Luxury marketing taps into a large group of consumers who are seeking something to satisfy a very different need than what the discount wholesale club shopper needs.
Costco, for example, might promote their $5 rotisserie chicken as a budget-friendly option, but they also sell high-end items like Chanel bags and Wagyu beef, which cater to a very different, more affluent audience. This means Costco has to tailor their marketing strategies to appeal to both bargain hunters and luxury shoppers.
If you are an exclusively luxury brand, then you must find a way to reach the very specific audience that’s most likely to desire your product and have the funds to buy it.
Regardless of whether it takes $10,000 to build that luxury watch or $500,000 to create that luxury vehicle, your job is to sell it to an audience who wants to pay well for something they deem worthy.
How do you do that? You build a luxury brand marketing strategy capable of reaching these consumers where they are in this very limited landscape.
Defining your luxury target customer and then building a strong digital marketing strategy behind that will require a careful selection of wording and images. Your aim is to convey a sense of pleasure, opulence, exclusivity, and value.
The following strategies can help you as a type of brand positioning guide, giving you tips on how to use marketing to grow your exclusive brand’s reputation and recognition (and sales).
The Luxury Market Landscape
Luxury brands sometimes lower their prices or adjust their strategies to cater to challenging economic conditions. However, the luxury market has proven to be resilient.
According to data from Brain and Company, the luxury market was valued at $373 billion in 2022, marking a 20% increase from the previous year.
Although the growth rate is slightly slower this year, the market is still expected to grow in the coming years. This indicates that the demand for luxury goods remains robust, even during economic turbulence.
Before you can launch any content creation, you must understand the nuances of the luxury market. The main characteristics of a luxury brand include:
- Excellent quality
- High prices
- Lifestyle-creating products and services
- Scarcity
- Emotive storytelling
Luxury brands provide exceptional customer service and drive exclusivity, creating a sense of pride of ownership. A rich heritage, a strong story behind it, and an element of alluring desire often help to paint the picture of a truly luxurious brand.
To achieve success in this area, you must define what your audience expects (and demands) from luxury brands. This then allows you to build strong brand recognition.
The Role of Storytelling and Visual Aesthetics in Luxury Marketing
Strategic storytelling is an effective way to draw customers to a luxury brand. Storytelling creates an emotional connection between the brand and the consumer, which helps to build a feeling of authentic relationship between the two. That authentic feel is what helps these brands become highly desirable.
A group of researchers studied what they called the “brand love” luxury jewelry brand Pandora built for its consumers. They used storytelling, according to the Portugal researchers, to build a narrative about celebrating special moments in life.
The brand’s marketing focused heavily on that positive feeling of cherishing the uniqueness of each person. Over time, people associated the love of those positive stories with wearing Pandora jewelry.
Impact of high-quality content on brand perception
The core of this is the development of high-quality content. It’s not possible to build a memorable story around a brand without anything but exceptional content.
That content must stand out and be unique but speak to the very specific people most likely to connect with that story and, therefore, your brand. The Persona Generator, an AI tool launched by WriterAccess, offers the resources you need to take the first step.
With it, you can focus on the audience you’re trying to capture, one story and emotional grasp at a time.
Successful Strategies of Luxury Brands
One of the best ways to enter the luxury brands market is to learn from examples. Consider 3 specific luxury brands utilizing visual marketing to achieve success among the 1% of consumers that make up the luxury brand market.
Burberry
Burberry uses storytelling to connect its high-end clothing and luxury accessories to its products. One marketing strategy focused on telling the “fairy tale” of the founder of the company, an innovative way to create a bond with the consumer lured in by the mystic of the brand’s rich history.
Porsche
Porsche’s luxury storytelling strategies center around defining what makes their products – namely their technology (called Tequipment) more high-end, refined, and necessary for the serious sports driver. It builds on the fact that the brand has built technology into their vehicles for decades, creating an air of exclusivity.
Dior
Dior uses A-list celebrities to tell stories built on luxury, elegance, and beauty. Often, their images depict stunning transformations of young ladies taking the stage and creating impressive transformations into elite models walking the runway.
