The Next Generation: Building a Brand for Millennials and GenZ

Eric Andrews: Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here. Again, don't forget, if you want to do questioning or polling, you can scan the QR code on the back of your pass. So my name is Eric Andrews. I am vice president of Growth Marketing at TriNet and I'm super excited about this conversation. Ring Concierge is a direct to consumer digitally native brand that is disrupting the traditional male dominated engagement ring and bespoke jewelry business. It's really fascinating, but before we get into it and I'll introduce Nicole Wegman in a second, I just wanted to play a video.

Video: Probably like most of you, I started shopping for my engagement ring about ten years before I actually got one. I saw my fair share of terrible designs and cringy salesmen, or worse, those stuffy brands where you feel underdressed the moment you walk in. And my personal favorite, people saying they had a diamond guy who could get us a deal.

That's when I realized the core problem. Everyone had a diamond guy, but what was missing all along was the diamond girl. The whole experience desperately needed a female makeover. And so, Ring Concierge was born. We rebuilt the entire jewelry shopping experience from scratch. Instead of stuffy salespeople judging you for just browsing, we created a world of diamonds and jewelry that welcomes you from the start. Instead of pushing diamonds, we start by aligning with what you're actually looking for. We choose elegant settings over hefty, outdated designs and opt for personalized over off the shelf every single time.

And the most revolutionary change? We listen to our clients and provide them with the price transparency they need for this exciting purchase to feel perfect. Today, these are the same reasons Ring Concierge is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Turns out, there are tons of diamond girls who feel just the same way I did. And together, we've created this amazing community, one diamond at a time.

Eric: So, as a marketer, I'm really excited. I think this is just a fascinating story. Just to add, Nicole started, as it said in the video, in 2013 with $2,000 of her own money. She's been profitable every year since and the business has grown over 1,200% in the last five years. So, welcome, Nicole.

Nicole Wegman: Thank you. Excited to be here.

Eric: Before we jump into Gen Z and millennials, just, can you tell us a little bit about how you started the business?

Nicole: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty straight forward and how a lot of companies start. I had a bad experience and thought this could be better. So, it was 10 years ago when I was shopping for my engagement ring with my now husband. And I don't know if any of you have experienced 47th Street here in New York City. Who had a great experience on 47th Street? One person, no, nobody. And it was my first time really experiencing jewelry and I thought, "Is this really how people are spending tens of thousands of dollars? There has to be a better way to do this." My background was in retail. I was at Bloomingdale's in the buying office. So I did understand, you know, a little bit about consumer behavior and all of that, but I knew nothing about jewelry. And I think that really worked in my favor because it is a historically male-dominated, family run industry and they kind of, everything has been done a certain way for many decades and there's no innovation. And I went in at age 26, super naive, you know, very confident as you would be at age 26 and just said, "I can do this better." But it kind of worked out because I essentially created a company that was just the shopping experience I wish I had had. And as it turns out, it was the same experience so many millennial women were looking for.

Eric: And how important is the experience to the brand?

Nicole: It is one of the key reasons people come to us. I think a big piece of it is the marketing and the brand and the products, and the other piece of it is the experience. Because there are so many men in this industry, there's a lot of women that want to feel connected with the person they're working with or the team they're working with and they don't feel represented. And it is no longer reality that women aren't involved in the engagement ring process or purchasing jewelry for themselves. They do. 80% of our online purchases are made by women. So, to have that be the end user and then they don't see themselves at all represented in the industry to me is just ridiculous. So it was really important.

Eric: Right. And you have, I think you have two stores, one midtown, one downtown, as well as a private showroom.

Nicole: Yeah.

Eric: So how do you balance the sort of online world with the brick and mortar world?

Nicole: So it's something we are making a huge focus right now. I think, candidly, we could be doing a better job. I think a lot of brands could be doing a better job of connecting all the different touch points a consumer has with your brand. So, what is their experience on our Instagram page versus what is it in our private showroom versus what is it on our website versus the stores you can just walk into? It should feel the same everywhere. You should know you're at the same company. And the little ways to do this that we're talking about, like QR codes. In the store, you scan a product. Boom. It's on your wish list on the website. You know, technology, I think can help create a seamless experience in a way that is extremely beneficial and also helps with collecting a lot of customer data of who's in your store.

