With This Ring

RAPAPORT…

Despite economic ups and downs, the business of bridal jewelry is a constant. Young couples are still seeking their happily-ever-afters and affirming their commitment with the purchase of a diamond ring. But just as important a factor to keep in mind is that, for better or worse, today’s bridal customers have changed dramatically and so have the techniques needed to reach them.

A Whole Different Consumer

“You have to pay attention to who this customer really is,” advises Kate Peterson, president of Performance Concepts, a retail consulting firm based in the Washington, D.C., area. Rather than 18- or 20-year-olds, she says, the average ages of today’s bridal customers are 27 and 29 and even 30. And they are more sophisticated, better educated and at a higher income level. And that makes a big difference, she points out. “It used to be that the engagement ring was the first major purchase a young couple made and that’s how you kept them loyal, but that’s absolutely not true anymore. If you don’t have them loyal to you by the time they’re ready for an engagement ring, chances are you’re not even going to get a shot at it. The question is not how to keep them coming back after buying the engagement ring, it’s how do you get them before that. If you don’t have them for fashion, you’re not getting them for bridal.”

New Media Options

Ellen Fruchtman, Fruchtman Marketing, a full-service marketing firm specializing in the jewelry industry based in Toledo, Ohio, agrees that the new bridal customeris definitely a different age demographic. “For a guild jeweler, it’s closer to the 28 to 34 age group.  A little more Gen X than Y.” To entice this customer into their stores, jewelers need to consider a variety of media. “This audience,” says Fruchtman, “spends almost as much time with television as they do the internet — about 3.5 hours a day. Only 16 percent read the news in print or online,” she points out, prioritizing the media as “TV, internet, radio and print in that order.”

Richard Baker, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder, Dallas, Texas–based Premium Knowledge Group (PKG), a market research and marketing services company focused on the affluent market, says he’s telling his luxury clients that “in almost every category, the most significant influence on a purchaser is word of mouth. The jeweler who has a fairly clear idea of his targeted audience should be thinking ‘What can I do to create some positive word of mouth among this group?’ Things like more active participation in nonprofit activities of interest to people of the marrying age. I think they’re interested in educational things, I think they’re interested in career-related things.”

Fruchtman agrees that word of mouth is crucial but adds that the way the word is spread is much more tech-oriented. “They are tied in to social networking and get their advice from online postings and critiques. They are very big researchers. Since they trust and rely on what people say, testimonial advertising is a plus, online or in your traditional advertising. Consider permission-based mobile marketing — since this demographic represents 31 percent of the total mobile market — where customers or prospects ‘opt in’ to receive special offers and promotions. That way, you’re not just sending junk text messages to random phones.”

Creating an effective web strategy is crucial. “It all begins with your site,” recommends Fruchtman, “so you need to make sure that’s in order first, before you drive prospects there to see it. Make sure your website has an area to chat, includes credible information, is robust, has brief copy, includes information about community support and your cause marketing efforts — and shows pricing.”

Baker concurs that a presence on the internet is important, “not just around the merchandise but around the educational process and the key words that are associated with learning about diamonds and learning what differentiates a good one from a bad one.”

According to Joe Romano, president, Scull and Company, strategic planners for independent jewelry retailers, in Mahwah, New Jersey, 90 percent of customers will check you out before they walk through the door. In the future, he predicts, retailers will need to move beyond the website into other technocentric media. “It will be ‘how do we get into their iPods and their BlackBerries, how do we get into the iPhones?’  Viral marketing is clearly something that is very potent and powerful. I’m a believer in one very strong message, spoken through many different voices.” 

In-Store Strategies

Once the customer walks into the store, Romano says, “what’s absolutely critical is that the environment has to speak of happiness. The environment has to speak of being alive and that sense of aliveness needs to be congruent with the culture of that store.” Moreover, Fruchtman points out, “The bridal market today is one of the most educated generations in history. If they know more than you, they are going to walk.” Peterson agrees. “The minute you don’t know what you’re talking about with a customer like this, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, whether it’s a style or a designer they’ve read about, you give up your right to sell them anything else. They’ll disregard you very quickly.”

“When customers come in,” says Baker, “you can tell within the first five or six seconds if they want to be approached and be engaged or if they want to spend some time by themselves going around. I think watching and listening becomes very important. It’s a question of ‘Do the customers maintain eye contact with you, do they face toward you, do you see any gesture in which they acknowledge the welcoming?’”

Everything within the store needs to appeal. It’s a matter of clean and effective displays, Peterson says, that allow the customer to look in and understand what is being showcased very quickly. “This customer is a very spatially oriented person. Anybody under the age of 25 or 30 has been learning their way around by everything from video games to a computer screen. So it has to be sophisticated, it has to be direct. And the other thing we know is that this is not a consumer who pays any attention at all to gimmicky marketing.”

Peterson points out that “the average cost of an engagement ring dropped by 30 percent in 2008 but, at the same time, the average prices of men’s and ladies’ wedding bands were up by about that much. So maybe they’re looking for more versatility and a nice diamond band does the job of both rings.” Her advice: “Let them choose, let them decide, let them take a little more time. And when you have a couple sitting in front of you and you get to the financing, instead of talking to him about the money, talk to the two of them and say, ‘Shall I assume this is going in both of your names?’ Because 99 percent of the time it does. And that’s what they’re used to. They probably own a home together already and they probably own a few other things together. You should make it an accepted practice because you’re going to get a higher credit limit if they both qualify or at least a credit limit if only one of them does.”