A STURDY ONLINE STRATEGY for jewelers has three legs: search, outreach, and retargeting. Finding new customers means having a firm position in all three. They balance and support each other. And as different platforms come and go, these three methods will likely still be in use, just in new places and in new ways.
Search: Be There When They’re Looking
Search covers the opportunities that you have to show up when a potential customer is looking to buy jewelry. This is primarily covered by search ads and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Paying for a search ad is one of the quickest and most expensive ways to get in front of someone who’s looking for jewelry. Updating your website for SEO is one of the slowest yet most enduring ways to get in front of those very same people. Both of these are important and they work together. In fact, we consider them to be the yin and yang of digital marketing.
But there are lots of people smack in the middle of your target market who don’t happen to be searching online right now. How do you get their attention?
Outreach: Introduce Yourself to the Right People
Outreach ads are specific to people who are not looking for you. These are more like billboards and TV spots, except they’re online so we can do a lot more with them. Outreach is covered by things like Facebook ads, banner ads, and even YouTube ads. We can target by what we know about your customers and people who buy jewelry. Age, location, interests, and more can all factor into these types of ads, creating the perfect audience of potential customers.
The downside is that they’re not looking for you. For that reason, they’re more of a brand awareness tool. If a good potential customer sees you enough, they’re more likely to think of you when the time comes. They may be more likely to click on your search ad when your name comes up, or even search directly for your brand name instead of the competition.
Search ads and outreach ads can really start to generate more visitors to your website. But in an online world, it’s easy for people who have warmed up to you to eventually forget about you and go cold. How do you prevent that from happening?
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Retargeting: Stay Top of Mind to Those Who Matter Most
Retargeting keeps the relationship from going cold. If a person clicks on your ad and visits your website, they’ve shone more interest than many other people. So why treat them the same? With retargeting, we can keep track of them and continue the relationship in a more meaningful way.
We generally cover retargeting with website banner ads and Facebook ads. But now we have the ability to show a different message, taking into account the fact that the person has been here before. This could be a special offer, a different call to action, or simply new wording in the ad. We can even spend more money per person since there’s reason to believe that they’re closer to buying.
Search, Outreach, & Retargeting: A Strong Foundation
Put together, we can see how these three cover a lot. A potential customer is either looking or not and has either visited your site or hasn’t. Despite the scenario, you’ve got it covered. And the best part about it is that each person has the chance to interact with you through multiple of these scenarios until they’re convinced that they should buy from you. If you have a sturdy foundation, you’ll be primed to make that happen on a regular basis.
Charles Pobee-Mensah is director of digital marketing for Fruchtman Marketing, a full-service marketing agency specializing in the jewelry industry. Reach him at suits@fruchtman.com.