So that's something we're working on and even thinking through, you know, little things like is your tone on social really sarcastic and casual, but then your tone on the website is very formal. Like that's disjointed. So how do you think about all the touch points and ways they're shopping with you and how does it feel cohesive as a brand?

Eric: That's fascinating. And I want to come back to talking about some of those touch points, but jumping into strategy, you know, how do you approach marketing to millennials and Gen Z? They're so different from previous generations.

Nicole: The key for us, and this is definitely not a secret if you're familiar with our brand is social media, we find it really important to reach them where they already are. And that's on TikTok, and for us, Instagram specifically as our core customer is a millennial, that's where they are. And that is our entire strategy and it doesn't, it sounds obvious, but at the time when I launched 10 years ago, it wasn't. It was pre-Instagram, even having business accounts. It was pre paid ads. It was really just an individual, you know, user to user social platform.

And so by getting on there early, it allowed for a ton of free growth. I didn't have any paid ads until I think maybe seven years into the business on Instagram. Like it was all just free explosive growth, which is great. Amazing. Can't do that anymore, unfortunately. But we built this incredible community and now with Gen Z, the focus is absolutely Tik Tok. So, trying to work through that right now. Candidly, we could be doing a better job and we know that, so we're going full steam ahead on TikTok.

Eric: I was going to ask, what are some of the differences you see between millennials and Gen Z?

Nicole: So, Gen Z is video forward, definitely. I mean, if you think about that, they're on TikTok, it's just videos. Whereas millennials are more comfortable looking at still photos, despite Instagram trying to, you know, reels. Millennials are okay with looking at very polished pictures, whereas Gen Z wants it to feel raw. They like videos. They want to see more about how the sausage is made. You know, that's kind of what they care about. And then separately, they care about who are you as a brand. Do they connect with you? Do they believe in you? Are you doing anything, you know, good for the world? Whatever it is that they care about, they want to know the brands are shopping with also care about those things.

Eric: Yeah, so that sort of speaks to authenticity, right? And how important is authenticity?

Nicole: It is so important to us. I mean, we are selling a luxury good, an expensive product. And so you have to trust the company you're buying from, especially a category that is still 80% purchased in brick and mortar stores as an industry. That's not our stat. But 80% of fine jewelry is purchased in a store. Only 20% is online. We're kind of flipped in that. So how can you build trust for such a luxury good? And that is coming across as very authentic to your consumer and so we do this in many, many ways. One of the key ways is showing myself a lot and basically building trust at scale through personalities, which if you think about your local jeweler, why do people go to a local jeweler? Which, by the way, make up 90% of the jewelry industry. It's not the bigger companies. They know who they're working with and they trust them. So, the way we've built that at scale is through social media and being very authentic and trustworthy. And that is going to build loyalty, increase conversion, create LTV.

Eric: Right. Do you use influencers?

Nicole: Absolutely. So, influencers we think about in three different ways. One, you could work with an influencer to increase your brand clout. So, somebody you just want to be able to say, "So and so wears our jewelry." They don't necessarily convert in immediate sales, but, you know, it looks good to be on them. Then you might want to work with an influencer that just increases brand awareness. Big reach, now you're reaching a new audience you didn't have before. And then the third way we work with influencers, and we do categorize them in these three ways, is just immediate revenue conversion. Maybe they're not, you know, the supermodel walking down the street, but they just have this crazy loyal following. It could be some mom in Texas and everyone's in love with her and she shows your necklace and 60 units fly off the shelf in one hour. So, you have to kind of think about what's your end goal and then back into who those people are.

Eric: Right. And so, particularly for those immediate conversion, like, how do you determine which one is going to give you that authenticity that you're looking for?

Nicole: It's not that easy. It's a lot of testing and there's been a lot of people we thought would be amazing for us, and it fell flat, but you can start to figure out a recipe. I mean, obviously, if you're gonna work with someone, you get their engagement stats and you get their demo and who's following them. And then you start to think about who has a similar account to so and so who performed really, really well and some are going to fall flat, but then some are going to hit and in a really big way.

Eric: Right. So we talked a little bit about authenticity. How about transparency? I mean, when you talk about the guy who can get you a diamond cheap, you know. I think there's a lot of lack of transparency and this is a business that, it's very difficult for the average person to assess the quality of a gem.

