The Importance of Branding

What is your story? What is the thing that separates you as a jewelry store and makes you unique compared to other jewelry stores in the area?

These are both really important questions to answer when it comes to branding. When asked to think of branding, many people think, “I have to get a logo, a website, put the logo on the website, and then I’m done.” However, branding is much, much more than a logo or a website.

While these are elements of a brand, branding should be thought of in a broader context. You should be asking yourself, “When people think of my business, what do they think of? What are some of the things that come to mind? What are some of the unique selling propositions that separate my brand from other brands in the area?”

This is really what branding is all about. It is about trying to communicate through every aspect of your business the qualities that make you unique and what makes people want to come and buy from you over someone else. 

At the core of every brand is a story. That story is essential and is the essence of the brand, whether that story is 100 years of tradition, elegant design, impeccable service, or whether it is being a second, third, or fourth generation jeweler.

Building Out Your Brand

To begin building out your brand, you should list three to five things that you know separate you in your market and then try to build your brand around them. Try to understand what makes you unique. If you already have a logo and branding design in place, how does that story fit into your current branding design or vice versa?

Your brand is the unique story you use to discuss your strengths and what sets you apart from your competition. It should be simple, easy to communicate, and featured in all of your marketing and publicity efforts. 

Let’s discuss a few things you can focus on when creating your brand.

The Local Jewelry Expert

With this branding approach, you focus on your expertise within the jewelry industry. You can highlight your GIA Gemologist and talk about your certifications. In addition, you can continuously showcase the expertise of your employees, staff, bench jewelers, master jewelers, watchmakers, and so on. 

You want to ensure that every aspect of your marketing mix highlights you being an expert in the industry. Brainstorm some ways that you could make this your brand identity. 

The Legacy of Entrepreneurship 

Another branding approach is focusing on the legacy of entrepreneurship within your jewelry store. What’s the story of your brand? How long have you been in the area? What is unique about your jewelry store? Perhaps you operate a family-owned jewelry store and have been in the local community for 100 years or maybe even 20 years. 

The Best Quality of Jewelry 

Perhaps you want to make quality part of your brand identity by showcasing the quality of your jewelry or timepieces. You can do this by focusing on the brands that you carry, whether you carry big names like Rolex or David Yurman or if you carry smaller names that focus on custom design. You can even highlight small-batch companies. You can use these brands to build excitement and communicate the quality of your products. 

The Certified Specialist

Maybe you have a certified specialist working in your jewelry store, and that is what sets you apart from your competition. You can showcase and highlight the particular qualities that make this expert better than other local experts by showcasing repairs, advising customers on purchases, and so on. 

The Custom Jewelry Expert

Custom jewelry is a large part of the jewelry industry. If you offer your customers custom jewelry, you can use this as part of your brand identity. Showcasing your custom jewelry pieces, however, they are created, can be a really valuable part of building your brand. 

You can use tag lines such as, “We make dreams come to life with one-of-a-kind custom pieces.” This is a phrase that really communicates the quality and the experience of putting together a custom piece of jewelry that’s totally unique to your customer.

Using Your Marketing Mix to Showcase Your Brand

You shouldn’t worry if your brand does not fit within one of the categories that we mentioned above. What matters is that your story is authentic, easy to understand, and simple. Your brand story should be reflected in every element of your marketing and branding mix, from your social media posts, your logo, in-store design, and so on. 

Consider this example:

Suppose that you want to convey the high quality of your brand and showcase your custom watchmaker, but the quality of the image and the quality of the advertising do not communicate the same quality that you want your brand to identify with. Obviously, some changes need to be made to how you communicate your brand identity. 

You can stop and ask yourself:

• Are my marketing, advertising, and in-store experience communicating this brand message?
• Am I staying true to my brand with everything I am doing? 

We would love to talk to you about your brand identity and what you think is setting you apart in your area and market. We would love to brainstorm with you and see if we can come up with some ways to make that message even stronger.