):
and we kind of get a little leftbehind.
So their answer was AEO, whichis answer engine optimization,
and I'm going to be going intothis a little bit more, just in
general, maybe with a couple ofblog posts and LinkedIn posts on
my personal LinkedIn profileabout how this will shape the
jewelry industry.
(05:27):
But really getting a little bitmore forecasting, especially in
the jewelry industry, where youknow, obviously we're centuries
old, right, maybe not the webdevelopment side, obviously, but
the jewelry industry has alwaysbeen around from, you know,
1800s and beyond, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So really getting jewelry up to date and the
industry as a whole justmarketing it correctly so that
we're not getting left behind aswell, I think is a very
important aeo, transparentlyhope, dropped this on me before
we started recording and I waslike I'm I'm just dumb enough
(06:06):
that and and and forward enoughthat I don't know what that that
acronym means.
You gotta explain that to me.
So just to like kind of putthis into like very tangible
terms, uh, correct me if I'mwrong AEO would be making sure
that when someone asks chat, gptor Gemini hey, recommend me
some places to get an engagementring yours is at the top of the
(06:26):
list or is included in the list.
Is that kind of what it is?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Absolutely yeah.
So basically, I guess kind ofthe synopsis of it all is you
know, ai has an idea of yourbrand, right Through SEO and
your obviously traditionaldigital footprint.
It has an idea of what you do.
Aeo, the answer engineoptimization, basically fine
(06:53):
tunes that idea into your actualbrand voice.
So, like, let's say, right, youare a jeweler that specializes
in bat custom jewelryspecifically.
Let's just say that becauseit's a little out there, right?
You know what I mean it's nicheyeah it's niche.
So aeo like would help, you know, with some of those tactics,
(07:17):
help chat, gpt or another aisource get to.
Hey, yes, we specialize in batcustom jewelry, that's it Not.
Oh, it's a jewelry storelocated in XYZ town that does
bridal, because you know whatjeweler doesn't really do bridal
right.
So really hyper-focusing andfocusing on answer engine
(07:41):
optimization, I think isdefinitely the future.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting when I you know
immediately, I usually try totailor a lot of this stuff to
how could Punchmark use this?
And what I have always reallyloved about working at Punchmark
is that you know that terribleexpression oh, we eat our own
dog food.
You know that kind of phrase.
It's like we genuinely use allof our own tools.
Our website is built on versionsix of our platform.
(08:07):
So, if you were to, if you loginto Punchmark, if you want to
write a blog, I literally loginto punchmarkcom and I use the
blog editor the exact same wayour clients do.
And what's funny about that isthere are certain things I hate
and I get in my devs ears andI'm like hey, just so you know,
I hate this aspect of it.
And, uh, when they hear itcoming from me, sometimes I can
(08:31):
fast track it.
But hearing that, I'm like man,for example, your bat jewelry,
what is it?
A baseball bat or is it a batLike, as in a flappy flappy, you
know?
And same thing with web design.
We are Punchmark is, we dowebsites, but we do websites
specifically for jewelers.
(08:51):
So, but you can't bury thatlead in that it's if someone was
to ask like hey, who can yourecommend me for a website?
It's obviously they mightrecommend Punchmark, but that
would be a little bit of a miss.
It's almost like when someonegives the contextual information
that we're starting to learn isso important when it comes to
(09:12):
prompt engineering that if theywere to mention something around
the jewelry industry, hopefullywe would start to be
recommended.
It's really interesting.
Part of me wants to pull upChatGPT right now and see if we
show up as someone, but thenagain I also have probably
tailored mine so much that Iwonder if it would recommend
Punchmark or not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, maybe go in an alias email and just say hey.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Hey, like, who do you recommend for bad jewelry for
bad jewelry?
So, when it comes to that Hope,do you think that that's
something that Punchmark willstart to?
You know?
Consider offering in the nearfuture.
You know how people can startappearing in these general AI
(09:58):
searches?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Absolutely so, moving into quarter four and obviously
early 2026, that's definitelygoing to be a focus of ours,
just because, again, witheverything that I have seen in
the analytics, with the data,traditional search is going down
.
Ai summaries on Google even isbringing traffic to your website
(10:20):
down significantly, becausepeople don't need to necessarily
read blogs anymore.
You get the information.
They can say, hey, who makesthat jewelry near me?
In Google even, and that AIsummary will come out.
So what we're going to be doingis focusing again more towards
(10:41):
that AEO with blog posts andcopywriting et cetera on our
websites, posts and copywriting,et cetera on our websites so
that when people are justsearching in ChatGPT or in
Google, they can pull directlyfrom quotes, let's say, from a
blog post, from your website,and get sourced in ChatGPT or AI
overviews.
So that's definitely somethingthat we're working on.
(11:02):
And this is not to say thattraditional SEO and everything
like that is irrelevant, becauseit is still very relevant.
I think it's just a hybrid modelthat we're going to be starting
to go forward with, so thatwe're pleasing two platforms or
two technologies at the sametime.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And you know, it's really quite interesting because
I'm starting to it feels veryreminiscent of when Punchmark
started building our marketingprogram.
It was right around 2018.
And what was so fascinating waswe were, I remember, starting
to understand SEO, and when youstart to understand what it's
looking for, it's looking forexperts and then it is going to
(11:44):
try to show relevancy, andthat's always what we're going
after.
Is this relevancy?
And that's where blog postswere kind of coming into the
play.
Is that's how you could showyour relevancy.
Back in the old days, we used tohack it by stuffing a lot of
keywords into it and that waythey would think that we were
super relevant.
But nowadays I've startedhearing this term source of
(12:06):
truth, like the one source oftruth, and what I've found is
that it starts to become aboutlike the actual content and the
thrust of the matter, if youwill Like this is not just
having a lot of the keywords orit's not just writing a lot of
blog articles that pertain tothe matter, but the actual hmm,
(12:29):
like the message is the mostrelevant, pertinent, gripping,
and it sounds like quality isalmost coming back into the fold
more than just quantity, whichI think is.
I mean it sounds refreshing,but I'm sure we'll people are
going to find ways to game thattoo, but we'll enjoy it for the
(12:51):
time being.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, I mean definitely quality over quantity
is going to start takingprevalence and especially, kind
of in that same vein,third-party apps like Reddit,
social media.
Third-party apps like Reddit,social media, other platforms
that your business is on isgoing to be super relevant when
showing up for AI, because AI ispulling from those different
(13:13):
platforms as well to give a moreholistic picture and view of
your brand so that they canrecommend you better, if you
will.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, what's really interesting is, just like on a
personal connotation ordiscussion, I've heard that
Reddit is becoming more and morekind of in the forefront One,
because it seems like one of thelast bastions of of real human
content which, if you'relistening, I am starting to be
(13:43):
worried about the whole deadInternet theory.
You know, where no one isactually making content,
everything is made by bots andeverything is just bots talking
to other bots and we are theonlookers.
(14:08):
And you know, chat engines areactually looking to them as,
like, a place where there is alot of human activity, whereas
when you look at, for example,facebook, facebook is not a lot
of human activity and a lot ofthese other places and Instagram
increasingly overrun by it.
But when you look at Reddit,it's primarily text based and
that's very easy for a engine todigest.
(14:29):
So I have started to leanactually on Reddit a lot more
recently, which is just very Idon't know.
I kind of am happy about that,but I also am like I know we got
like one more year of thisbefore suddenly they're like all
right, we got to ruin this too.
So who knows?