Nicole: Yeah, so there is a very negative stigma about jewelers, basically. You just assume you shouldn't trust them. And so we are big on being super transparent to basically show that that's not us. And so this is done in many different ways. One is just diamond education will tell you what you really want, what you really need to know versus what other jewelers might talk about, like the reality is most women just want the biggest diamond possible. That's all they care about. So let's just be open and honest about it and tell you how to allocate your budget to get you there. Like, no, you don't need a D-Flawless. We know you want that three karat, we're gonna get you there. So being honest and realistic about what their goals are and talking to them about that.

And then the other piece in terms of transparency is about us as a company. We show behind the scenes a lot. We show the team. People know who's on the marketing team. We've created characters out of them on Instagram so you can trust who are you standing behind when you're buying this product. Or something like, we're developing a new earring. Why don't you vote? Do you like it in this way or this way? And they feel like they're a part of the brand. So we're hyper-transparent, maybe potentially, too transparent, but it's really worked for us.

Eric: Right. I know you've just launched a line of silver jewelry. Did you work with your customers, in terms of making the decision to do that or?

Nicole: So this is…

Eric: Feels like a great opportunity to pull your audience.

Nicole: Yeah. Well, we didn't. Actually, this was a Gen Z kind of acquisition play. Obviously, jewelry is not inexpensive. Even though, you know, we work to have really great price points, you're still talking about gold and diamonds. So, we know we need to start to create a Gen Z funnel. Gen Z is going to be our bride in three years. Our average bride is 28. So, we're only a few years out and they can't necessarily afford all of our products right now. So, we've launched a sterling silver line, which is less expensive, but still fine jewelry to start to figure out how do we reach them now? How do we get them to fall in love with our brand now? So we have a bride in three years.

Eric: There you go. Talk about storytelling. How do you employ storytelling in your marketing?

Nicole: So keeping engagement high for us on social is a really important tactic. And that's how you get people to fall in love with you and be loyal with your brand and we do that through storytelling. So, I view a lot of—the social team's job is to create stories, essentially. Why do people care about this? You know, what is the opening conversation? What is the story arc? And how are we closing this out? People don't want to just hear facts about products. They don't want to just see pictures without context.

You have to create a story. And that's the key in what works in our account. Because a lot of brand accounts have really, really low engagement rates because you're just showing products all day. And who really cares to see that? We have an engagement rate that's more in line with influencers and that's very intentional and it's through storytelling.

Eric: Right. How important is well, I guess it's obviously in storytelling, content. But can you talk a little bit about how you think about content? How much video are you using?

Nicole: Yeah.

Eric: You know, produce content.

Nicole: I think about content all day, every day. I wish I thought about it less, quite frankly. Video is becoming more and more important and I think that's obviously from what TikTok has done to everybody, not just on TikTok. And it's harder. Videos are harder than pictures. So I think a lot of brands probably just stick to what is easy and what works, which is snapping a picture, editing it, it's on your social, it's on your website, whatever it may be. We are making a huge effort to kind of be video first, and it takes more work and more resources and more money.

But not just on our social channels, which of course, you need to be video forward, but also thinking through what could it look like on our website, you know, on our product pages. We're talking about should we have videos up there right in the carousel of images of someone talking about, here's how you style this, here's how you care, how you wear this necklace. Why do you care about it? Because that's how people are so engaged on social media. So how do you take what works there and also put it on your website?

Eric: That's fascinating. Talk about your community. You mentioned a little bit, but how big is your community? How have you grown your community, how do you sustain your community?

Nicole: Yeah, so, we have upwards of 600,000, I think, followers right now, and, you know, that's our core community. And, it is community in terms of, brands are so important because these are going to be your advocates and word of mouth is free marketing and very powerful marketing and we are very aware of this and it's the second way, most popular way people find us. And I mean, it's either they found us through social or they heard about us from somebody else. And so how do you create a community that falls in love with you as a brand? And you know, I've talked a little bit about how we're doing that, but it's a core strategy and growth. We never want to get too big where that isn't one of our core strategies because it's so powerful in creating customer loyalty as well.

Eric: Right. Talk to me about mobile versus the website. How many people are actually designing rings and purchasing rings on mobile versus, say, a traditional website?

