How to Bring the Joy Back to Your Marketing with Laryssa Wirstiuk

11:14PM Apr 23, 2021

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Laryssa Wirstiuk

Keywords:

brand

jewelry

people

marketing

qvc

podcast

customers

email

called

content

questions

ideas

joya

creative

joy

survey

book

favorite

listening

email marketing

It varies so much. It's like I think you really need to have a heart to heart with yourself and say, What do I want to know? Like what is the mystery that I want to uncover and like figure one, figure out what that is for your brand.

Welcome to Thrive by Design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you are a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this. Do you want to make your jewelry marketing a lot more joyful? If you ever feel stuck with your marketing, you're going to love this episode.

Hey there, I'm Tracy Matthews. I'm the Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy and I help jewelry makers, designers and brands scale their sales online to create financial freedom for themselves and their families using a little thing I call the desire brand effect. And today I have a very special guest on the show. Larissa Wirstiuk of Joy Joya Jewelry Marketing. she's going to be talking how to bring the joy back to your jewelry brand and get marketing get in front of your marketing. So that a lot more fun. Before we dive into this episode, if you haven't done so yet, make sure that you subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell and at the end of the episode. share with me your biggest takeaway. Alright, let's dive in.

Hey, everyone, I am here with my friend Laryssa Wirstiuk. Laryssa, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having me. Tracy. I'm so excited to be here. It's really an honor to be on your podcast.

Well, I'm excited because I was on your show on your podcast jewelry. Joy Joya Jewelry Marketing, right is the name of the podcast? Am I getting it?

Yeah, the Joy Joya Jewelry Marketing Podcast.

cuz you have jewelry marketing joy, which is your book, lots of joy and joy.

So a lot of J's I know it can get confusing, and people sometimes call me Joy. And that's not my name, but I get it. I understand why they might call me that, so

Where'd that come from?

Well, the Joy Joya name. So Joya in Spanish means Jewelry. And then I like that that word has joy kind of built into it. And I like to make marketing joyful for people. So I felt like that worked.

Well, that that makes total sense. So I wanted to have you on the show today, because your book came out actually a while ago. Because timing of when it came out. I couldn't actually interview sooner. So I'm excited to just talk a little bit more about your book, Jewelry Marketing Joy, and a little bit about marketing today. So before we dive in, tell me a little bit about your like how you kind of got into jewelry marketing?

Yeah, that's a good question. It's a winding journey that makes no sense. But I'll tell you. So I've been in marketing for over a decade. My background is actually in writing and creative writing, but I was able to kind of like naturally parlay that into digital marketing, especially around 2008-2009. When I came out of grad school, Twitter was like coming up. Blogging was like a big thing. There was so much excitement in social media and content marketing, and I got so caught up in that and passionate about it. And I saw an opportunity to kind of use writing and communications in that.

So I started my career, working in a lot of different industries just kind of testing out the waters, like really boring stuff like pharmaceutical, healthcare, tech education, like things that were fine and helped me learn a lot in marketing, but they didn't really light me up and like make me excited. I always had a passion for jewelry, you know, all throughout all those years, jewelry was like the way that I would unwind. Like I would go watch QVC like when they were selling jewelry, like for fun, or just go online and like window shop for jewelry. And I thought to myself, Hmm, okay, I'm already passionate about marketing. I'm already passionate about jewelry, how can I figure out a way to put this together? So I had kind of like a quarter life crisis, decided to move to LA from the East Coast. I got a position working in sales for a jewelry store just to like learn be in front of customers, feel jewelry, like learn the language of it, how to sell it, and took that experience and was able to get some in house marketing positions for jewelry brands and then built my business while I was doing that and that's how I got to where I am today.

I love that. Well I love that you mentioned QVC because we have a super solid QVC connection over here at Flourish and Thrive I was on QVC and 2007- 08. Early 2008 and 2007, early 2008. And Lisa, who is the director of our Momentum program, recently sold her company- Modern Brands. They had a line her and her husband, Robert had a line that they sold to QVC and HSN. And they were the hookup that got me on to QVC a long time ago. So it's like kind of a fun like connection with QVC. When did they stop selling jewelry? I don't, I'm not really.