I think we'll see how thiscomes to play, but it's
(14:52):
fascinating to know thatrelevancy is going to be a new
topic as well.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Again, Absolutely, and anything published under a
year, 10 months, is a sweet spot.
Ai doesn't go back muchhistorically.
They want or it wants, I guessrelevant and current types of
data.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Good to know.
So everybody stay with us.
We're going to take a quickbreak and then when we come in,
we're going to talk about newstrategies on your quarter four
strategy.
So everybody stay with us.
This episode is brought to youin part by Stone Algo's Jeweler
OS.
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(15:35):
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(15:57):
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(16:18):
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(16:40):
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the loop, if you do.
And now back to the show.
All right, everybody stillspeaking with Hope Belair,
(17:04):
digital marketing manager atPunchmark Hope.
So I want to talk about Q4 andwhat you are spinning up for
jewelers, and what we always sayat the very beginning of this
we've done this episode a coupletimes is we're not making this
a sales pitch.
This is more like talking aboutthe end goal and then looking
(17:26):
at how to get there.
So what can we do?
And you could do for yourselfif that's your goal.
We've learned that noteverybody's goal is the same
when it comes to their businessand also with their online
presence.
So with very selfishly, I usedto always want jewelers to just
have e-commerce out the wazoo,Like I thought that everybody
(17:49):
should be shifting everything inthe e-commerce.
Increasingly, I'm learning thatonly some jewelers should be
doing that.
It's not for everybody, and asyou start to slice them down,
there are these kind of mainsort of bastions.
Let's talk about what cane-commerce focused people would
you recommend they start doing,and what sort of Q4 strategies
(18:10):
would you maybe implement ifthat's what they were going to
do with, like a digitalmarketing program with Punchmark
?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So if you're e-commerce focused, I would hope
at least anyway that you'vebeen running your ads all year,
really pushing out products anddifferent aspects to different
people and demographics thatalign with your store, your
store.
Now, for quarter four,obviously generally off the top,
(18:36):
we're looking at at least a 10to 20% bump in budget per month
for the duration of quarter four, just because, again now you're
competing with people thatmaybe haven't been doing any ads
throughout the year and they'reentering the chat, if you will.
So, thinking about your, yourbudgets and prorating them to
where, let's say, you know, evena week by week basis, maybe you
(18:57):
know, you know it's going to bea little slower, end of
September, early October, andthen you ramp it up really
through Thanksgiving, through24th, let's say so, off the top
budgets, you're looking toincrease budgets.
(19:17):
You're looking to increase asfar as your general campaigns
and pushing more products outthere, let's say, on meta and
google.
You're looking at a lot ofretargeting.
So, a lot of the you knowclients or new people that have
found your brand throughout theyear, we want to hit them hard
during the holidays yeah, timeto cash in, exactly because it
does take at least 12 touchpoints, let's say on average,
(19:39):
for someone to say, oh, Iremember that brand, I've seen
their ads on stories and in myfeed.
Maybe I should actually checkthem out for the holidays and
make that e-commerce purchase.
So really focusing on lookalikeaudiences, retargeting, getting
that demographic and reallyhammering it down is going to be
(20:00):
the strategy for e-commercegoing forward.
And then, of course, you know,based on your store and your
location, I would recommenddifferent imagery and videos.
You know from someone fromFlorida than in New York, let's
say.
It shouldn't necessarily be thesame, because the demographics
are completely different.
So understanding your store andwhat people want around you is
(20:23):
the best you know thing to doand making sure that your radius
around your store, the zipcodes that you're targeting, are
going to convert for you.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It's interesting it's kind of like the prelude for
the year is you got to writethese blogs, you got to update
everything, try to write thisgood content, get out there
making these posts and startgathering your following.
And then it's like Q4 is whenyou cash in.
And it's funny because theepisode before this one was
(20:56):
about five jewelry topics, uh,that you should be paying
attention to, and number fivewas I was kind of complaining
about how much retargeting thereis these days.
I feel like it's not funanymore and it's so funny.
And I almost included like alittle teaser in there because,
like 10 minutes before, I saidthat I ran a sponsored ad for
(21:19):
our sponsor and I was like, oh,am I part of the problem?
But I think that retargeting itjust goes to show how effective
it is and now is the time tocash in on it.
And what I've said in yearspast you got to be loud, you got
to be aggressive, and then,when January comes, I do think
(21:42):
it's OK to be a little bit quiet, like let the crescendo come
down and like reset to a piano,if you will, if you're into
music.
But now, hope, what if you'remaybe more of like a custom
jeweler and you, primarily, aredoing these custom projects or
you want people to come intostore.
(22:02):
What would you recommend thenas far as like a strategy and
how, like a marketer might helpyou?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah.
So the most important thing,let's say, for a custom jeweler
is knowing your end date, andwhat I mean by that is knowing
the amount of orders you cantake to get every custom job
done, let's say by the holidaysand let's say Christmas for, for
this example, knowing your enddate and knowing when the
(22:28):
turnaround time is for yourclients period.
Obviously that's more of abusiness decision and not
necessarily translating intomarketing, let's say in the ad
space.
But that will also determinethen how you curate your ads.
Let's say if you're doing adsthroughout the quarter four.
So e-commerce and custom designare two different heads, if you
(22:54):
will.
Yeah.
So with custom jewelry I'd sayyou're looking at getting the,
the word out, let's say in thenext two or three weeks.
You're starting earlier thane-commerce and retargeting.
You're getting out thosedesigns and saying, hey,
actually you know what.
Look at all this stuff I didover the summer and why it's so
(23:16):
beautiful.
Here's some testimonials.
It's a lot more visual, it's alot more storytelling than let's
push the product.
So you're looking at a strategyfrom, let's say, now to
December 1st, whereas e-commerceyou're looking at, let's say,
october 15th to December 20th toreally get people in.
(23:36):
So understanding again youraudience and what you do best is
going to help you in themessaging and branding for your
ads.
Let's say in this sense, ifyou're not doing ads, you know
email marketing.
Let's say, re-hitting thatclient list saying, hey, I know
(23:57):
you guys got married.
Let's say, I don't know 10years ago anniversary kind of a
year-ish you want a custom-madenew, upgraded engagement ring
for Christmas.
Let's make something together.
Let's make it beautiful.
Let's start now.
You know what I mean.
So really getting messagingacross and being a little bit
more holistic with your approach.
(24:17):
Personal touches to clients,you know obviously, um, jewelers
are so good at that anyway,with phone calls and personal
messages and stuff like that.
But really understanding, like,okay, this is, this is going to
be a little bit earlier and,depending on how quick the
turnaround time is for a customjob, knowing when to hit that
(24:38):
sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'd love to know that there's like, yeah, there's
different uh target times andlike blocks, if you will in in
in the timeline for differentparts.
So let me throw a curveball atyou.
What about someone who wants todo lots of events this holiday
season, increasingly?
I think events are awesome.
I used to kind of poo-poo.
(25:01):
They were sort of prettystandard.
I kind of thought they wereunimaginative for a little while
.
But it seems like they'recoming back and I'm starting to
hear about these more creativeways of getting people into your
store.
And what I've also learned fromhaving my own art exhibits is
that getting people to the eventis the best way to, but they
(25:25):
won't really buy if they don'tshow up, unless you are
retargeting and being aggressivein other ways.
But that's almost like a wholenother ball of wax.
So what would you recommend?
If someone is an events personand they're doing a combination
(25:47):
or suite of marketing programssuch as guys nights, gals night,
wishlist nights, anything alongthose lines how would you
approach that?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
So the biggest thing with events is, in my opinion,
organization.