Nicole: So, over 80% of our sessions are on mobile. And so we know that is how people are first experiencing our brand. It's not necessarily when they make a purchase; it goes a little bit heavier to desktop, because maybe they're taking it more seriously, they log on to the computer. But if their first touchpoint is mobile, regardless of how they end up transacting, you should be thinking mobile first and we try to. I think a lot of and we do it internally, and I always am trying to remind people, I don't want to see a preview of the website in a desktop view.

I only want to see it in a mobile view because that is how people are consuming, you know, our website. And so always thinking mobile first and what does that look like? And then also, when it comes to mobile or just Gen Z, millennials, in general. In general, they are very impatient. You have their attention for like, well, literally three seconds on TikTok. That's the average amount of time someone watches a TikTok is three seconds. So if you're thinking about an ad, what are you putting out in that first three seconds? Because that is all that matters. It has to be your strongest message. It has to be what catches them. It has to be whatever may take them to second four, because after that, you've probably lost them.

Eric: Right. We've talked a lot about social and digital. Talk a little bit about, are you using any other tactics like events or showcases, things where people can come and actually experience the jewelry?

Nicole: Yes, we are. We're doing more of that and I think it's important to elevate the brand and we have an amazing CMO who just started, who is certainly pushing me to go further in that direction. Look, we're self-funded, and so every dollar we spend, we have to be really thoughtful about. And when it comes to marketing digitally, you can reach a much broader audience. So that's typically where we default, but we know that has to be balanced with in person activations and having, you know, influencers and celebrities seen as a part of our brand to really take us to the next level.

Eric: Right. That's great. How do you see the attitudes and the preferences of millennials and Gen Zs evolving over time?

Nicole: Well, look, I am starting to get old. I'm 37, so I cannot pretend to understand how Gen Z thinks. But my advice here is to talk to them. And we employ a ton of millennials and a ton of Gen Zers. And they are really who have the pulse on what is cool, what is happening, what is shifting, and we talk to them all the time. Sterling Silver, for example, when we launched that. The reason we came up with that idea is because there was a girl on our team, she's 25, and she was going to an event, and she went to go buy some costume jewelry to wear to some wedding. And I was like, what are you doing? Why aren't you pulling from the free closet of diamonds and gold that we have here? And she said, "We don't have anything chunky, like super chunky and I want to wear something chunky to this wedding." I was like, whoa. Problem. Problem. So, emergency, all hands meeting. I think I drove a lot of people really crazy that week on the merchandising team about, we need an emergency sterling silver collection tomorrow. But had I not, you know, been in communication with her, we probably would have been six months behind on that trend.

Eric: And do you do a lot of research into the designs as you bring them out? I mean, I'm assuming you're working with jewelry designers, but do you actually go and do research, focus groups?

Nicole: They do. Yes, they do. I don't, I cannot claim to be a designer. I'm not the reason our jewelry is beautiful. We have a team that are amazing and they definitely are on the pulse of what's trending. They're looking at runway shows. They're looking at, you know, purchasing trend reports. They very much are in tune with what's cool.

Eric: That's great. Do you any anything you think we need to share with folks who are, you know, trying to reach millennials and Gen Z?

Nicole: I mean, I think I would just say that they're very savvy shoppers, right? They're digitally native. That is what they know. That is how they have grown up and they can sniff out BS a mile away. So in terms of being authentic, it can't be forced. Right? You can't sit and have a meeting on how do we become authentic? And it's some plan, like you really do have to figure out as a brand what is important to us and how do we show that in a very real way to connect with your customers. And it's hard, it's not easy.

Eric: Right.

Nicole: But that has been, you know, really one of the keys to our success.

Eric: That's great. We have a chance to open it up for some questions. Anybody have any questions for Nicole? There's one.

Audience member #1: Hi. You mentioned that you're self-funded, which I thought was interesting. That's sort of a unique choice these days. Why? And did you ever try to get funding?

Nicole: Honestly, it was an accident. And if I launched a business tomorrow, I don't know if I would do it this way again. I did not realize what this would become 10 years ago. I had a job that I wasn't in love with and I didn't make much money. I was in fashion and I kind of said to myself, "All right, I'm going to try this jewelry idea I have." And as long as I can replace my salary after taxes, like I'm great. You know, I did not think about 10 years later, the size we would be and how I would get there, which, you know, was kind of great because I was forced to be very fiscally responsible very early on in the way that companies that fundraise, I mean this is all kind of cats out of the bag now, how that doesn't necessarily work out for a lot of these VC-backed companies, but I had no choice but to be profitable.

