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Success With Jewelry
172 - Liz Interviews Lauren Jennings of Palm Sunday on Building a Newsletter Your Readers Actually Look Forward To
00:27:19
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Success With Jewelry podcast. Your go to source for real conversations about business marketing and what it actually takes to succeed as a jewelry brand Today. Today I'm interviewing Lauren Jennings, the designer behind Palm Sunday. She creates a fine jewelry brand rooted in responsible production and timeless design. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, Lauren draws inspiration from her coastal surroundings and travels throughout Italy and the Mediterranean. In this episode, we're talking about Lauren's weekly newsletter. How she built it, how how she uses it to connect with her audience and how it's become a meaningful part of running her business. We'll cover what's working, what she's learned, and what other makers can take away from her approach. Let's get into it. Hey Lauren, thanks for being here.
- [00:44]
B
Hey Liz. I'm so excited. I'm an insider so this is cool for me.
- [00:48]
A
Yeah, I when I interviewed Kelsey a couple weeks ago, she was like, it was so cool to hear it live.
- [00:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, I'll be listening at my bench for sure.
- [00:58]
A
I love that. Thanks for being an insider.
- [01:00]
B
Yeah.
- [01:01]
A
Okay, let's get into this. I really wanted to talk to you about this newsletter because I often hear from other people too that they love it. I love it. I read it every Sunday. What kind of got you started thinking about doing a weekly newsletter? How did you get started?
- [01:19]
B
Well, I was doing newsletters or email marketing before I started the Palm Sunday Times, but it was more just like alerts. So I've got a collection coming out or I'm going to do a pop up and that sort of thing. But when the new administration came in and meta Facebook, Instagram announced they weren't going to be doing fact checking anymore and that it was really going to be up to the users to do that and decide what's truth and what's not. I think that was a bit of a shock to me and I thought I really want to take my connection with my audience off social media as much as I can. Just because you have no control over it. When they do wide sweeping changes like that, you're just kind of a victim to whatever they want to do. So I decided I was going to do a newsletter and really talk to my audience in a more casual way or a more consistent and long form way and that build a relationship there as much as I could that way. I wasn't so reliant on social media.
- [02:26]
A
I still feel that that was a couple years ago. I think that people are kind of talking about getting off of social media and I still think about it and for many of the reasons you talked about, but also because Instagram becomes such a time suck and I scroll a lot and how do I stay off of it? And the more genuine connections happen, you know, via email or in person or, you know, still in the DMs a lot, but not the same way it used to.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah, I totally agree. I think that people are craving longer form connection now, as weird as that sounds with how small our attention spans have gotten. I think people want conversation now. They want connection. They want to know like what's real and what's authentic. And I think email is just a much easier way to do that. And you do get replies. If you put questions out there into your email list, like, people will respond. So it is a bit like dms, which to me is my favorite part of Instagram is just being in the messages and talking to people.
- [03:28]
A
I agree. That's my favorite part of Instagram too. So you have a background in fashion design and your path jewelry, it kind of helps shape your voice. How has that affected kind of the vision behind the newsletter?
- [03:47]
B
One, because with my background in fashion, I do follow a lot of substacks of editors and designers and people in the fashion industry. So I spend a lot of time reading those. And I think that also helped inspire me to feel like, oh, yeah, I can do something like this, but in the jewelry sphere. But then the reason why I wanted to keep it off substack was because they all end up looking the same. And I think with my background in fashion, I really wanted my newsletter to look a certain way. Like, I spent a lot on my branding, and I feel like if you have a lot of good branding, you should be able to use it. And substack kind of makes everything look like everything else. So I decided to go with Klaviyo so that I could really add logos and colors and font choices and that kind of thing. And that's probably due to my fashion background too, just being very persnickety about my. The way things look about my aesthetic and that kind of thing.
- [04:45]
A
That pays off though, in your branding because it is really distinctive and consistent across platforms.
- [04:53]
B
Thank you. I really try. I really try.
- [04:57]
A
I also think it's an interesting point that because most editors or former editors do have substacks, so kind of a more newsletter, bloggy type vibe is very in right now when it comes to content. Mm.
