Welcome back to Ask the Expert. I'm your host, Hannah Place, and today we have an expert in independent jewelry retail stores. So if you are a jewelry store owner, then listen up. This one is for you. Welcome, Slav. Thanks for being here with us today. Thank you for having me. Yes. Tell us more about your business, GEM1.

So GEM1 is a company that's been founded about 45 years ago in Dayton, Ohio. Um, we've been in business ever since. With a single focus, we mostly serve, uh, we only serve independent jewelry stores and independent jewelry chains all around U. S. and a bit in Canada. We do not work with large major chains. We do not work with websites by design.

We do not want to compete our own customers. Okay. And what are the biggest obstacles, challenges that jewelry store owners are having right now in the current environment? Well, I think that the largest one that we see is traffic, right? Um, with the current economical situation, they're seeing less and less customers.

Um, their overall conversion rates are up because people, when they do show up in the store, they do intend to buy. So they come in with intent. But they're certainly seeing less and less people coming through the door and that's very very concerning So the current marketing efforts that most jewelry store owners are taking right now, are they effective?

Are they not so effective? What are you seeing? Well, I think I would say that there's um, Probably I would bifurcated into two parts. So I think there is an over focus on digital marketing in general. So not that, uh, not that jewelry store shouldn't be doing digital marketing, but, um, it's a medium that's still very foreign.

To a lot of stores. It's very hard to quantify the results. And so I think the over reliance on that, thinking that this is the secret sauce, that this is a magic pill that will help their business. That's one part. The other part, just in general sense, I think that, um, sometimes in marketing, um, we miss a very important point is most jewelry stores tend to have marketing that varies month to month, sometimes week to week with different messaging.

And we all know that message, marketing messaging thrives on consistency and persistency. What we don't think about, even ourselves, is an average American adult makes about 35, 000 decisions per day. We don't even think about it, but it's 35, 000 decisions. So what happens is, and in a lot of households you find that in the end of the day, right, when you're sitting at home with your partner, or your husband, and all you want to do is watch something on Netflix and have dinner.

Every conversation ends the same way. I don't know. You pick. Why? Because your tie gave decision fatigue. So what I feel we get wrong in marketing overall is that consumers are not looking for choice. What they're actually looking for is confidence in the choices you make. And I think that consistent messages is continuously missing from most jewelry stores.

That's a fabulous answer. So, in your experience, what are you seeing are the most effective advertising strategies? So the interesting thing is, in what we have seen that worked, and worked consistently over a decade, is, um, Direct marketing campaigns. It's reaching out to the customer via a more conventional means.

And that one of those means being mailbox. Mailbox are much lighter today than we have ever seen. And I'm sure you've seen your own mailbox. You're only seeing so few envelopes, which means you're paying more attention. One of the things Hollywood figured out many, 1936 when motion pictures came about, that a consumer in average required.

But seven impressions, and it's a term that's been then converted to digital, seven impressions to decide to go and see a motion picture in a movie theater. So, we know, and marketing has proven this over and over again, those seven impressions can be a billboard, it can be a radio, it can be a digital campaign, it can be a catalog in your mailbox.

And I think that's what's being lost is because it's kind of not cool maybe anymore to do this, but for a price of a postage stamp. You can impress something upon your customer extremely effectively and get that impression whereby via digital It's quite expensive to even get their attention. It's great Do you have any success stories that you're open to sharing of a business owner?

You've worked with and been able to increase their traffic. Oh, absolutely. I mean we have stores quite prominent stores in the industry that in a matter of two weeks around Christmas time You Acquired over 1, 400 new clients. Of those 1, 400 clients, 14 percent of them came back the following year and actually purchased an engagement ring.

We've just had a client who has been doing our Black Friday marketing campaigns for many years, and we just did a subtle, small tweak in the way we were distributing his postcard at Black Friday. His Black Friday week sales were up 39. 5%. So we consistently see how effective it is. Like I said, because the methodology has been around for a long time, it's just not something that seems to be cool to business owners.

Well, it sounds like those traditional methods work. And does GEMS1 have the solutions that you're discussing as far as the, The advertising in the mailbox and getting those mailers out. Is that something that you specialize in? That is something we specialize in and it's one of the specialties. And what enables us to do that and really truly help independent jewelry stores is the fact that we own our own marketing company.

So a lot of things that jewelers would like to do, the characters, sometimes they'd like to add to their, um, you know, uh, materials. We produce it for them at absolutely no cost. We have a photographer, we have a creative director, we have graphic designers, so all of these things I've done in house, and we're helping them really get to the most perfect catalog, or the most perfect postcard.

That will arrive into their customers boxes. So we do that consistently. We do it with a lot of love and this is something that's been our expertise for 15 years. It sounds like it's a very hands on approach. When somebody works with you, they are really getting someone to take their business and find out what unique aspects they need to bring out and advertise.

And they're really getting to work with somebody who cares. Oh, without a doubt. We have clients who do half a million dollars a year. We have businesses that do a hundred million dollars a year. All of them get the same attention. We work with all of them in the same way. We touch over 1, 200 jewelry stores on annual basis.

So we really, really do have a great vantage point to understand what works across various different type of independent businesses and really help them increase their traffic, increase their average sale. So GemsOne has solutions for independent jewelry retail stores. Do you have any unique challenges that you're facing in your business right now?

I think from what we're seeing, um, in the reaction to the things that we do traditionally, that's been incredibly positive. Where we've seen challenge for ourselves is, I think, a perception of what company, or our company, used to be. And that is that we used to primarily focus on this type of marketing campaign and producing merchandise and manufacturing merchandise for this particular marketing type of campaign, which tend to be of a particular quality.

Over the last few years, we've elevated that tremendously. We've partnered with one of the largest, uh, manufacturing facilities in the world that manufactures beautifully high end jewelry. And we've launched multiple lines. And I think for those clients who have tried it, they've been truly impressed. And one of the, I think, a running joke among our clients is that we're no longer Gems 1, we are Gems 2.

It's like a second iteration of the company. But I think for those who haven't tried, they don't deserve it. I think see us as somebody who's capable to producing that. So I think changing that perception, changing that kind of understanding of who we are, is probably the largest challenge that we see today.

Yeah. Well, for any business owners that are listening, how would you like them to move forward with getting in touch with you? How would they find out more about your services? Well, I think that it's, it's, it's pretty easy. I think you, I think if you could reach out to us, set up, Maybe a 15, 20 minutes kind of strategic exploratory phone call.

So we can understand your business better and understand that what we carry works for you. And then we can decide on what the next steps would be. If that's something that interests you. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing about this love. Thank you for having me again. And if you are a business owner, independent jewelry retail store, make Slav today for all of your bridal needs, increasing traffic, whatever you are facing in your current jewelry market.

And we will see you next time on ask the expert!