And then by the time we got big enough where investors were knocking down our door every day, which is what is happening now, we've kind of said, "Well, why would we give away equity now." What would we get? And also autonomy. I am kind of a control freak. Hard for my team. It is what it is. And so I do know that there'd be a huge shift.

But I think the conversation, you know, needs to be for any company that's self-funded, at what point are you doing the business a disservice and are you unable to grow at the rate you want to by not taking on capital? So that is an interesting conversation you kind of have to have throughout different stages of growth.

Audience member #2: Hi. When you produce the content and release it on your social media, do you find that it's better to produce it differently for the different platforms or try to have a sense of consistency across all the platforms? Like maybe you do a teaser for TikTok, a trailer for Instagram and your feature length on YouTube, for example?

Nicole: So, unfortunately, you have to create completely different, you have to film completely different content for all the different platforms. And, you know, that's not ideal because it's a lot more work. You can have this, the same theme or message, right. You're launching a new product and you want that launch to be communicated across all your different social channels, but it needs to be filmed one way for TikTok, a different way for Instagram and a different way for YouTube. And that's what makes it difficult, time consuming and expensive, but it doesn't work if you try to repurpose something from Instagram on TikTok, it's never going to work.

Audience member #2: Just like when you use filters that are native to the platform it will increase the presence of followers.

Nicole: And in TikTok, if you create it within TikTok, it knows you've done that and it will prioritize it.

Audience member #3: Hi, good afternoon. My question would be on the term of influencers. So, you mentioned that a little bit. How do you go about finding maybe like a micro influencer when you've gone and looked and your product is a little bit more niche and you're trying to find somebody that can kind of represent what you stand for, without necessarily going and just picking somebody that's just popular and has a lot of followers, for example.

Nicole: I mean, I think that's a really good point that I didn't mention with influencers is making sure that they feel authentic to your brand and, you know, some of our most successful collaborations have been with people who already purchased from us rather than someone we've cold called because they actually believe in what you're doing. So you can go about it two ways. There are agencies you can work with that can help find influencers and match them with you, or, and I can't think of any off the top of my head. There are a bunch of programs that influencers are on, platforms that you can sign up for, that can help. You can kind of filter for different things you're looking for with influencers. And they're the ones that, you know, would like to be contacted to be worked with.

Eric: You have a natural, your customer becomes an influencer because they have a moment, you know, where they're getting married. There's going to be a professional photographer there. Do you share a lot of photos of customers?

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. And it always performs well. It's an emotional moment. People love emotion on Instagram and then you've got our box that's branded and it's professionally photographed. It's like a win, win, win for us in terms of UGC. Yeah, it's great.

Audience member #4: Hi Nicole, thanks so much for this. I'm gonna ask the question, I don't know if this is actually the question I want answered though. So, what percentage of your sales are the younger age group? Cause my other career is in the Broadway theater and I feel like a problem we run up against is, in theory, we want to attract a younger audience, but the $30 tickets, the $40 tickets are not the ones that are paying the bills. It's the $300 tickets, the foreign, you know, the $200 tickets. And I assume for you, it's not the sterling silver brand the products that are running your business.

Nicole: Completely. And Gen Z makes up under 10% of our purchases. So it is still the millennial, but we know that she needs to start to hear about us now for when she does have the purchasing power that, you know, will matter for our product. She already has an affinity towards the brand. So it's a long play and it's definitely not a play for immediate revenue.

Audience member #5: You mentioned using agencies like an influencer agency. What percentage do you keep in-house of your marketing versus outsourcing to an influencer agency, for example?

Nicole: We do basically everything in-house. Marketing is so precious to why we are successful that to outsource kind of any of it, it's never going to be done the way we want it to be done. I mean, we outsource certain things like some of the paid placements and things like that, but the core of our marketing and certainly the brand marketing and anything social, content creation, all in-house. It's very controlled. It's everything, and some of it's starting to go to our CMO, but I, up until a few months ago, I signed off on every single thing you could ever see with our brand, and it's extremely protected, and I don't think you can do that if you're outsourcing too much of it.