So, because you're doing events, you want to attract new
customers.
Of course that might be throughads, through meta, I'd say
specifically, just becauseGoogle, more search based, it
kind of, you know, populates asas needed and of course there is
some retargeting there.
(26:18):
But if we're focusing on newcustomers, for ads, meta is
definitely the spot to do it.
And then emails you've got, youknow, postcards, if you're
sending them out that way.
Commercials in your radius, ifyou want to, you know, go that
route.
So, having you know, okay,here's my two week block for the
Black Friday event, where I'mgoing to be, you know, doing XYZ
(26:42):
, maybe gift cards at the door,whatever.
And then the next two weeks,let's say, you have a VIP night
for your high earners, followedby a ladies night, making sure
that the messaging is tailoredfor both so that you're not, you
know, conflating the VIPs thathave maybe been with you for
(27:03):
forever with maybe someone thatjust came in a month ago to, you
know, resize a ring, let's say,just for fun and would be more
apt to the ladies night.
So, having it all spread outand I'm I'm saying even if you
need to have a calendar in frontof you, paper pen.
Really focus on when the eventdates are, when the emails
(27:28):
should be sent out, when the adcampaign should start, and as
general best practices I saythat you know, just basic level.
Two weeks out is the sweet spotto hit it.
Now, of course, if you're goingfor leads and awareness and all
the fun stuff on meta, that's awhole different ballgame and
I'd be happy to talk anystrategy regarding that at a
(27:51):
later date.
But really kind of having yourducks in a row because proper
preparation it sounds cheesy.
Proper preparation preventspoor performance, and that is
what my coach tells me all thetime.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So so I think it translates the same in you know
jujitsu.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I think it translates the same in you know jujitsu,
the gym business.
It's all the same Properpreparation and having you know
the know.
How is how to you know, reallyimplement that strategy through
Q4 so you can have successfulevents over and over and over
(28:29):
again?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And you know what.
I also think there is somethingto be said about documenting
how you do this year and notjust for you know a postmortem
to look back.
So punchmark big on these, or Iam big on these, so I make
everyone.
I punchmark to them is wheneverwe finish a campaign or a big
project or anything, I throw acalendar on the meeting, usually
(28:56):
a week afterwards, so that it'sstill fresh enough that we can
talk about it, but not closeenough that we're like maybe
still pulling a couple levers.
Close enough that we go and wetalk about how it went.
We document as much as we canand then we also try to capture
as much information as we canfor the next time that we want
to do it, whether we're going todo the exact same thing or
(29:18):
potentially we might want to doa spinoff.
But trust me, now is theeasiest time for you to document
what went well and what did not, and now, meaning right after
the event.
I highly recommend it becauseyou can just take your, for
example, your copy for yoursocial posts or your ads, put it
(29:39):
into just like a little I useGoogle Sheets for everything but
just pop it in there, pastewithout formatting, put it all
in there and then I mean, inthis day and age you could just
feed it back into a GPT and haveit write it for you the next
year if you wanted to.
That's a really easy way to getyourself set up for future
years.
But increasingly I just think,don't let that work be one time
(30:04):
work, let it be like half of theway to next year's efforts.
And I think especially I meanto be candid we just did a
jewelers helping jewelers uhtakeover, and with that one I
wrote so many posts I mean justan awful amount of posts and
with all that copy what I did isI just put it into a
(30:26):
spreadsheet and I'm going to usethat information and, just like
you can do a million thingswith it.
You can train a gpt on it, youcan recycle it for future posts,
you can just have it to seewhat went well and what did not.
We earmarked which posts gotthe most comments and then we
looked.
You can go in and see like, ohyeah, this one is written in the
(30:47):
first person versus the thirdperson.
That's the kind of stuff Ihighly recommend.
You at least do the legwork onHope when it comes to.
Just really quickly talkingabout VIP events, I am
definitely.
I've heard so much about theseevents, even going back all the
way to, for example, I did thisinterview with Constance
(31:08):
Palamalu, my first interviewwith her.
She made this incredibleshowstopper piece 100 hundred
thousand plus and she said itwent to one of my VIPs and I
remember thinking, oh man, youcan't go to the well too often,
but when there's a moment to goto the well you really can cash
in.
Is that something you've hadconversations with jewelers
(31:29):
about?
About like cultivating this VIPexperience or list so that when
the moment is ready, they canactually take action?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
So, honestly, the majority of the jewelers that I
work with kind of already havethat squared away.
There are a couple generationsin, they've got their list and
they know kind of how they'regoing to do it.
Where I come in is asking youknow, hey, how can we make this
a little bit better, how can weelevate it, how can we change it
(31:57):
so that your VIPs don't get alittle fatigued, let's say, year
over year, knowing that, okay,every year they're going to have
a VIP night they're going to,you know, obviously, invite me
to an early showing of everyjewelry they may have.
How can I make it even that muchbetter?
Whether it's taking them out toa little bit of a group dinner
(32:19):
type of thing, obviously,champagne, the works, you know,
in the store.
But what's going to stick withthem so that next year, when it
rolls around again, they'reexcited to go back and excited
to spend more money with you and, you know, really elevate the
whole entire experience.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Man.
There's so many differentthings to be focused on, but the
good news is I do think you'reright.
I think that jewelers kind ofalready have a nose for where
they stand.
In the grand scheme of things,this is not their first
Christmas most likely, or nottheir first holiday season, I
guess and what I've started tosee is that they do sort of
(32:59):
always know how to go through it.
They're going to be super tiredat the end.
They all have.
They know their area best.
But what's fascinating is thereare just certain things that you
can do behind the scenes thatcan really have a nice little 5%
to 7% boost and 5% to 7% boostwho doesn't love that?
And I think that those likelittle SEM kind of things are
(33:21):
going to be really quite.
That's like the hidden, hiddenman behind the curtain that's
pulling some of the levers,having Google, you know, be your
salesperson.
For you.
It just seems like it's withinreach and if you just make one
sale off of that, or like itcontributes to one sale, it
feels like it pays for itself,right?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Absolutely, yep absolutely yep, and I mean even
some, some of our smaller plansthat we've got going on for the
quarter.
Four plans as a whole.
Um, you know, some of oursmaller packages is 1500 for the
entire quarter and oneengagement ring sale out of that
.
I mean pays for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know what about when it comes to these, these
curated landing pages I don'tactually really have a great
term for these.
We've talked about gift guides.
It's one of the things that wedo every year.
I told you beforehand I'm alittle down on gift guides
sometimes because it feels likethey're kind of one-dimensional.
(34:26):
How do you think that a jewelercan kind of breathe some life
into their gift guide approach,for example, like these landing
pages?
I really like it when there'slike this personal touch where
it's like this is Michael'scollection or this is Michael's
holiday picks, and then you cango in and add a couple of tags
(34:47):
and it's just it's all of myfavorite pieces.
There's 10 of them and they'reon a landing page, maybe a
picture of me looking at somejewelry, a little bit of copy
that adds like a little personaltouch about me, and then it's
like hey, I love simple jewelry,it's great.
And it it's like hey, I lovesimple jewelry, it's great, and
(35:09):
it's those kinds of things.
Uh, what are you seeingjewelers do to kind of make the
holiday gift guide not a snooze?
Speaker 3 (35:12):
fest.
Well, I think you kind ofanswered my.
You know, my rebuttal actuallywould have been kind of the same
thing Personalize it.
Obviously, the jewelry is goingto change every year.
Hopefully, keep those you knowlonger lasting pieces in the
gift guide.
Maybe just put them a littlebit towards the bottom so it is
a little bit refreshed.