I think they still do. But they've like pivoted in so many ways. I think they're really focused on like beauty right now, because that's a really popular category. But I don't have an obsession with QVC, I was actually so bummed, because for the longest time, I wanted to visit their studio, they used to do studio tours. And the last time I was on the East Coast, I don't remember what it was, I was like, Okay, this is gonna be the time I'm gonna schedule it. And they stopped doing it for security reasons. So I never got to go.

Bummer, and it's cool. You watch. What's that movie? It's called joy, I think random

I don't remember. God knows who the founder is That's what it looks like when you go on the set. It's a spiral thing. They turn around, there's multiple sets. It's huge. It's a little bit intimidating. And it is exhausting when you have to be on the show at three in the morning. But you know, you did it. All other experience. I probably did podcast about it a while back, but it's interesting.

So let's get back to marketing.

Yeah, sorry, tangent.

I love tangents. That's what makes the show interesting, right? You know, we can stick to the format. Or we can make the show interesting either way.

So what are some of your favorite marketing channels for jewelry designers?

Yeah, I am a huge evangelist of content marketing. And that can take a lot of different forms, I really encourage my clients to try out blogging. I know that sounds like kind of old school like mid 2000s. But it's really good for search engine optimization for like increasing search engine visibility. And I like to think of it as like, it can be a cornerstone for your marketing. So if you have a really good blog post, say, with Mother's Day coming up, you write this really great blog post about your favorite Mother's Day gifts and like ideas for gifting them and you use that as a cornerstone, then your email campaign, your social media posts, all your other touch points can just be like offshoots of that so you can totally from that content, repurpose it have like a centerpiece that everything else comes out of. So I like it as a way to like focus your strategy and plan and also as a way to, like, bring more traffic to your website, potentially.

So that's like, you know, we call that like an anchor piece of content, because you can do so much with it. You know, you could take one blog post and turn it into a bunch of different things and use it as evergreen content. And like, we were always Same thing over here. We're always coaching people, like, you need to have a blog to like, I don't like to write I'm like, it doesn't even matter if you write it, but it's really important for SEO. Like Yeah, find to give B to rank in your local area, which is one of my favorite SEO tactics. It's really about ranking in your local area because especially for people who are private jewelers or, or who have like a small like more niche jewelry business, because that local community are going to be the people that like really come around you and support your brand.

Absolutely.

So what are some of the things that a lot of jewelry brands miss when it comes to marketing?

Finding a way to really set themselves apart, and instead just checking the boxes, which I don't recommend like, Okay, I got to have an Instagram account and I got to post every day check. I got to have my facebook profile check. I got to send my emails, however often you're sending them check and then they're like, Why is this not working for me? So taking a step beyond like the check boxes and maybe trying to do something different that's not so reliant on these platforms or that your competitors aren't doing whatever that may be. I think that's how you kind of move from like the status quo to the next level in your business for sure.

Totally. So what are like some fun things that you've been seeing people do lately that have worked? I know that we're everyone's hearing like reels, reels reels, but like people feel stupid they don't really want to dance on a video and be like, doing their like Instagram version of Tiktok So, but reels there's other ways to use things like reels or whatever. So I'm curious, like, what are some of the most imaginative things that you've seen working lately?

Yeah, there's this one brand based out of the UK called Alex Monroe jewelry. And they recently started a podcast a few months ago. podcast, and probably most people listening to this are like, why? How could I start a podcast about my job rebrand, like I sell products. Well, they interview interesting people, they interview customers, people within their company, they tell stories about their products about the process. I think the content opportunities are endless if you can get really creative about them. And I'm not saying you have to start a podcast, like that's not everyone's talent, not everyone is good on the mic or wants to do that. But it's like something that not a lot of people are doing not a lot of brands are doing, doing YouTube videos about like Style Tips, getting yourself on video, using your blog more like a true publication, like lifestyle content, instead of just like product roundups all the time, and like drawing people to your brand, because of that lifestyle that you're sharing instead, those are all like, really unique ways to do that.

I love that those are great tips. And then once again, you know, I know we're not like necessarily suggesting people start a podcast, but there's a way that you can create this, like anchor content, like one piece of bigger content, and then use it in a variety of different ways to spread the word about what you're doing, and get creative with it. Because we're all three ways, right? Like we're designing or making jewelry or selling jewelry. You got to get us that creativity there too.