Audience member #6: Thanks. So you mentioned the Gen Z is more your pipeline, and that's the focus, since they only make up 10% of your revenue. And I realize the millennials are, you know, they're in the marriage years, and they're your focus. But the big earners are post millennial. And you're not, it doesn't seem you're doing anything to grab them. And if you think about, quote-unquote, the life cycle of products, people that are getting divorced are getting divorce rings. So you miss a lot of those people. You miss the, you know, I'm even thinking of the Kay Jewelers, you know, the Valentine's thing. That's a couple that's usually like in the over 50 set with probably the greatest earning power. So what are you doing to try and attract the people that have bigger wallets and can now afford your bigger pieces? Because even though you're the Ring Concierge, you're telling us that you're more than that. So it's not just the ring.

Nicole: Yeah, it's a great question. Actually, only 40% of our revenue comes from engagement rings. So the balance are all the other kinds of jewelry, which of course, work for any stage in anyone's life. And so we certainly are attracting a broader range than just millennials. There are, you know, when we define who do we describe as like our, our girl, you know, it's a millennial, she's 28 to 30, but no, our reach is much broader than that. And to your point, we have a lot of couples that come for upgrade rings, which tend to have much larger budgets. Maybe they've been married 10 years, you know, maybe they exited their company that they had founded, and then they're coming to us for six figure or seven figure rings, you know, that's wonderful. We will take them so happily. But in terms of scaling and volume, it's still going to be who's the average bride right now, and it's going to be that 28- to 30-year-old.

Eric: And I'm assuming you hope that, you know, the engagement ring isn't the only piece of jewelry they're going to buy over their lifetime. So you create an experience and you bring them back.

Nicole: Correct. And a lot of our couples come to us to buy an engagement ring and they already are wearing all of our other jewelry. So the engagement ring might not even be their first touch point with our brand.

Eric: I think you have time with one more question. Oh, two more questions. Okay.

Audience member #7: Thanks. I was wondering why did you make the decision now to open some brick and mortar stores and how will you continue to stay innovative and differentiate yourself against the competitors that do have brick and mortar and have had them for years?

Nicole: Yep. So we decided to open our first brick and mortar post-COVID. We only ever had e-comm. We've always had a private showroom for bridal since day one. That's always been something we've had a physical presence in. But in terms of, you know, the volume and the fine jewelry, it's always been online. And post-COVID, when everyone was talking about wanting to go back into in-person experiences, we figured, let's test a physical store while rents are, you know, really, really low. And it turned out to be, you know, wildly successful. We opened the second door right away and now we're looking at a much broader retail expansion plan.

But to answer your question about how do we, you know, kind of stay ahead in terms of innovation when there's so many jewelry stores, it's how we're going about the jewelry store experience. And this is something we're working on extensively right now as a team. And it's something other industries are already doing and best-in-class, but it's not happening in jewelry. What is the digital experience when you're in the store? How are you using technology? What is, you know, the social media experience? Like, we want everyone to come in and Instagram the store, and then boom, now you have all of these hashtags out there and geotags. What are the different personalization options you can do in the store? A piercing bar. I don't want to give away too much, but we have this, we have a really cool idea coming for physical retail that it's just thinking about what experience aren't people getting right now and how can we give that to them in our industry?

Audience member #8: Lovely presentation. I especially love your example of like following Gen Z and meeting them where they are. But as a Gen Z, I see trends changing every single day. So my question is, how do you balance the need of following trends and meeting Gen Z and launching timeless products that will last the test of trends?

Nicole: It's a great question. And even when we're following trends, we still think about how does this not look too trendy or not following trends, creating trends. We like to be trendsetters. But yes, it's an expensive price point. So, it can't be something you're only going to wear for one year. Then you should just go buy costume jewelry. You should not buy our jewelry, candidly. So, we try to create pieces that, even if there's an element of it that is trending right now, it's still something in five years, ten years, 15 years, you're going to love. And that's really how we think about the designs, because otherwise there's no reason to be spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on our pieces if you can only wear it for one year.

Eric: Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Everybody, let's give a round of applause to Nicole Wegman.

Nicole: Thank you.