But you know it's funny.
(35:33):
I was on Gabriel Co's websitethe other day.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
As one is.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
As one is, you know, and, mind you, ever since I did
that, I've been getting a ton ofretargeting.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
They must have such a budget.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Oh, they've got a budget, budget like you wouldn't
believe.
But anyway, what made their youknow kind of gift guide?
If you will, it wasn'tnecessarily a gift guide, but
they went through with theirdesigners and every single
designer or any collaborationthat they did.
It was so different, it was sounique, so kind of the same way
(36:09):
that you had said okay, here'smy picks, because I like fine
dainty jewelry and this is whatI would recommend.
Same kind of deal.
So if a jeweler has a coupledifferent designers in their in
their store, or if they've got acouple minds going into a
certain collection, having ablurb or saying this is why this
(36:34):
is special to me is reallygoing to resonate with the
audience that you're targeting.
And especially the holiday giftguide is again something that
is beautiful for retargeting.
As soon as you hit that landingpage, you're introduced into a
whole different campaign ad set.
As well as having that be apage like a landing portion for
(36:57):
emails and ads alike, it's justgoing to put people in that gift
giving or gift buying headspacebecause it is curated towards
the holiday of your choice.
Generally it is Christmas, buthaving those specific
collections and blurbs about youand your store is going to help
immensely, and especially againcircling back to AI here as
(37:21):
funny as it is, because it isartificial intelligence, it is
prioritizing human first content.
So have human first blurbs andyou know little things to add.
That's going to help you rankbetter online as well.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, I like you're saying that and I was thinking
like a a staff picks page,sometimes with with gift guides.
I think that this is what it is.
I'm putting my finger on it, Ithink it's so.
It feels so salesy and it's solike like the term gift.
I think that's what I don'tlike, where it's like, hey, buy
this thing, whereas like, whatare we doing with joy, we're
(37:59):
trying to pretend like it's,like it's a necessity, which it
is kinda it's a luxury.
And I think when we, when wejump the shark and we start
talking gift it, it's somewhatit almost like ruins some of the
sparkle.
But when you start saying it'slike staff picks, and then, yeah
, maybe you have like five ofyour staff members, let them
(38:21):
pick out a couple pieces, orhonestly, or don't just find
five of your best sellers andyou know, put it in like a
little carousel next to theirheadshot by them, get a pull
quote from them, and thensuddenly you have like a little
something that stands up alittle bit better.
Yeah, it's, I don't know.
It's something about the wholelike necessity kind of feeling
(38:41):
of it and it's like, actually,no, there should be some a
little bit more storytelling.
And, like you're saying, likeit's personal, it should feel
personal yeah, adding a littlebit of the whimsy, if you will.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
It's all it's whimsy, it's it's stories, and it makes
you forget about the actualnecessities for a minute.
And that's what I think jewelryis all about.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yes, I totally agree.
Hope anything else.
Before we wrap up Q4, always abusy time of the year and it's
busy for us and it's even busierfor jewelers.
We always laugh about is whenthe jewelers get the busiest.
We have to be quiet and forwhat I've seen in every single
jewelry forum is, if you're avendor, don't contact us between
the months of of, you know,middle of October and December,
(39:30):
because they don't want to talkto us, they want to talk to
customers and that puts, in myopinion, kind of a lot of
pressure on you because thatmeans you have, like this window
which is like right now untillike, maybe, halloween, because
Black Friday is stretching.
It stretches earlier andearlier every single year.
It seems like it used to bejust the day after Thanksgiving
(39:51):
and now it's like November 1stessentially, and that's great
for jewelers.
But at the same time, it makesyour position with those
different marketing windowswhich are unique for each store,
like we were just discussing.
Uh, you got to be prettyprecise, I think, and uh, I
don't envy that for you.
We'll be trying our best toprovide as much information as
(40:14):
we can for jewelers, so be sureto come back every week for new
in the loop episodes.
We'll be having a black fridayprep episode, like we always do.
We'll be having a couple ofjust, you know, informational
ones with some of our partnersleading up to the holiday season
as best as possible.
We understand that you're goingto be busier than ever.
Hopefully we'll provide someinteresting and engaging content
(40:38):
for you all.
What we do at Punchmark is we'rekind of approaching our code.
Freeze is what we typicallycall it.
It's where we have a couple ofhigh impact locations in our
code base that we won't touch,usually starting in October, and
that means October, november,december.
(40:58):
We're not going to roll outmajor features that could
potentially ever impact the gridand the checkout and the
product details page.
Those key features, becauseevery single year between
November and December combinedmake up like 30% or 33% of all
(41:22):
of the e-commerce sales for theentire year on the platform.
So we understand it's a highimpact time and we'll be
cognizant of that.
If you have any questions, ifyou want to reach out to Hope,
where should they contact you?
Speaker 3 (41:33):
You can email me at hope at punchmarkcom, or you can
give me a ring on my punchmarknumber, which is 704-910-4774,
extension 318.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
318, everybody.
Well Hope.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
Can't wait to see all the salesringing in.
It's going to be a good time.
I'm very excited, everybody.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, cheers, bye.
All right, everybody, that'sthe end of the show.
(42:12):
Thanks so much for listening.
My guest this week was HopeBelair, the digital marketing
manager at Punchmark, and youcan reach out to her at hope at
punchmarkcom.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
(42:33):
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom.
Slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks, we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye.
Loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks, we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
(42:54):
Cheers Bye.
Welcome to In the Loop.
So we discussed that and whatshe learned and how she plans to
take what she learned at thisconference and educate our
clients.
But we also talk about Q4.
Q4 is a big time for jewelersand retailers in general and
we're talking about how thedifferent types of jewelry
approaches can be served bymarketing and what she would
(00:41):
recommend if you have e-commerceor if you're trying to do
custom jewelry design oranything in between.
It's a fun talk.
I hope you enjoy it and youhave a great Q4.
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:15):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
punchmark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
(01:37):
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And now back to the show.
What is up everybody?
I'm joined by digital marketingmanager Hope Belair.
How you doing today, hope?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm doing swell.
How are you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So well.
I'm very excited to get achance to speak with you.
Q4 starts like in the middle orbeginning of Q3, but we kind of
just pretend like we're in Q4already.
We're in the beginning ofSeptember.
Lots of exciting things, butmost excitingly, you just went
to a big conference in SanFrancisco.
How was that?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was lovely.
I went to Inbound 25, which isHubSpot's marketing conference.
It was huge.
There was at least 15,000people there Got to watch the
Hot Ones episode live.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Seriously, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
With the ex-CEO of, or the co-founder rather of,
hubspot and Colin Jolt, the SNLcomedy guy.
He was there and present and itwas funny, his marketing jokes
were quite cute.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So to give everybody an idea why we're talking about
this even remotely is so.
Hubspot is sort of the backboneof how Punchmark runs our
business, so it's a CRM.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
So CRM it's kind of how we runour infrastructure.
We use a combination of HubSpotand a custom built one that
Ross actually built from wayback in the day that we lovingly
(03:13):
refer to as admin, and HubSpot,though, is how we also do our
marketing and a lot of our kindof broader outreach tools, but
what's really interesting issome other people use different
ones.
It's sort of a B2B marketingtool.
What is it that they mainlydiscussed?
That made it so that you feltlike you should attend and that
(03:34):
you learn new skills to you know.
Help our clients.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So the way Inbound was marketed was it's kind of,
you know, the biggest marketingconference in the nation, at
least, if not the rural, whereevery marketer and business
owner from different walks oflife are coming and going from
this marketing conference.
