We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Folino recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The Boutique world is an industry of relationship building, bringing together the passion of inspiring women through fashion and a sense of connection. People want to do business with people, where you share like interests, styles and ideas while building a community of belonging. Authenticity and consistency are our two highest pillars at Arie Layne. One size does not fit all. This is why we strive to create a unique customer experience for every person who shops with us, attends our events or follows our social media. We show up as ourselves, sometimes a mess and sometimes on a red carpet… but mostly in the middle. But we always show up for our community. Owning a small business is not for the weak, yet is the most rewarding when you know you have a made a difference in someone’s life. That is the definition of success to us.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

27 Years ago, I was a high school student working part time in our town’s premium jewelry store, J. Bryan Jewelers, under the owner Jack Bryan. I had no idea at the time how much I learned from Jack like properly answering the phone, mark-up on various pieces of custom jewelry, how to truly interact with customers…all I knew was I too wanted to one day open a jewelry store. Well, life has gone in many incredible and challenging directions since that time. My career path led directly to retail while still in college in my home state of Georgia and continued under another industry mentor after college when I took the retail buyer position at a high-end private golf club in my home state. In 2011, I met the man I knew I would marry, got engaged, moved to Arizona to join my fiance and got married…all over a nine-month period. In 2014, we welcomed our twins, Kade and Hiatt.

Family, retail, and entrepreneurship have been my life’s most fulfilling work, yet above all, working with people has been the most rewarding part of what I’ve accomplished over the years. 27 years later on February 18, 2022, I opened my Shop. Arie Layne Boutique has brought women of all ages together through fashion, friendship and community; a place where women belong, a place designed with them in mind. Here, we inspire confidence through a unique product selection to support and encourage self-expression through an exclusive customer experience.

The name Arie Layne honors both the name of my late grandmother and the street where I spent many years of my childhood. Mary Ln; the street my Mom and my Dad’s parents lived, right across from each other. The street where my parents first met at age 17 and home of my favorite memories as a kid. Arie was my Granny’s first name and is also now my daughter’s middle name and a name that will continue to symbolize strength and family. We are very grateful for the opportunity to serve the women of our community and beyond.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is more than a full time job! And it can be the difference between your business thriving or dying. Social media managers are paid very well for a good reason; the amount of time, content creation, knowledge, continuing education and constant need to stay current with what each platform is doing is critical in our industry. We had a content creator early in our business, yet felt we could take it in house and out perform where we stood at that time. And we did. Our main platforms are Instagram and Facebook and we are now on Tik Tok as well. This is a complete team effort where all our team members are in responsible for a segment of the platforms. Fortunately, our girls are each skilled on various platforms so we work together to create content that is relevant to each. I certainly would advise on taking a masterclass on the platform you use most. Staying current with the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram is crucial in staying in the feed of the followers. We stay present and vocal in our social media stories, using engagement tools to ask lots of questions and take polls. We also give back what we are getting…we visit our followers pages, liking, saving and commenting on the fun posts and stories they are sharing. We make our platforms personal, authentically showing up as ourselves. We may share outfit tryons, funny stories, sad events, prayer requests, celebrations and so much more. The more engaging you can be on social media, the more attracted followers are to our pages and also to the algorithm. Our advice is stay consistent with your stories, engage with the followers you already have while trying to attract new followers. Contests and Giveaways are a great way to generate new followers and bring exposure to your business, yet beware of scammers! Always run your contests and giveaways through an authenticator app.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

This topic is so important! 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers, so retaining and maintaining the relationship with our repeat customers is our highest priority. That being said, you do not own your social media! But you do own your email list and it is critical that you work to build that organic database within your business because at any moment (and it has happened), your social media can be hacked or shut down and you lose those people instantly. Having a solid email database allows you to communicate directly with those who have already opted in to be part of your marketing campaign and most likely have already done business with you. Here, you are able to speak to them directly, target certain segments and get direct feedback such as sign ups and shopping links that are trackable. We also have a loyalty program that accrues points when a customer shops with us. We hold private VIP events, specialty markets and offer free gifts at special events to our customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.arielayne.com
• Instagram: @arielayneboutique
• Facebook: @shoparielayne
• Other: Tik Tok
  @arielayneboutique