- [05:11]
B
Yeah. And I really enjoy that. Like, I find myself instead of watching tv most nights, I'm just reading, which is different for me. And I think that's something that Happened maybe in the last six months once I like started following some of my friends substacks and then some more well known people like travel advice. You can really go down a rabbit hole and I'd much rather be doing that than like watching reality TV or something.
- [05:34]
A
It is kind of, it is kind of nice. I got into digital marketing through blogging a long, long time ago and I used to love blogs so, so much. And it does help give a flavor about your. It tells more of the story about why you're creating what you're creating when you add context outside of what you're creating.
- [05:54]
B
Yeah, I agree. That's probably my favorite part is just the behind the scenes, the things you get to share. Like you can do some of that on Instagram, but it's in such small snippets that it feels very disjointed. Whereas if you have an email, you can say, look, this is my sketchbook and this is what inspired it and this is how part of that process goes. And then you can be sure that people are actually seeing it where on Instagram, even if you do put things out consistently as part of like a narrative, you never know what part people are going to miss. Like you don't know what they didn't see. Whereas I find that my subscribers read every single email. So I feel a little bit more confident that like, if I tell chapter one of the story next week, I can tell chapter two and they'll understand what I'm talking about.
- [06:38]
A
That's such a good point too. I feel like in browsing Instagram recently I'm getting like snippets from people and then I have to go back to their profile and like dig to find the first part of the story or their chapter one. So I love that, you know, you can control the narrative a bit more with your emails.
- [06:55]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:57]
A
Did you have any goals when you launched your newsletter?
- [07:01]
B
I just wanted a deeper connection and I just wanted to grow the list in the sense that I wanted to move people off social media. So I didn't really have a whole lot of metric goals because I1 wasn't very familiar with email metrics. Like, I didn't really know what a click rate or an open rate was or what a good click rate or what a good open rate was. I just really wanted to see that people were responding like replies. So I think that was probably my main, my main goal, just to like give people a consistent space to connect where they knew I was reliable. And I was gonna send every Sunday morning And the reason I decided to do Sunday morning emails was that I wanted this email, this newsletter to kind of feel like opening up the newspaper on a Sunday morning with a hot cup of coffee or tea. Um, I used to do that with my roommate in New York when I was living in Brooklyn. We would split the Sunday Times style section and go to the coffee shop and we would just sit next to each other and be like, oh, did you see this? Oh, did you read that? And it was like my favorite part of the weekend. So I really wanted to give that Sunday morning open up your email, read it type thing.
- [08:19]
A
It fits in so well with your brand because it is kind of a ritual. And I feel like that's kind of a through line with what you create. And it's just the Sunday morning ritual. And something I appreciate about, you know, what you said about showing up consistently and being reliable is that even if you're not going to send one out, which you didn't a few weeks ago, you let you send the email, hey, I'm not sending out a Sunday Times and so I'll see you next week kind of thing.
- [08:45]
B
Yeah, sometimes it's like the midnight of the night before and I'm like, oh, shoot. Like I got today got away from me because Saturdays have become the day where I write this newsletter and sometimes it takes all day, but if I have plans then that over extend, then I find myself not able to send it out. And if I don't, I feel like people will start emailing me and be like, where are you? Are you okay? So I feel like I owe it to them to say there's nothing coming this week or I'm going to send it Monday or I'm going to do some sort of announcement later in the week instead. Yeah, that's.
- [09:19]
A
I mean that builds trust. And you, it might not obviously be building trust with people. They might not be like, oh, I'm, I trust this person because they're communicating consistently and regularly. But it, it's building trust, which is super important.
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B
Yeah, that's a good point. I've never really thought of it as trust in that way, but I like that. I like thinking of it that way.
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A
I'm such a believer in do what you say you're going to do, even if it feels like it doesn't matter. It does matter and people notice.
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B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
So how you said it takes all day on Saturday, how do you decide what to write about? How do you kind of gather that? Because that feels overwhelming. Is gathering all of the content and figuring out what to say.