So, for example, I actually satnext to a guy on the first
keynote seminar there and he wasan agricultural marketing
(04:02):
person that used HubSpot for thebackbone of his business in
Bend, oregon, and I thought thatwas crazy because, again, over
here I'm on the East Coast,jewelry marketing is our big
thing, so getting differentperspectives and really being
able to network with high levelmarketing professionals really
(04:23):
sets us apart, I think, you know, in the long run, when we're
able to kind of continuouslylearn and stay curious about new
marketing techniques and howthat relates to the jewelry
industry.
So, specifically with Inbound,we were able to go through
HubSpot's new marketingofferings that were just
launched while I was at theconference, as well as what AI
(04:45):
is doing to reshape the spacethat we're so used to in the web
space.
Right, web and marketing aresynonymous with Google, search
and SEO and all this stuff andthey really came out with hey,
ai is here, we either embrace itand we exceed or we ignore it
(05:07):
and we kind of get a little leftbehind.
So their answer was AEO, whichis answer engine optimization,
and I'm going to be going intothis a little bit more, just in
general, maybe with a couple ofblog posts and LinkedIn posts on
my personal LinkedIn profileabout how this will shape the
jewelry industry.
(05:27):
But really getting a little bitmore forecasting, especially in
the jewelry industry, where youknow, obviously we're centuries
old, right, maybe not the webdevelopment side, obviously, but
the jewelry industry has alwaysbeen around from, you know,
1800s and beyond, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So really getting jewelry up to date and the
industry as a whole justmarketing it correctly so that
we're not getting left behind aswell, I think is a very
important aeo, transparentlyhope, dropped this on me before
we started recording and I waslike I'm I'm just dumb enough
(06:06):
that and and and forward enoughthat I don't know what that that
acronym means.
You gotta explain that to me.
So just to like kind of putthis into like very tangible
terms, uh, correct me if I'mwrong AEO would be making sure
that when someone asks chat, gptor Gemini hey, recommend me
some places to get an engagementring yours is at the top of the
(06:26):
list or is included in the list.
Is that kind of what it is?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Absolutely yeah.
So basically, I guess kind ofthe synopsis of it all is you
know, ai has an idea of yourbrand, right Through SEO and
your obviously traditionaldigital footprint.
It has an idea of what you do.
Aeo, the answer engineoptimization, basically fine
(06:53):
tunes that idea into your actualbrand voice.
So, like, let's say, right, youare a jeweler that specializes
in bat custom jewelryspecifically.
Let's just say that becauseit's a little out there, right?
You know what I mean it's nicheyeah it's niche.
So aeo like would help, you know, with some of those tactics,
(07:17):
help chat, gpt or another aisource get to.
Hey, yes, we specialize in batcustom jewelry, that's it Not.
Oh, it's a jewelry storelocated in XYZ town that does
bridal, because you know whatjeweler doesn't really do bridal
right.
So really hyper-focusing andfocusing on answer engine
(07:41):
optimization, I think isdefinitely the future.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting when I you know
immediately, I usually try totailor a lot of this stuff to
how could Punchmark use this?
And what I have always reallyloved about working at Punchmark
is that you know that terribleexpression oh, we eat our own
dog food.
You know that kind of phrase.
It's like we genuinely use allof our own tools.
Our website is built on versionsix of our platform.
(08:07):
So, if you were to, if you loginto Punchmark, if you want to
write a blog, I literally loginto punchmarkcom and I use the
blog editor the exact same wayour clients do.
And what's funny about that isthere are certain things I hate
and I get in my devs ears andI'm like hey, just so you know,
I hate this aspect of it.
And, uh, when they hear itcoming from me, sometimes I can
(08:31):
fast track it.
But hearing that, I'm like man,for example, your bat jewelry,
what is it?
A baseball bat or is it a batLike, as in a flappy flappy, you
know?
And same thing with web design.
We are Punchmark is, we dowebsites, but we do websites
specifically for jewelers.
(08:51):
So, but you can't bury thatlead in that it's if someone was
to ask like hey, who can yourecommend me for a website?
It's obviously they mightrecommend Punchmark, but that
would be a little bit of a miss.
It's almost like when someonegives the contextual information
that we're starting to learn isso important when it comes to
(09:12):
prompt engineering that if theywere to mention something around
the jewelry industry, hopefullywe would start to be
recommended.
It's really interesting.
Part of me wants to pull upChatGPT right now and see if we
show up as someone, but thenagain I also have probably
tailored mine so much that Iwonder if it would recommend
Punchmark or not.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, maybe go in an alias email and just say hey.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Hey, like, who do you recommend for bad jewelry for
bad jewelry?
So, when it comes to that Hope,do you think that that's
something that Punchmark willstart to?
You know?
Consider offering in the nearfuture.
You know how people can startappearing in these general AI
(09:58):
searches?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Absolutely so, moving into quarter four and obviously
early 2026, that's definitelygoing to be a focus of ours,
just because, again, witheverything that I have seen in
the analytics, with the data,traditional search is going down
.
Ai summaries on Google even isbringing traffic to your website
(10:20):
down significantly, becausepeople don't need to necessarily
read blogs anymore.
You get the information.
They can say, hey, who makesthat jewelry near me?
In Google even, and that AIsummary will come out.
So what we're going to be doingis focusing again more towards
(10:41):
that AEO with blog posts andcopywriting et cetera on our
websites, posts and copywriting,et cetera on our websites so
that when people are justsearching in ChatGPT or in
Google, they can pull directlyfrom quotes, let's say, from a
blog post, from your website,and get sourced in ChatGPT or AI
overviews.
So that's definitely somethingthat we're working on.
(11:02):
And this is not to say thattraditional SEO and everything
like that is irrelevant, becauseit is still very relevant.
I think it's just a hybrid modelthat we're going to be starting
to go forward with, so thatwe're pleasing two platforms or
two technologies at the sametime.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And you know, it's really quite interesting because
I'm starting to it feels veryreminiscent of when Punchmark
started building our marketingprogram.
It was right around 2018.
And what was so fascinating waswe were, I remember, starting
to understand SEO, and when youstart to understand what it's
looking for, it's looking forexperts and then it is going to
(11:44):
try to show relevancy, andthat's always what we're going
after.
Is this relevancy?
And that's where blog postswere kind of coming into the
play.
Is that's how you could showyour relevancy.
Back in the old days, we used tohack it by stuffing a lot of
keywords into it and that waythey would think that we were
super relevant.
But nowadays I've startedhearing this term source of
(12:06):
truth, like the one source oftruth, and what I've found is
that it starts to become aboutlike the actual content and the
thrust of the matter, if youwill Like this is not just
having a lot of the keywords orit's not just writing a lot of
blog articles that pertain tothe matter, but the actual hmm,
(12:29):
like the message is the mostrelevant, pertinent, gripping,
and it sounds like quality isalmost coming back into the fold
more than just quantity, whichI think is.
I mean it sounds refreshing,but I'm sure we'll people are
going to find ways to game thattoo, but we'll enjoy it for the
(12:51):
time being.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, I mean definitely quality over quantity
is going to start takingprevalence and especially, kind
of in that same vein,third-party apps like Reddit,
social media.
Third-party apps like Reddit,social media, other platforms
that your business is on isgoing to be super relevant when
showing up for AI, because AI ispulling from those different
(13:13):
platforms as well to give a moreholistic picture and view of
your brand so that they canrecommend you better, if you
will.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, what's really interesting is, just like on a
personal connotation ordiscussion, I've heard that
Reddit is becoming more and morekind of in the forefront One,
because it seems like one of thelast bastions of of real human
content which, if you'relistening, I am starting to be
(13:43):
worried about the whole deadInternet theory.
You know, where no one isactually making content,
everything is made by bots andeverything is just bots talking
to other bots and we are theonlookers.
(14:08):
And you know, chat engines areactually looking to them as,
like, a place where there is alot of human activity, whereas
when you look at, for example,facebook, facebook is not a lot
of human activity and a lot ofthese other places and Instagram
increasingly overrun by it.
But when you look at Reddit,it's primarily text based and
that's very easy for a engine todigest.
(14:29):
So I have started to leanactually on Reddit a lot more
recently, which is just very Idon't know.
I kind of am happy about that,but I also am like I know we got
like one more year of thisbefore suddenly they're like all
right, we got to ruin this too.
So who knows?
I think we'll see how thiscomes to play, but it's
(14:52):
fascinating to know thatrelevancy is going to be a new
topic as well.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Again, Absolutely, and anything published under a
year, 10 months, is a sweet spot.
Ai doesn't go back muchhistorically.
They want or it wants, I guessrelevant and current types of
data.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Good to know.
So everybody stay with us.
We're going to take a quickbreak and then when we come in,
we're going to talk about newstrategies on your quarter four
strategy.
So everybody stay with us.
This episode is brought to youin part by Stone Algo's Jeweler
OS.
If you're an independentjeweler offering bridal in your
(15:35):
brick and mortar store, I needto tell you guys about what I
recently discovered that willexplode your bridal sales.
At JCK Las Vegas this year, Icame across the most impressive
customer-facing engagement ringbuilder that I've seen so far.
It's built by this companycalled JewelerOS, like Jeweler
Operating System, and they'vebasically created a ring builder
(15:57):
that's better than what the bigbox stores have at their
disposal and it's available toindependent jewelers.
I had the founder on In theLoop a few weeks back and
they've already installed onhundreds of jewelers' websites
and, whether they are punchmarksites or not, it fits perfectly
onto your site.
They also have thismind-blowing feature that
instantly converts a picture ofa ring your customer wants into
(16:18):
a free manufacturable CAD fileSuper cool.
The best part is there's nocontract, no onboarding fee, and
they'll install the ringbuilder on your website super
fast.
All you pay is $25 per verifiedengagement ring lead and that's
it.
It no hidden fees.
So if you're tired of notconverting your website traffic
into bridal sales and you wantto grow your store, go to
(16:40):
trytheringbuildercom once againthat is trytheringbuildercom all
spelled normally and playaround with it and get it
installed on your website if youlike it, and maybe mention in
the loop, if you do.
And now back to the show.
All right, everybody stillspeaking with Hope Belair,
(17:04):
digital marketing manager atPunchmark Hope.
So I want to talk about Q4 andwhat you are spinning up for
jewelers, and what we always sayat the very beginning of this
we've done this episode a coupletimes is we're not making this
a sales pitch.
This is more like talking aboutthe end goal and then looking
(17:26):
at how to get there.
So what can we do?
And you could do for yourselfif that's your goal.
We've learned that noteverybody's goal is the same
when it comes to their businessand also with their online
presence.
So with very selfishly, I usedto always want jewelers to just
have e-commerce out the wazoo,Like I thought that everybody
(17:49):
should be shifting everything inthe e-commerce.
Increasingly, I'm learning thatonly some jewelers should be
doing that.
It's not for everybody, and asyou start to slice them down,
there are these kind of mainsort of bastions.
Let's talk about what cane-commerce focused people would
you recommend they start doing,and what sort of Q4 strategies
(18:10):
would you maybe implement ifthat's what they were going to
do with, like a digitalmarketing program with Punchmark
?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So if you're e-commerce focused, I would hope
at least anyway that you'vebeen running your ads all year,
really pushing out products anddifferent aspects to different
people and demographics thatalign with your store, your
store.
Now, for quarter four,obviously generally off the top,
(18:36):
we're looking at at least a 10to 20% bump in budget per month
for the duration of quarter four, just because, again now you're
competing with people thatmaybe haven't been doing any ads
throughout the year and they'reentering the chat, if you will.
So, thinking about your, yourbudgets and prorating them to
where, let's say, you know, evena week by week basis, maybe you
(18:57):
know, you know it's going to bea little slower, end of
September, early October, andthen you ramp it up really
through Thanksgiving, through24th, let's say so, off the top
budgets, you're looking toincrease budgets.
(19:17):
You're looking to increase asfar as your general campaigns
and pushing more products outthere, let's say, on meta and
google.
You're looking at a lot ofretargeting.
So, a lot of the you knowclients or new people that have
found your brand throughout theyear, we want to hit them hard
during the holidays yeah, timeto cash in, exactly because it
does take at least 12 touchpoints, let's say on average,
(19:39):
for someone to say, oh, Iremember that brand, I've seen
their ads on stories and in myfeed.
Maybe I should actually checkthem out for the holidays and
make that e-commerce purchase.
So really focusing on lookalikeaudiences, retargeting, getting
that demographic and reallyhammering it down is going to be
(20:00):
the strategy for e-commercegoing forward.
And then, of course, you know,based on your store and your
location, I would recommenddifferent imagery and videos.
You know from someone fromFlorida than in New York, let's
say.
It shouldn't necessarily be thesame, because the demographics
are completely different.
So understanding your store andwhat people want around you is
(20:23):
the best you know thing to doand making sure that your radius
around your store, the zipcodes that you're targeting, are
going to convert for you.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It's interesting it's kind of like the prelude for
the year is you got to writethese blogs, you got to update
everything, try to write thisgood content, get out there
making these posts and startgathering your following.
And then it's like Q4 is whenyou cash in.
And it's funny because theepisode before this one was
(20:56):
about five jewelry topics, uh,that you should be paying
attention to, and number fivewas I was kind of complaining
about how much retargeting thereis these days.
I feel like it's not funanymore and it's so funny.
And I almost included like alittle teaser in there because,
like 10 minutes before, I saidthat I ran a sponsored ad for
(21:19):
our sponsor and I was like, oh,am I part of the problem?
But I think that retargeting itjust goes to show how effective
it is and now is the time tocash in on it.
And what I've said in yearspast you got to be loud, you got
to be aggressive, and then,when January comes, I do think
(21:42):
it's OK to be a little bit quiet, like let the crescendo come
down and like reset to a piano,if you will, if you're into
music.
But now, hope, what if you'remaybe more of like a custom
jeweler and you, primarily, aredoing these custom projects or
you want people to come intostore.
(22:02):
What would you recommend thenas far as like a strategy and
how, like a marketer might helpyou?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah.
So the most important thing,let's say, for a custom jeweler
is knowing your end date, andwhat I mean by that is knowing
the amount of orders you cantake to get every custom job
done, let's say by the holidaysand let's say Christmas for, for
this example, knowing your enddate and knowing when the
(22:28):
turnaround time is for yourclients period.
Obviously that's more of abusiness decision and not
necessarily translating intomarketing, let's say in the ad
space.
But that will also determinethen how you curate your ads.
Let's say if you're doing adsthroughout the quarter four.
So e-commerce and custom designare two different heads, if you
(22:54):
will.
Yeah.
So with custom jewelry I'd sayyou're looking at getting the,
the word out, let's say in thenext two or three weeks.
You're starting earlier thane-commerce and retargeting.
You're getting out thosedesigns and saying, hey,
actually you know what.
Look at all this stuff I didover the summer and why it's so
(23:16):
beautiful.
Here's some testimonials.
It's a lot more visual, it's alot more storytelling than let's
push the product.
So you're looking at a strategyfrom, let's say, now to
December 1st, whereas e-commerceyou're looking at, let's say,
october 15th to December 20th toreally get people in.
(23:36):
So understanding again youraudience and what you do best is
going to help you in themessaging and branding for your
ads.
Let's say in this sense, ifyou're not doing ads, you know
email marketing.
Let's say, re-hitting thatclient list saying, hey, I know
(23:57):
you guys got married.
Let's say, I don't know 10years ago anniversary kind of a
year-ish you want a custom-madenew, upgraded engagement ring
for Christmas.
Let's make something together.
Let's make it beautiful.
Let's start now.
You know what I mean.
So really getting messagingacross and being a little bit
more holistic with your approach.
(24:17):
Personal touches to clients,you know obviously, um, jewelers
are so good at that anyway,with phone calls and personal
messages and stuff like that.
But really understanding, like,okay, this is, this is going to
be a little bit earlier and,depending on how quick the
turnaround time is for a customjob, knowing when to hit that
(24:38):
sweet spot.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'd love to know that there's like, yeah, there's
different uh target times andlike blocks, if you will in in
in the timeline for differentparts.
So let me throw a curveball atyou.
What about someone who wants todo lots of events this holiday
season, increasingly?
I think events are awesome.
I used to kind of poo-poo.
(25:01):
They were sort of prettystandard.
I kind of thought they wereunimaginative for a little while
.
But it seems like they'recoming back and I'm starting to
hear about these more creativeways of getting people into your
store.
And what I've also learned fromhaving my own art exhibits is
that getting people to the eventis the best way to, but they
(25:25):
won't really buy if they don'tshow up, unless you are
retargeting and being aggressivein other ways.
But that's almost like a wholenother ball of wax.
So what would you recommend?
If someone is an events personand they're doing a combination
(25:47):
or suite of marketing programssuch as guys nights, gals night,
wishlist nights, anything alongthose lines how would you
approach that?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
So the biggest thing with events is, in my opinion,
organization.
So, because you're doing events, you want to attract new
customers.
Of course that might be throughads, through meta, I'd say
specifically, just becauseGoogle, more search based, it
kind of, you know, populates asas needed and of course there is
some retargeting there.
(26:18):
But if we're focusing on newcustomers, for ads, meta is
definitely the spot to do it.
And then emails you've got, youknow, postcards, if you're
sending them out that way.
Commercials in your radius, ifyou want to, you know, go that
route.
So, having you know, okay,here's my two week block for the
Black Friday event, where I'mgoing to be, you know, doing XYZ
(26:42):
, maybe gift cards at the door,whatever.
And then the next two weeks,let's say, you have a VIP night
for your high earners, followedby a ladies night, making sure
that the messaging is tailoredfor both so that you're not, you
know, conflating the VIPs thathave maybe been with you for
(27:03):
forever with maybe someone thatjust came in a month ago to, you
know, resize a ring, let's say,just for fun and would be more
apt to the ladies night.
So, having it all spread outand I'm I'm saying even if you
need to have a calendar in frontof you, paper pen.
Really focus on when the eventdates are, when the emails
(27:28):
should be sent out, when the adcampaign should start, and as
general best practices I saythat you know, just basic level.
Two weeks out is the sweet spotto hit it.
Now, of course, if you're goingfor leads and awareness and all
the fun stuff on meta, that's awhole different ballgame and
I'd be happy to talk anystrategy regarding that at a
(27:51):
later date.
But really kind of having yourducks in a row because proper
preparation it sounds cheesy.
Proper preparation preventspoor performance, and that is
what my coach tells me all thetime.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
So so I think it translates the same in you know
jujitsu.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I think it translates the same in you know jujitsu,
the gym business.
It's all the same Properpreparation and having you know
the know.
How is how to you know, reallyimplement that strategy through
Q4 so you can have successfulevents over and over and over
(28:29):
again?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And you know what.
I also think there is somethingto be said about documenting
how you do this year and notjust for you know a postmortem
to look back.
So punchmark big on these, or Iam big on these, so I make
everyone.
I punchmark to them is wheneverwe finish a campaign or a big
project or anything, I throw acalendar on the meeting, usually
(28:56):
a week afterwards, so that it'sstill fresh enough that we can
talk about it, but not closeenough that we're like maybe
still pulling a couple levers.
Close enough that we go and wetalk about how it went.
We document as much as we canand then we also try to capture
as much information as we canfor the next time that we want
to do it, whether we're going todo the exact same thing or
(29:18):
potentially we might want to doa spinoff.
But trust me, now is theeasiest time for you to document
what went well and what did not, and now, meaning right after
the event.
I highly recommend it becauseyou can just take your, for
example, your copy for yoursocial posts or your ads, put it
(29:39):
into just like a little I useGoogle Sheets for everything but
just pop it in there, pastewithout formatting, put it all
in there and then I mean, inthis day and age you could just
feed it back into a GPT and haveit write it for you the next
year if you wanted to.
That's a really easy way to getyourself set up for future
years.
But increasingly I just think,don't let that work be one time
(30:04):
work, let it be like half of theway to next year's efforts.
And I think especially I meanto be candid we just did a
jewelers helping jewelers uhtakeover, and with that one I
wrote so many posts I mean justan awful amount of posts and
with all that copy what I did isI just put it into a
(30:26):
spreadsheet and I'm going to usethat information and, just like
you can do a million thingswith it.
You can train a gpt on it, youcan recycle it for future posts,
you can just have it to seewhat went well and what did not.
We earmarked which posts gotthe most comments and then we
looked.
You can go in and see like, ohyeah, this one is written in the
(30:47):
first person versus the thirdperson.
That's the kind of stuff Ihighly recommend.
You at least do the legwork onHope when it comes to.
Just really quickly talkingabout VIP events, I am
definitely.
I've heard so much about theseevents, even going back all the
way to, for example, I did thisinterview with Constance
(31:08):
Palamalu, my first interviewwith her.
She made this incredibleshowstopper piece 100 hundred
thousand plus and she said itwent to one of my VIPs and I
remember thinking, oh man, youcan't go to the well too often,
but when there's a moment to goto the well you really can cash
in.
Is that something you've hadconversations with jewelers
(31:29):
about?
About like cultivating this VIPexperience or list so that when
the moment is ready, they canactually take action?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
So, honestly, the majority of the jewelers that I
work with kind of already havethat squared away.
There are a couple generationsin, they've got their list and
they know kind of how they'regoing to do it.
Where I come in is asking youknow, hey, how can we make this
a little bit better, how can weelevate it, how can we change it
(31:57):
so that your VIPs don't get alittle fatigued, let's say, year
over year, knowing that, okay,every year they're going to have
a VIP night they're going to,you know, obviously, invite me
to an early showing of everyjewelry they may have.
How can I make it even that muchbetter?
Whether it's taking them out toa little bit of a group dinner
(32:19):
type of thing, obviously,champagne, the works, you know,
in the store.
But what's going to stick withthem so that next year, when it
rolls around again, they'reexcited to go back and excited
to spend more money with you and, you know, really elevate the
whole entire experience.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Man.
There's so many differentthings to be focused on, but the
good news is I do think you'reright.
I think that jewelers kind ofalready have a nose for where
they stand.
In the grand scheme of things,this is not their first
Christmas most likely, or nottheir first holiday season, I
guess and what I've started tosee is that they do sort of
(32:59):
always know how to go through it.
