How to Target High-End Jewelry Customers
High end jewelry makes a statement of status and professionalism. Besides their distinctive designs, this type of jewelry is also priced higher and, most often, associated with a popular brand name. While the average US jewelry business has a profit margin of 43-47%, fine jewelry sellers with an established brand can go beyond that. Clients of high-ticket jewelry items require trust and authority before purchasing. They usually invest time into thinking about their options and may ask multiple questions before deciding to buy.
So how can you establish authority in this niche and find the right clients? We’ve come up with a few steps that we think are necessary for this to happen. Let’s go over them, one by one.
1. Find the Right Target Market
To find the right customers you have to talk to the right audiences. For example, women are still the biggest group of jewelry buyers and about half of millennial women buy their own jewelry. Most of the industry sales (85% to be exact) are spent on fine jewelry items, with baby boomers spending the most money on them. While online sales in the US dropped during the pandemic, they are quickly picking back up. So your high-end clientele will likely be online too.
Even before you start your marketing, you should know who your ideal clients are and where you can find them. Research their demographics and psychographics, while comparing them to those of your competitors’ target audiences. Learn also what weaknesses and areas of improvement your competitors have by looking at their customers’ reviews and comments online.
Once you have this kind of data about your target market, you can customize your marketing based on it and take your advertising to the online platforms they are most likely to be on. Let’s look more into that.
2. Optimize Your Marketing Strategy
Given that the competition is so fierce in the online world, a multi-channel marketing approach is extremely important. That means being present on as many online marketplaces as possible, on top of your own store. One of the most effective marketplaces to sell high-end jewelry on is Amazon. eBay is also popular for loose diamonds and $1000+ gemstones.
Your website is just as crucial in attracting high-paying clients. You should put as much thought and planning into this as you would into a physical store opening. We have addressed in a previous blog the details of creating the best online jewelry store design. Feel free to review that first.
You can increase traffic to your website for free, through SEO, or by using paid advertising. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it helps you show up on the results page of a search engine after a user searches for products like yours. The words (and sentences) they use to search are called keywords. For a jewelry store these could be:
- Jewelry / jewellery (check your spelling based on your target market’s geolocation)
- Gold, silver
- Accessories
- Online jewelry
- Online jewelry store
- 24k diamond ring, etc.
You can also pay for online ads. These are usually placed on search engine results pages (SERP) or on websites that allow external ads. They are called PPC (price per click) campaigns or search engine marketing (SEM) if only shown on SERPs. Google has taken online advertising one step further through their Google Shopping platform, which scours the web to find products relevant to the search and compare prices.
A few other helpful marketing strategies to attract and maintain high-end clientele include:
- Advanced email marketing campaigns through proper CRM tools
- Working with established, authority groups, institutions, and influencers in the industry
- Active social media presence with consistent, regular posts and advertisements
- Trained sales team
- GoogleMyBusiness page
- Post-sale email marketing and feedback collection (it’s cheaper to turn existing clients into recurring ones than to acquire new ones constantly)
3. Follow Product and Buying Trends
Individuals buy jewelry online for different purposes. You’ll have the fashion icons who buy it regularly for themselves, those who purchase it as gifts for others, the influencers of the industry who promote it, and the collectors who rarely use the same jewelry items twice. Each of these buying trends should have its own content marketing strategy.
Google Trends is another place where you can keep up with your target market’s interests and needs. There, you can find out the keywords they are searching for and discover interest patterns over time (by looking at keyword history).
Keep in mind that attractive discounts, bundles, and promotions will never go out of style. Tie those in with special occasions and events like holidays or Black Friday sales to gain the most traction for your store and maximize profits.
Attractive high-end jewelry customers can take some time, especially if you are starting to sell jewelry online. However, the strategies mentioned above should speed up the process and give you a clear roadmap to follow. Take the time to identify your target market, learn about them, understand the trends in your industry, and optimize your marketing. Once these are nailed down, your ideal clients will knock on your virtual doors quickly.