Yeah, that's why I'm always pushing this, too. I'm like, I know you're a creative person, like, think outside the box a little bit. I know you have it in you. Come on.

So so true. Okay, so for people who are feeling stuck, let's let's dial in like three specific ways that they can kind of make a change or shift their marketing or creative marketing or whatever it might be.

Sure, well, most of the time, I see when someone's feeling stuck. It's because they don't have a plan in place. Like they're kind of just flying by the seat of their pants, and then wondering why their momentum stopped, or they ran out of ideas. So trying to get ahead of yourself in your marketing and looking at like the next three months, the next six months, brainstorming ideas for marketing tactics, even if you don't end up doing them or you change course, at least you already have something on the board for what's coming. So when you have that you should never feel stuck. Some other things, I would say trying to like think outside of the industry, too. I think a lot of jewelry brands just look at other jewelry brands or they they try to mimic their competitors too much. Look to a totally different industry like beauty, apparel, lifestyle, like home goods, what are those brands doing? And maybe there are ideas there that can help you get out of a rut, because looking in the jewelry space can be like very insular.

Yeah, totally.

And also, not enough jewelry brands are like really leveraging their customers expertise. So I think like your customer knows the best. And you should really be looking to them for ideas, you should be always asking them questions. If you're stuck, maybe you want to even do like a formalized survey to your customers and see like, what do they want, because I'm sure that they have ideas that you don't even know about. So really trusting that your customer has something to offer you as much as you have to offer them as well.

I think even just a simple thank you to the customer. Like if you have their phone number, you can literally send a thank you from your phone. I know people shy away from this because they don't want people to have their personal number. But you can also set up a Google Voice or something and use their texting app. And by doing this, you're just saying like, Hey, I just wanted to shoot you a personal Thank you. This is not a marketing text. This is so and so from whatever brand for buying my product and wait for them to respond. And then after you could just say like, what's your experience bad? or How are you enjoying it, and you can get some like words from their mouth that you can use for content, right? Like, and not necessarily that you're going to share their name, but like those words in the language that they use can give you a lot of insight into how people view your product.

Absolutely, yeah, it's way better than guessing about it or trying to force your perspective down your customers throat.

Exactly. So when you I love the idea of surveys, because we recommend that to you. What would you recommend putting like, what kind of questions or how many questions would you put on a survey like that?

Yeah, that's a good one.

Um, keep it simple. No one wants to fill out like super long surveys unless you're gonna compensate people for their time. I'm always like, so appalled when I get survey emails from brands, and they're like, Hey, we just want your opinion like and then this surveys like 50 questions long and I'm like, why would I do this? So yeah, offering an incentive, perhaps like maybe a discount code or something that you can offer in exchange for as an appreciation for their time keeping it super short and simple. Five to 10 questions max that might even be too much. But leaving the questions open ended as well. So not just like yes or no questions, inviting the customer to share, like you said their language like the words that they would use to describe your brand. And in terms of what questions, huh, it varies so much. It's like, I think you really need to have a heart to heart with yourself and say, What do I want to know? Like, what is the mystery that I want to uncover? And like figure what figure out what that is for your brand? Because I think that could vary so much from one brand to another.

You know, it'd be interesting. I was just at a branding workshop last week. And one of the exercises was that the person hosting the retreat knows all the people who are attending he's like a branding expert, my friend Re Perez who I've interviewed on the show before, so if you haven't listened to that podcast, make sure that you check it out. He wrote a book called Your Brand Should Be Gay, even if you aren't, if you're not even

What a fun title.

But he was talking about, you know, he said, he wrote us all a Hamrick card, he's like, here's how you occurred to me. So you can even ask them? Like, what are three words that that in your own words, describe what you're experiencing for my brand? And that's just a great way to get like, information of like how people perceive you.

Definitely. Yeah, I like that idea.