They're going to be super tiredat the end.
They all have.
They know their area best.
But what's fascinating is thereare just certain things that you
can do behind the scenes thatcan really have a nice little 5%
to 7% boost and 5% to 7% boostwho doesn't love that?
And I think that those likelittle SEM kind of things are
(33:21):
going to be really quite.
That's like the hidden, hiddenman behind the curtain that's
pulling some of the levers,having Google, you know, be your
salesperson.
For you.
It just seems like it's withinreach and if you just make one
sale off of that, or like itcontributes to one sale, it
feels like it pays for itself,right?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Absolutely, yep absolutely yep, and I mean even
some, some of our smaller plansthat we've got going on for the
quarter.
Four plans as a whole.
Um, you know, some of oursmaller packages is 1500 for the
entire quarter and oneengagement ring sale out of that
.
I mean pays for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You know what about when it comes to these, these
curated landing pages I don'tactually really have a great
term for these.
We've talked about gift guides.
It's one of the things that wedo every year.
I told you beforehand I'm alittle down on gift guides
sometimes because it feels likethey're kind of one-dimensional.
(34:26):
How do you think that a jewelercan kind of breathe some life
into their gift guide approach,for example, like these landing
pages?
I really like it when there'slike this personal touch where
it's like this is Michael'scollection or this is Michael's
holiday picks, and then you cango in and add a couple of tags
(34:47):
and it's just it's all of myfavorite pieces.
There's 10 of them and they'reon a landing page, maybe a
picture of me looking at somejewelry, a little bit of copy
that adds like a little personaltouch about me, and then it's
like hey, I love simple jewelry,it's great.
And it it's like hey, I lovesimple jewelry, it's great, and
(35:09):
it's those kinds of things.
Uh, what are you seeingjewelers do to kind of make the
holiday gift guide not a snooze?
Speaker 3 (35:12):
fest.
Well, I think you kind ofanswered my.
You know, my rebuttal actuallywould have been kind of the same
thing Personalize it.
Obviously, the jewelry is goingto change every year.
Hopefully, keep those you knowlonger lasting pieces in the
gift guide.
Maybe just put them a littlebit towards the bottom so it is
a little bit refreshed.
But you know it's funny.
(35:33):
I was on Gabriel Co's websitethe other day.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
As one is.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
As one is, you know, and, mind you, ever since I did
that, I've been getting a ton ofretargeting.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
They must have such a budget.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Oh, they've got a budget, budget like you wouldn't
believe.
But anyway, what made their youknow kind of gift guide?
If you will, it wasn'tnecessarily a gift guide, but
they went through with theirdesigners and every single
designer or any collaborationthat they did.
It was so different, it was sounique, so kind of the same way
(36:09):
that you had said okay, here'smy picks, because I like fine
dainty jewelry and this is whatI would recommend.
Same kind of deal.
So if a jeweler has a coupledifferent designers in their in
their store, or if they've got acouple minds going into a
certain collection, having ablurb or saying this is why this
(36:34):
is special to me is reallygoing to resonate with the
audience that you're targeting.
And especially the holiday giftguide is again something that
is beautiful for retargeting.
As soon as you hit that landingpage, you're introduced into a
whole different campaign ad set.
As well as having that be apage like a landing portion for
(36:57):
emails and ads alike, it's justgoing to put people in that gift
giving or gift buying headspacebecause it is curated towards
the holiday of your choice.
Generally it is Christmas, buthaving those specific
collections and blurbs about youand your store is going to help
immensely, and especially againcircling back to AI here as
(37:21):
funny as it is, because it isartificial intelligence, it is
prioritizing human first content.
So have human first blurbs andyou know little things to add.
That's going to help you rankbetter online as well.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, I like you're saying that and I was thinking
like a a staff picks page,sometimes with with gift guides.
I think that this is what it is.
I'm putting my finger on it, Ithink it's so.
It feels so salesy and it's solike like the term gift.
I think that's what I don'tlike, where it's like, hey, buy
this thing, whereas like, whatare we doing with joy, we're
(37:59):
trying to pretend like it's,like it's a necessity, which it
is kinda it's a luxury.
And I think when we, when wejump the shark and we start
talking gift it, it's somewhatit almost like ruins some of the
sparkle.
But when you start saying it'slike staff picks, and then, yeah
, maybe you have like five ofyour staff members, let them
(38:21):
pick out a couple pieces, orhonestly, or don't just find
five of your best sellers andyou know, put it in like a
little carousel next to theirheadshot by them, get a pull
quote from them, and thensuddenly you have like a little
something that stands up alittle bit better.
Yeah, it's, I don't know.
It's something about the wholelike necessity kind of feeling
(38:41):
of it and it's like, actually,no, there should be some a
little bit more storytelling.
And, like you're saying, likeit's personal, it should feel
personal yeah, adding a littlebit of the whimsy, if you will.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
It's all it's whimsy, it's it's stories, and it makes
you forget about the actualnecessities for a minute.
And that's what I think jewelryis all about.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yes, I totally agree.
Hope anything else.
Before we wrap up Q4, always abusy time of the year and it's
busy for us and it's even busierfor jewelers.
We always laugh about is whenthe jewelers get the busiest.
We have to be quiet and forwhat I've seen in every single
jewelry forum is, if you're avendor, don't contact us between
the months of of, you know,middle of October and December,
(39:30):
because they don't want to talkto us, they want to talk to
customers and that puts, in myopinion, kind of a lot of
pressure on you because thatmeans you have, like this window
which is like right now untillike, maybe, halloween, because
Black Friday is stretching.
It stretches earlier andearlier every single year.
It seems like it used to bejust the day after Thanksgiving
(39:51):
and now it's like November 1stessentially, and that's great
for jewelers.
But at the same time, it makesyour position with those
different marketing windowswhich are unique for each store,
like we were just discussing.
Uh, you got to be prettyprecise, I think, and uh, I
don't envy that for you.
We'll be trying our best toprovide as much information as
(40:14):
we can for jewelers, so be sureto come back every week for new
in the loop episodes.
We'll be having a black fridayprep episode, like we always do.
We'll be having a couple ofjust, you know, informational
ones with some of our partnersleading up to the holiday season
as best as possible.
We understand that you're goingto be busier than ever.
Hopefully we'll provide someinteresting and engaging content
(40:38):
for you all.
What we do at Punchmark is we'rekind of approaching our code.
Freeze is what we typicallycall it.
It's where we have a couple ofhigh impact locations in our
code base that we won't touch,usually starting in October, and
that means October, november,december.
(40:58):
We're not going to roll outmajor features that could
potentially ever impact the gridand the checkout and the
product details page.
Those key features, becauseevery single year between
November and December combinedmake up like 30% or 33% of all
(41:22):
of the e-commerce sales for theentire year on the platform.
So we understand it's a highimpact time and we'll be
cognizant of that.
If you have any questions, ifyou want to reach out to Hope,
where should they contact you?
Speaker 3 (41:33):
You can email me at hope at punchmarkcom, or you can
give me a ring on my punchmarknumber, which is 704-910-4774,
extension 318.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
318, everybody.
Well Hope.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
Can't wait to see all the salesringing in.
It's going to be a good time.
I'm very excited, everybody.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, cheers, bye.
All right, everybody, that'sthe end of the show.
(42:12):
Thanks so much for listening.
My guest this week was HopeBelair, the digital marketing
manager at Punchmark, and youcan reach out to her at hope at
punchmarkcom.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
(42:33):
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom.
Slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks, we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye.
Loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks, we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
(42:54):
Cheers Bye.
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