Lessons for Non-Luxury Brands
Not every brand can (or should) try to lure in that exclusive consumer group. However, non-luxury brands can incorporate inbound marketing strategies using storytelling in a similar (but still different) manner.
For those brands that want to be a part of the luxury market, entrance isn’t simplistic. To get started, consider this statement from the program director at the European School of Management and Technology, Hannes Gurzki:
“I look at the process of creating the extraordinary from different perspectives. Economically, it’s all about price and value; culturally, it’s about the magical aura the brands radiate; socially, it’s about status and exclusivity; psychologically, it’s about how the brand makes you feel special; and managerially, it’s about creating a culture of excellence.”
Hannes Gurzki
Steps and considerations for entering the luxury market
Develop a luxury brand marketing strategy only after you’ve pursued several core steps:
1. Develop your industry knowledge
The most competitive luxury brands are leading their industry in everything from knowledge to innovation. This builds strong success from the ground up and enables you to better anticipate market trends.
A component of this is aligning with the industry’s current digital channels. Learn from what the brands you know are exclusive within that industry are doing, how they are reaching clients and customers, and what sets them apart.
2. Market research and brand positioning
The next step is to take a deep dive into market research. For all brands, market research shares insights into what is already occurring within the industry and why it’s working. From your research, define your brand and what helps it stand out.
3. Build a brand identity and all associated visuals
Once you have a well-defined understanding of your market, you can build a luxury brand image, positioning your name, logo, typography, color scheme, and every other detail.
Work to build out a visually appealing brand identity that will stretch across all of your marketing channels. Be authentic. No matter what your objective is, authenticity is easily noticeable by the most exclusive consumers.
4. Enhance product development and ensure quality control
Once your brand is defined, you’ve set a very high standard. The luxury brands market must enhance and never detract from that standard. To do that, you must build luxurious products that provide the highest level of results – whether that’s craftsmanship, better quality than anything else on the market, or limited access.
Your quality control standards must also be elevated. That helps build your reputation along the entire buying journey.
5. Build out an engaging website, content strategy, and a story to tell
The following tips can help you build a luxury market brand digitally:
- Create an engaging website that is visually impactful for anyone who visits.
- Develop a content strategy that wraps around that brand image and tells the story of what makes it different and unique.
- Be cautious of following other brand examples too closely. Copycats don’t get the same attention.
- Create content that speaks to the appropriate audience and, in some way, elevates them and their position.
- Create social media and influencer marketing that communicates this brand in the same manner across all channels. It’s essential to learn what influencer marketing is because it is often a core component of luxury brand development.
It takes time to build a truly unique brand identity. After researching and developing a product that offers the elements that are defined within the luxury brand market (like exclusivity and quality), you’ll then incorporate what makes your product luxurious. What steps it apart from the rest?
Elevating Customer Experience in Luxury Marketing
Even with the most effective luxury brand marketing strategy, you must deliver. Researchers out of Germany and Ireland found that word-of-mouth advertising was critical for luxury brands.
When a person who has taken the chance at a high-end product shares their exclusive item with their friends, that’s what creates luxury – it’s that word-of-mouth advertising that ultimately drives people to your brand.
To achieve this, we put in place an exceptional customer experience.
- Create VIP programs that are available only to exclusive customers. This creates exclusion that drives desire and ultimately elevates brands. A VIP program may incorporate, for example, early access to new product launches or a limited-produced product.
- Drive personal experiences for the luxury brand market to the forefront of your strategy. That may include in-person events for those with invitations or targeted marketing campaigns for those who purchase.
- Provide personalized, hands-on support. This could include phone calls to gain feedback from customers who provide access. It may include direct messages on social media to those sharing products.
Don’t shy away from bad experiences. The only type of bad experience is one you do not address that leads itself on a journey through social media. Instead, capture these negative reviews as instant opportunities to create improved customer service. Focus on providing exceptional solutions and friendly, even over-the-top, interactions with clients who have the audience to build (or break) your brand.
Leveraging Digital Channels in Luxury Marketing
The best digital marketing strategies for the luxury market don’t change in function. That is, social media, highly visual websites, and exceptional engagement all matter. How you achieve a luxury market brand strategy is different. Consider these components:
Develop on-target marketing strategies
Build out marketing strategies with personalization. Narrow down your audience as much as possible to enable meticulous campaign development.
Build effective influencer partnerships
Tapping into influencers online takes some research. Look for tried-and-true as well as upcoming influencers within your specific sector. Learn about them and their audience before initiating any type of influencer opportunity.
Put the budget into digital
Luxury or wealthy buyers are very much present online. They make up a large portion of digital users across all devices, averaging 5 hours or more per day of online browsing, according to PWC.
Choose highly visual platforms
Visual social media platforms are exceptional resources. This includes Instagram, for example, one of the most sought-after locations for luxury branding.
Build out organic keywords
Use keywords specifically relevant to a luxury market brand, and though there is often fierce competition, it is often a necessary investment for the return.
Build retargeting campaigns
Luxury investments are not quick decisions for those not at the top level of wealth. They take retargeting. More so, the more you can bring a buyer back into your brand, the faster you build loyalty, which drives luxury brand market success.
Navigating Channels and Future Trends
Luxury brands are in a constant battle to remain relevant. To achieve this, they cannot maintain a tried-and-true product but continue to innovate.
A product like Gucci sunglasses is always going to be exclusive, but if they fall behind industry design trends, the brand isn’t as desirable any longer. Certain brands are trendsetters, and what they say tends to be sought after, such as names like Louis Vuitton and Rolex. To achieve this trend-setting status, you must first work your way up the luxury brand ladder, meaning you need to build a strong brand image.
Luxury brands must:
- Stay ahead of the game but on the right track
- Prove that their unique product or innovative offering is the most desirable option out there
- Stand out from what the crowd is doing in a meaningful and desirable manner
These challenges are not simplistic, but they fall on the shoulders of solid research on the luxury brand market and how it’s changing over time.
Emerging trends in luxury marketing
Core emerging trends in the luxury brand market include, according to Lombardo:
- Sustainable luxury
- Digital elegance and sophistication (what was once reserved for exclusive Park Avenue service needs to be digitally creative and alluring)
- Metaverse presence, which is perhaps one of the most formidable challenges to new brands, since legacy brands are still learning how to dominate in the virtual fashion world. Utilization of virtual spaces and experiences, even virtual fashion shows is essential.
Staying ahead in this area requires constant research and monitoring of social media trends. It’s about being a presence within your industry niche constantly.
Frequently Asked Questions on Luxury Marketing
What is luxury marketing?
Luxury marketing is a set of business strategies aimed at selling high-end, luxury goods and services utilizing methods that target wealthy people and influencers.
What are the 4 E’s of luxury marketing?
The four E’s of luxury marketing include:
- Experience: Developing an experiential product, one that creates memorable moments
- Everyplace: being present in all markets digitally and in person
- Exchange: Avoid focusing just on price and more on an exchange that values the customer’s time and consideration
- Evangelism: Building individual relationships with evangelists who will spread the word
What is an example of luxury goods marketing?
Luxury goods marketing focuses on the branding and promotion of high-end products such as cars, jewelry, name-brand clothing, food, and wine.
What are the 6 P’s of luxury?
The six P’s of luxury include:
- People: Luxury buyers buy from people, and luxury products value people
- Product: The product tends to be quality, integrity-driven, scarce, or a heritage brand
- Passion: Luxury brand marketing is a passionate process that aims to reach very exclusive customers, making it often a challenge.
- Pleasure: Luxury consumption comes from the pleasure of experience, not from a need.
- Purpose: Luxury brands may seem superfluous, but in fact, they tend to be very purpose-oriented. Be practical and factual in the information presented about the brand.
- Price: Luxury matters to the affluent buyer, and while they are willing to spend, it directly comes from a desire to spend on worthy investments.
Building Success in a Luxury Market Brand
High-quality content, visually impactful marketing, and very specific branding leverage success for a luxury market brand. To achieve this, in-depth research, innovative approaches, and utilization of technology are critical.
Leverage WriterAccess for luxury brand content creation. Try WriterAccess for free with a 14-day trial to see how the talented team of specialists can help you launch into the exclusivity of this industry.
