Popular lab-grown diamond jewelry brand Dorsey has focused on influencer and stylist marketing since Meg Strachan launched the brand in 2019. The fashion friends of Strachan bought into the brand almost from the start, but it wasn’t until Justin Bieber’s stylist Karla Welch accessorized the singer in Dorsey that the jewelry took off. Leveraging mostly unpaid marketing, the brand sold a million lab grown gemstones in 2022.
But, starting in 2023, Strachan has pivoted Dorsey’s marketing focus.
“With marketing, there’s really no silver bullet anymore,” she said. “How you reach consumers, what type of content you use and what resonates has changed. [Effective strategies] trend and die very quickly.”
As such, the brand now focuses on reciprocal influencer relationships and its Substack. “Our paid marketing strategy is still working for us, and we’re still very profitable on first order,” said Strachan. “However, we’ve moved into affiliate only for our influencer gifting strategy. The power of our blog and our newsletter list for Substack are key for us now, as customers are more sensitive to being sold to on Instagram. [Success] is now less about your number of followers and more about your community, your newsletter list, your content and the way you tell stories around products.”
Strachan has merged the brand’s growth and brand marketing efforts for a more cohesive understanding of what works and how to drive conversions. “The days are gone of a growth marketer sitting in one corner of the office and a brand marketer in another,” she said.
“There’s less ability to plan [these days]. We really try to do real-time marketing, and we are very aware of what’s resonating within each channel,” said Strachan. “A great marketer uses all available tools and is very fluent in those tools and is naturally interested in them.”
As for what’s next, Strachan said she’s curious about the new changes to Instagram allowing a brand to message and interact with a large audience. “I will be [watching] how Instagram starts to bring people through the screen so that consumers feel like they’re part of a brand experience beyond seeing some backstage shots.”
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