I also want to highlight one thing that you said, because like, I love this so much. I was just like, I didn't want to interrupt you. But I was like, Yes, yes. When you said like, look to other industries and other brands, like one of my favorite email marketing hacks is for people to get inspiration. I would never suggest to copy anyone. This is not what I'm saying here. But like, get on email lists of people have brands that you love and see what they are doing for email marketing, or are there other types of marketing, and see what works on you. Sometimes the big brands, I don't know that they're always the best with social media, some of them are but whatever. But for email marketing, they spend a lot of money because they know that they get a lot in return for email marketing. So see what works for you like, which emails are you shopping from, and that can give you inspiration for content and different ways to market that might resonate with your customers, because if your customers or anything like you, which I think the majority of people listening to this show have some sort of something in common, something in common with their dream customers, right? They're gonna probably resonate with the same types of things. So I love that you said that, because it's such a good hack.

That's such a great point. Yeah, I'm actually with one of my clients, we're brainstorming for a welcome email right now. And I sent them examples from like, Brooklinen, which is like a bed brand. And like a food delivery brand, and an apparel brand, so totally outside of the space, but lots of really great ideas.

Yeah, and if you're worried about getting too much email, which I know everyone is concerned about are they're worried whatever they're worried about starting a separate email address that is just to subscribe to these things so that you can see what people are doing. And then you'll have an inbox full of like, 2000 emails, probably in like, a couple of days. You could scroll through and check it out.

Yeah, I need to do that. Because I want to, as someone who helps my clients with email marketing, one of the like, hazards of my job is I'm constantly subscribing to everything. And then I'm like, I don't want to be on any of these lists. But it's a test and an experiment to do it.

Well, yeah, I love it. Because I have the I have my shopping email, which is kind of the one that all those go to. But I also have another email for like, inspiration for business, like email design and stuff like that. So there's a couple of ways you can do it.

It's also Yeah, there's a website, I think it's called really good emails.com. It's like a, like a database of screenshots that people add and information about each one. And You can also filter and sort by industry, I believe and intent. So like welcome emails, whatever emails, that's a great resource.

That is, I just wrote it down so I can check it out. Thank you for that.

I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. But if I'm sure if you Google that something like that would come up.

Awesome. I just have one final question for you. Like if people are, I don't know, people get stuck all the time, right with their marketing, that it's not joyful for them and your words. They're like, I hate marketing. I don't want to do it, but I feel like I have to do it. Like, what is something that they can do to kind of get unstuck or get that spark back.

Yeah. It's a great question and I see it a lot. A kind of going back to what I said before, I really do think planning goes a long way. I think it makes it feel less scary, it makes it feel more accessible. And if you are not good at planning, then you need to find someone to help you plan or even sit with you or be your accountability partner. Because once you can see the rest of the year or the next six months? I don't think it's as scary. And you can have more actually more fun and more creativity with it. Because you can work within that structure rather than like putting pressure on yourself all the time to come up with things on the fly, which is a grind.

Awesome, I love it.

Yeah,

Thank you so much for being here. But before we go, let's hear about your book. Jewelry Marketing Joy, Looking for my copy before this interview, I'm like, where did it get put stuff around before we left for a little trip. And now I can't find it, but you have it on your end. So tell us about the book.

Sure. So it came out in October of 2020. It's a big compilation of a lot of the content I put out in my podcast and my blog. But I just saw a need for like a comprehensive resource for jewelry brands, I were struggling to find this information in one place. And another layer of that is that marketing can kind of be scary, because there was like a lot of technical terms and like there's it just can be overwhelming. So I wanted to make it feel like friendly and accessible. And I hope that it's all those things. I've gotten that feedback. So hopefully, it is those things. And I want to to your listeners as a thank you for having me on here. And for listening, I would love to give away three copies of my book signed to anyone who lives who listens and lives in the United States. They just need to visit joyjoya.com/win and enter by May 7 and then I will do a drawing of all the entries and give away three copies of the book.

Amazing. So joyjoya.com/win

It's joyjoya.com/win

joyjoya.com/win So Laryssa, thank you for that generous offer to give away your book. Definitely go get it. I've read it. It's awesome. And there's so much synergy here because like we're in line with everything that we teach. So thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me Tracy, this was super fun.

Thank you so much for listening to the show today. This is Tracy Matthews, signing off. And if you'd like to get a free copy of lewis's book, head over to joyjoya.com/win and get into this free giveaway for one of her signed books. You're gonna love it. It's really good. I've read it myself. So enjoy and head on over. Get your free copy. If you haven't done so yet. In the comments below. Share with me your biggest takeaway. Thanks so much. Ciao for now.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive.