Highly Polished Storytelling for Jewelers
A guest article from Kyle Roderick: Jewelry book author, brand consultant and journalist for Forbes.com and other luxury publications.
Unlock the Potential of Your Jewelry's Story: Are You Making an Emotional Impact?
I'm here to share how you can craft your jewelry's story so masterfully that it captivates people, inspiring them to adore and purchase your pieces season after season, or whenever they want to mark a milestone for themselves or others.
The most fundamental need in design-driven and luxury jewelry is to tell a colorful story, a differentiating story which stokes desire and gives the reader pleasure while answering such key questions as:
What are you selling to the client?
What is desirable about your jewelry and how does it add emotion and artistic value to people’s lives?
What dreams are you nurturing?
How can customers feel differently and live better through connecting with your brand?
Fundamentally, you have the power to help your clients know and feel how and why your jewels can enhance and fulfil their dreams. But you have to think it through carefully.
It’s never just beauty, superb materials, or skillful craftsmanship that drives the value of a jewelry brand.
Emotion is involved, as is desire and romance. Perhaps even legends. After all, the De Beers tagline, “A diamond is forever,” is at heart a legend. It’s up to you to create YOUR jewelry legend or tagline. Make it simple so it’s easy for others to absorb and remember. Your LEGEND is what you state every time you describe your jewels to retailers, customers, manufacturers, or your banker!
When you are starting to tell your jewelry story, remember to always detail how the jewels will make the wearer feel and look!
Emotions and compelling visuals are what drive the value of design-driven and luxury jewelry. Plus of course, how the eyes of the world see those jewels on the human who happens to be your client.
Whether you’re a jewelry designer or a brand, you must take the time to write and tell a compelling, colorful and emotional story in words and images about the jewels you design and produce. You must relate in dynamic words and compelling images how fine, refined or divine your jewels will make people feel and look. Control your narrative and be your own content creator, your own influencer by utilizing TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, etc. to spread your story. Remember, it’ll travel faster via TikTok or Instagram reels than it will by print.
Through my varied jewelry work experience, I have concluded that whether it’s demi-fine or the highest of haute luxe jewelry, what’s paramount in jewelry storytelling is highlighting the design of a jewel, its precious or non-precious metals, its gemstones and other materials, and of course, its masterful artisanship.
All of these must be captured in a striking image or video in which the focal point is your jewel. Please make your jewel or jewelry beautifully lit, styled and photographed in a fresh way that makes us feel, think and dream.
It’s also essential that you showcase your jewels in an engaging, user-friendly Instagram gallery or website. Yet all of the above never tell a full luxury jewelry story. These are bare bones requirements of your jewelry narrative.
I can say without fear of banality that beauty, artisanship, and grace are essential elements, rather than key value drivers.
Take good care to avoid confusing essential elements with your jewelry brand’s value drivers.
While many shoppers are driven by facts, figures and hard realities, in jewelry, it’s the poetic stories that you tell which enter a shopper’s mind that ignites their emotions and turns them into a client who makes a purchase.
“Look at it this way: your job as a jewelry storyteller is to create strong emotional experiences and moods in the client. While no jewelry brand may ever be viewed as luxurious or artistic by everyone, it must embody precious value for the people who you are trying to turn into clients. ”
To create value, which is so deeply felt and pleasurable that the client experiences it as TRUTH, you’ve got to tell a story that speaks to a specific need or role in the life of your client.
Much industry research has shown that jewelry brands that manage to address a need or role in a client’s life gain an advantage in how they are perceived.
If your jewelry is made out of recycled gold or sterling silver for instance, tell a story that contains verifiable claims about your sustainability so that environmentally conscious clients can trust your brand enough to buy into it.
Decades of my experience working with jewelry suggest that it’s never about just a specific jewel, such as a rare Brazilian Paraiba tourmaline ring, but how special the client feels, thinks and dreams when they see your jewels, buy your jewels and wear them. Remember that your clients wear your jewels in their minds as well as on their bodies.
Likewise, what you are creating and telling stories about is focused foremost on your present and future jewelry clients. You and your jewelry brand are delivering a unique luxury experience that embodies your brand of emotional/psychological pleasure. You are fulfilling a jewelry dream which in fact springs from the ancient human need to express oneself through adornment. Your fate is largely determined by the story of your brand and/or the designer behind that brand. Without an impactful story, where is your unique brand value? Think about it.
“ Your job as a jewelry designer, retailer or jewelry brand executive is to tell a true story that evokes emotions in your clients.”
It’s also up to you to confirm that your story is understood, felt, enjoyed and lived by those who buy your products or dream of someday buying your products. In summary, when people love your brand, you and the client are in a relationship which can last a lifetime. As long as your story continues to stoke desire and deliver pleasure through the wearing of your jewelry or gemstones, you’re on the right track.
About Kyle Roderick
As a jewelry book author, brand consultant and journalist for Forbes.com and other luxury publications, I have for decades been assessing jewelry designers and brands in order to identify their blind spots and bring their untold stories to life. In addition to running the Instagram jewelry gallery @bijouxreview which has over 100,000 followers, I am a high luxury jewelry and prestige watch journalist writing for Forbes.com and Rapaport. I conceived, wrote and photo edited Bejewelled: The World of Ethical Jewelry, published in the U.S. and U.K. by Rizzoli in 2019. To date, this is the only book on the subject of design-driven, sustainable jewelry. My freelance copywriting has also helped sell a lot of jewelry for such institutions as New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), designers like K. Brunini, and Ray Griffiths, plus heritage high luxury jewelers like Tony Duquette, jewelry e-tailers like Objet d’Emotion and Argyle & Valentine.