- [10:04]
B
Honestly, sometimes it is overwhelming if I'm drawing a blank or if it's a slow time of year. Sometimes it can be hard every single week to come up with a topic, but I try and keep a running list. Sometimes it's as easy as like, oh, it's September, so we're going to talk about sapphires. Or I'm working on a collection, so there's a lot of behind the scenes I can show. But in the slower months, like in the summertime, I will sometimes get a DM from a client with a question that I've thought, oh, I've never thought of that before. That's a really great question. Like, maybe they'll ask about specific sourcing or like heat treatment on stones or like how to care for your jewelry. And if they ask me a question that I think is interesting that other people might want to know the answer to, before I would just share that question in stories on Instagram, but now I'm taking it, or I might still do that. And then I take it to, I take it to the email and I'll write like a long form kind of essay about that question or answering that question. And then sometimes it's just like funny, weird things that happen. Like, I know in metalsmithing we all tend to think that we're all talking to metalsmiths and everybody knows everything. But I, you have to remember that like your customer, your client doesn't understand, like that on a random Tuesday you might drop like $10,000 on a diamond and they might think that's interesting. So like anecdotes and things like that are always fun to throw in there.
- [11:33]
A
How do you balance the storytelling with the business content with the behind the scenes work? Like, how do you think about the balance of actually selling and talking about your business versus the other extra stuff?
- [11:49]
B
I tend to think that when you're talking about the extra stuff, you are building a pathway to selling. At the end of every email, I'll have a spotlighted product that just like, hey, by the way, this is still available if anybody's interested. Or if I'm on a Runway leading up to a collection launch. I know that everything that I've talked about the last three months as far as like inspiration, stone sourcing, taking people along with me to Tucson, even like talking about the flowers that are growing in my garden, if they're inspiring the collection. I like to share stuff like that, personal things, because even though I'm not doing a hard sell at that moment, I Think it gives people a chance to see what they connect with. That way when the collection does release and they're mostly one of a kind, they know exactly which piece they feel connected to and they know what they're going to add to their cart right away because they've had three months to get to know it and to think about it and to see the stone even before it's set and to find out who that dealer was that sold me that stone and maybe who the miner was that discovered that stone. All of that I think is really important to like spotlight and let people know and give them a chance to simmer on that information. Because if you're expected to drop 5 to $10,000 on a ring, I think you need time to think about it, connect with it, and then decide to purchase it.
- [13:19]
A
That's such a great point. A sale of a piece of fine jewelry usually doesn't happen immediately.
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B
Yeah, sometimes it does. Like, I'm guilty. I just bought a very expensive diamond ring this week from an, an antique dealer, my friend Carly St. Eloy, if anybody wants to follow her. But that was an impulse purchase and that was literally like, I've had such a rough week. I really connect with this ring and she posted it on our stories and I bought it. But I feel like that is an anomaly and people generally need a little bit of handholding or a little bit of storytelling to get comfortable with what they're going to buy.
- [13:57]
A
Do you think that urgency plays a factor just because that ring you were buying you could never get again just because it was antique and a lot of your drops are one of a kinds? Do you think that helps people purchase quicker?
- [14:09]
B
I do. I think that I don't like when people feel pressured to buy, but I do think that when you know that there is a chance that somebody else could grab it first, you're a little bit more like, okay, I've got to get my ducks in a row. I, I better know my ring size, I better know how much it's going to be. And I try and help people out with that kind of information before the drop as much as I can so they can feel prepared. Um, I also used to offer 24 hour access to my Patreon subscribers before launch, but I might be doing away with that this year just because it's gotten a little, A little unfair now that. Now that things are getting a little bit more intense with the business.
- [14:54]
A
Yeah, that you did a pearl vessel drop recently and there was a vessel I wanted and it, I mean, immediately
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B
sold yeah, well, I have more of those coming. I'll have more of those coming.
- [15:09]
A
Okay. What. So in kind of all the content you've created, what has resonated the most with your readers?
- [15:19]
B
Um, it's interesting, it's kind of not consistent, but I did an email, I think that was my fourth issue that was about my family lineage. I started diving into Ancestry.com another morning where I woke up at 4am and couldn't sleep. I just was like, I'm going to see where my grandparents are from. And I found some really, really shocking and interesting information that I shared in that issue, which is on my blog, on my website, if anybody wants to go and read it. But basically I'm related to royalty adjacent people way, way, way, way down the line. And that email got such a good response that I decided to design my next collection based on that ancestor because I know a lot of people have already connected with her and find found that story to be really interesting. And then on the other side of the coin, how to's like how to style, how to clean your jewelry, how to stack rings, anything that helps people with education on how to do something, I usually get a lot of response with that too.
- [16:32]
A
That's a good reminder because I think that we forget because we do it all the time or we know how to layer jewelry, we know how to create a charm necklace and all those things you forget that other people don't. Or maybe they do, but they need encouragement. And so that's a great reminder.
- [16:48]
B
Yeah, and that's where just like listening to the questions in your DMs comes in. Because you just have to pay attention to what question do you get asked? Not all the time, but often enough to where it seems like a common question or a common issue that people are coming up against. And if you hear it a couple times, you're like, maybe I should put a guide together or do something like that.
- [17:12]
A
A lot of times people need permission too. Like you can layer this way or you can mix your metals.
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B
Oh, I get that question all the time still. Like, can I wear white gold, silver and yellow gold together? I'm just like, there are no rules. There are no rules. Like, get yourself out of the box. There are no rules. Yeah, I agree. I love that.
- [17:37]
A
Has the newsletter changed how you connect with your customers?
- [17:41]
B
I think so. I mean, I used to be so reliant on social media that like you said, I was scrolling all the time. It was becoming a time suck. I still love to be on the app. I still love to create for the app. I'm just like a documentarian in that way. But now that when I go to events or do pop ups and I collect emails, most people find me and subscribe. And then I'll never see them on Instagram, but they'll be replying in my inbox. So it's nice where I have like a separate group of people that are mostly local and then also people who may have just found me through Google and signed up on my website and then never found me on Instagram. It's nice to have a bit of a division there. Like, it feels like I'm nurturing a different clientele over there.
- [18:32]
A
Do you have any tips for growing your list?
- [18:36]
B
I'm probably not the best person to ask that question. My list is still pretty small, but I don't mind that. I think if you only have 10 people on your list, you still have 10 people who you're having like a very intimate conversation with. And you can kind of treat it like a trunk show. Like show them the pieces that you're excited about, answer the questions you think you might get at a trunk show. What I did in the very beginning to grow my list was I put out a thing like a notice just basically saying when I get to 500 subscribers, I will have a 20% off sale code only for those first 500. And that got people to sign up and tell their friends to sign up because the sooner they got enough people to sign up, the sooner they got that code. So that really helped. And then I did have a pop up, which I'm not a huge fan of pop ups on websites, especially when you're a luxury maker or a luxury brand. I don't know that a pop up is necessarily something that would be a good experience for the client, but I do have a, like printout that I kind of casually mention every now and then. Like if you want this stackable ring guide print out, you know, drop your email in here and I'll send that to you. And that gets people excited too.
- [19:57]
A
That's such an interesting perspective because I kind of agree. I mean, pop ups are somewhat necessary to grow your list or you need to have somewhere on your website a place somebody can sign up for your list. But I think what is especially hard for me to wrap my head around with fine jewelry brands is like a 10 discount code. It just doesn't feel luxury and it also just doesn't feel enough to move the needle to s for someone to sign up for your list.
- [20:26]
B
Yeah, I think it just Depends where your brand is positioned. Like if you're selling stuff that's over $1,000, I would not do a discount popup. I would do some other sort of interesting lead magnet that maybe is educational or helpful, like a guide of some kind. Or just don't do a popup at all. Just have an embedded field on your website somewhere that's pretty easy to find. Maybe not above the fold, but maybe just like right below it on your homepage. But if you're selling things that are demi fine or under a thousand dollars, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have a pop up. It's just make sure you've got it on the right settings. Because it's essentially like the salesperson coming up to you in the store, like right when you walk in pestering you. And nobody likes that. It's like you don't want to be pestered with a sale or an ask because you're basically asking them for something as soon as they land on your website. Which to me is like not great relationship building.
- [21:25]
A
I agree, I agree. Have you seen readers of your newsletter become loyal customers?
