Michelle Peterson, CMO of Kendra Scott Jewelry explains that relationship building is key to organic retail growth.

In this podcast, “Prioritizing people with your performance,”  Will Whitham, founder and host of CMO Convo, interviews Michelle Peterson, the Chief Marketing Officer of Kendra Scott Jewelry. Michelle explains how she leverages retail brand strategy, story brand marketing, and user-focused buying experiences to help her team meet key performance metrics and enhance overall retail growth.

Kendra Scott Jewelry uses a mix of engagement platforms.

Kendra Scott Jewelry is based in Austin, Texas, and currently operates over 130 stores nationwide. To enhance retail growth, they use a hybrid of brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, and social selling platforms to meet corporate vision and key objective goals.

About Michelle Peterson.

Michelle holds a Master of Engineering/Industrial Management from Kellogg University, an MBA in Marketing & Finance from Kellogg School of Management,  and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Key takeaways from Michelle Peterson’s interview with Will Witham.

✅  Some people within Michelle’s inner circle did not see the alignment between her choice to study psychology in conjunction with industrial engineering.

✅ She unpacks the relationships and dependencies between process performance, product development, and human buying behavior and explains how each study area is important in the product development and sales lifecycle.

✅ By combining psychology and process engineering, Michelle says she can better understand the drivers behind human behavior and provide critical insights to help teams align sales, marketing, and production activities.

✅ The Kendra Scott team created a brand community through “experience marketing.” One example of expanding their brand story includes their mobile  NFL popup trailers where they sell a bespoke NFL line of jewelry to those attending a game.

✅ Another example of enhancing the brand experience is offering their brick and mortar facilities to host in-store baby showers, birthday parties, engagement parties, and VIP special events.

✅ The Kendra Scott brand expanded its immersive experience by creating unique online shopping experiences for targeted demographics and offered a specific jewelry line. For example, they created a unique landing page and ad campaign highlighting “the yellow rose of Texas pendant” available to an engaged Texas audience.

✅ The Kendra Scott brand incorporates its brand story throughout every customer touchpoint by meeting the customer’s where they are and offering products most likely to align to their interests.

✅ The Kendra Scott team treats their guests as royal VIPs, and they see the return in brand loyalty.

✅ Retailers can feel siloed and wonder if an idea is valid. Michelle’s insights inspire small business owners to lean-in and engage with customers throughout multiple touchpoints.

✅  Michelle reminds us that people seek community, a place to belong, and are searching for brands to align and engage with.

✅ The Kendra Scott community engagement teams gain critical and timely feedback by communicating with customers through social media platforms.

✅ At Kendra Scott, they don’t relegate social media to the lowest person on the org chart. Instead, seasoned customer service representatives, brand ambassadors, and sales professionals answer and engage on social platforms and provide important insights useful for stakeholders and decision makers.

✅ This podcast reminds us that our end-users are real people and that people love to interact, feel valued, and be inspired to create.

✅ Michelle described how the Kendra Scott brand actively creates opportunities to engage with their community and drive revenue through authentic relationship development.

✅ At the end of the day, we are relationship builders not commodity pushers.

Thanks, Michelle Peterson and Will Whitham; this conversation gave our team tactical strategies for retail growth.

Click this link to listen to the podcast now: Prioritizing people with your performance.