Catering to the luxury consumer is a craft. It involves restraint, pointed execution and a knack for knowing what this consumer needs before they do.
Much of the luxury marketing behind higher end products goes against the common marketing principals and ideas.
There are a few different approaches to luxury strategy, and which you go with depends on which consumer you want and what product or service you are selling. The three strategies are luxury, premium, and fashion.
- Luxury sells the best of the best. Price-point is a non-issue for your consumer. Qualities that do matter? Craftsmanship, heritage, country of origin- anything that attaches singularity to the identity of the item and consequently, the purchaser.
- Fashion rests solely on fashion, a wildly perishable quality. In fall, every item is on trend. By spring, you’ve lost your consumers with a line that failed to hit the mark on the new season’s fashion. Fashion is a fickle quality; remaining relevant and leading are difficult achievements to make and to maintain.
- Premium sells based on value. The consumer pays more, but the consumer gets more. Premium often uses a comparative to scale to show just how much more bang the consumer gets for their buck against competitors or same brand, lower tier products.
Today, we focus on the first type of luxury: true, authentic luxury. This type of luxury marketing comes from the insight and successful practice of leather goods brands that banished the need to dress everyone and instead, crafted only for those who could afford the goods: the elite.
Some of the strategy tips listed are derived directly from historical anecdotes. Others have manifested only in recent years. Most can be used across all three types of luxury selling. If your brand caters to regular and luxury consumers, consider how you can use the luxury marketing principals to differentiate the luxury line.
Executive Digital’s Top Tips for Luxury Brand Marketing:
- Luxury does not compare. True luxury products do not need comparison- they stand on the podium alone, in their own light, because their greatness breaks into a new, unfathomable level of untouchability. Luxury is the identity of the product. This product is covetable because it has no competitors that stand a chance. Listing comparison amongst other brands weakens the idea of luxury. Forget the cloudy market- your product stands tall on its own.
- Nothing worth keeping is actually perfect. We all reach a point in life where we understand the unfinished to be champions of perfection. When something is perfect, it’s over. What about the product is missing? Lacking? Too short of a warranty? Not enough pockets? Not enough inventory? Luxury products must have precise utility and exquisite craftsmanship, but there is no need to cover every need with just one product. Imperfections give your product soul, embrace them.
- Luxury guides the consumer, not vice versa. In most industries, brands are instructed to focus on the consumers’ wishes. In luxury, it’s the opposite. Consumers rely on luxury brands to dictate tomorrow’s trends. To determine what to expect in a handbag or on a flight across the world. Luxury decides how the elite live, and the rest of the world’s brands can follow suit and provide similar, lower quality goods to the masses. Education should be a significant element of strategy- pertaining to both the good and to the lifestyle.
- Market beyond the target. In traditional marketing, brands hone in on the target audience and cater to their eyes and attention only. There is only so much budget to be utilized and every cent must be spoken for with adequate result. Part of luxury’s appeal is its known off-limits to most of the world. In order to generate that appeal from so many people, luxury brands must market outside of their top-tier, open wallet consumer. Campaigns should reach the average consumer, building the auditorium of wishing consumers for products that can be feasibly owned by only the first few rows.
- Status over association. Brand ambassadors are important and today, influencers make substantial contributions to marketing strategies. However, luxury operates on a platform higher than associations with famous personalities. In fact, blasting that a celebrity has donned a luxury product can diminish the luxurious appeal. Exploiting associations with the rich and famous should be used only as testimony for the product’s reliability.
- Never sell. Luxury is not about sales; it is about longevity. The purpose of a campaign should never be to trigger transactions but to share the brand, the product, and a glimpse into the lifestyle that is notoriously unattainable.
- Purchasing should be difficult. If anybody with a health credit line could hop online and purchase the product, the appeal is gone. Luxury is not only about a price tag; it’s about exclusivity. Make it difficult to purchase the product and maybe, make it impossible to buy online at all. Exclusivity limits the consumption ability, further increasing the appeal of needing to get ones hands on the product.
As you can see, many of the tips go against the traditional marketing grain and stem from older, less obvious forms of advertising. That said, it is smart to keep a balance between refined practices and modern day tools. SEO, for example, might not have been a phrase when luxury leather goods first came to the U.S., but today, it is an essential ingredient for reaching consumers.
Many search engine optimization agencies exist to help get your brand to the top of the market through digital strategy and SEO tactics. At Executive Digital, we specialize in achieving those goals plus educating you adequately enough to market at high-performance levels yourself.
Sometimes, getting your marketing and digital optics on point is the biggest challenge. Once you have the education, the setup and the time and team to devote to maintaining the strategy through industry evolutions, staying on your marketing A game becomes part of your brand identity.
Reach out to our digital marketing experts whenever you’re ready to ramp up your digital footprint and invite the right clientele to be a part of your brand story.