- [21:35]
B
Oh yeah, definitely. I think that it is nice. I use Klaviyo and it's nice that they show you who bought what and what link they clicked on to get it. So there's good information and data behind that to see like what's working. And it's always people who I wouldn't reach on social media. So for instance, like a friend of my mom's or somebody back home, maybe they're like a client that I met at a event here and they're not on Instagram, maybe they're on Facebook and I'm not on Facebook and that's how we communicate now is email, that kind of thing. But definitely huge sales, bigger than what I would get if I was just on social media alone.
- [22:23]
A
And do you have any thoughts on how designers can can sell without feeling salesy or overly promotional?
- [22:31]
B
I think yeah, like I said before, just treat it as if you were at an intimate 10 person trunk show and people are asking about your inspiration. People are asking, oh, how did you get into jewelry making? Like all the questions that you would normally get that are maybe weird for you to talk about at first because you're talking about yourself so much. But I think that is what builds trust. People want to know who they're buying from. People want to know why you're making what you're making. So sharing your why as much as possible is great as well. And then throw in just like one small like either spotlighted product at the very bottom in case somebody is looking for something specific in that email to buy or I love gift guides. I do gift guides around Mother's Day. I just did one called Stella's Picks where my mom picked out her five favorite things from the website cause she's a mom and I am not. Or like Christmas gift guides, that kind of thing. Anything that you're like helping somebody make a decision that sometimes can be difficult is a service.
- [23:40]
A
I completely agree. One more question and then a few quick fires before we wrap up. What's one thing you wish you had known before starting?
- [23:52]
B
I think I had started. I wish I'd started earlier. Like I wish I hadn't waited so long to get. I know you were always saying email is the way to go, but I didn't treat it as if it was like part of my job. I treated it as an afterthought in the sense that oh, I have a collection coming out Wednesday. I better send an email Tuesday night to remind people. And I wish I had known how effective it was and how much I would enjoy it.
- [24:22]
A
I like that you just said I wasn't thinking about email or marketing in general being a part of your job. Because a lot of designers and metalsmiths my job is making and selling. And you don't think about marketing being part of that job too. But it is.
- [24:38]
B
Yeah. If I think about the fact that every Saturday I dedicate at least five hours to this newsletter. I mean, that's a full. That's a full ring I could have made in five hours. So it is a lot of time to dedicate to something, but I think the investment is paying off.
- [24:55]
A
I love that. Okay, few quick fire questions. What's your favorite topic to write about?
- [25:02]
B
I think stones. Whether it's talking about the birthstone of the month or I like to use responsibly sourced stones. So I love to highlight the gemstone dealers that I work with because I only work with a handful and I know them pretty well now and they're all really interesting, great people. And I think that also builds trust. So highlighting stones and stone dealers is probably my favorite thing to talk about.
- [25:28]
A
What's your biggest newsletter tip?
- [25:32]
B
Let's see. Newsletter tip would be talk about things that inspire you and that you think are interesting and keep a template. So don't reinvent the wheel every time. I have a very specific template that I use every time, which is opening anecdote, an inspiring quote, a recommendation, a longer form essay, maybe sometimes two. Close it out with a product spotlight and that's it. And I just fill in those little sections every time. I'm not trying to, like, reinvent the wheel because it's hard enough as it is. That's great advice.
- [26:13]
A
What's your biggest lesson that you've learned since launching the Sunday Times?
- [26:18]
B
I think that email is really powerful. I know it sounds like, pretty cliche, but, like, moving your people to where you have control, which is their inbox. And also they have more control in their inbox, too. Like, they can rely on something that's consistent. Whereas if you get on Instagram, you never know what you're gonna see because your algorithm is feeding it to you. So everybody has more control in their inbox, and I think that's something that's pretty powerful.
- [26:49]
A
What's your must have tool for running your newsletter?
- [26:52]
B
I love Klaviyo. It's what I use. It's like, the easiest for me to understand. I think the user experience is really clean and nice, and it's not incredibly expensive.
- [27:04]
A
Lauren, thanks so much for being here.
- [27:06]
B
Oh, you're welcome. This was so fun.
- [27:09]
A
All right, what was your biggest takeaway? Let us know. You can visit successwithjewelry.com to sign up for extended episodes as well as exclusive content. Thanks so much for listening.