Did you know that luxury customers look for specific brand characteristics when shopping?
If you’ve been trying to attract more luxury customers or clientele who are willing to invest more in your products. There are some core things you need in place to get their attention, keep it, and inspire them to buy.
In this post, I’ll share why your branding is repelling luxury customers and how you can fix it.
Have You Ever Felt Like…
You are doing all you can to attract more aligned customers, but it seems like a struggle.
No matter how often you try adjusting your branding, website, or marketing, those high-end customers aren’t converting into sales.
The culprit is most likely your branding.
When I say your branding, I mean more than just what your brand looks like but how it makes others feel when they first come across your business.
Here is what you need to know about luxury customers. They generally fall into three core groups based on their goals and desires.
What Luxury Customers Desire Before They Buy
There are different types of luxury customers, and each group has a different motivation when buying high-end products.
The Uniqueness Buyer
Customers who value having something others rarely can get love investing in products that give them uniqueness. It makes them feel exclusive or rare. As a business, you can create uniqueness beyond your products through your customer experience.
The Legacy Buyer
Customers who prioritize quality typically fall into the group of legacy buyers. They make a purchasing decision based on the quality or even longevity of your products, depending on what you sell.
Well-established jewelry brands fit into this category as jewelry can easily be passed down to the next generation within a family.
The Aspirational Buyer
Customers within this group have the most variable income. Their buying motivations are centered around how the product or products make them feel. They often envision their future selves with the product before buying.
It’s not uncommon to have customers fall into each of these groups. It’s more important to deliver the right message at the right time.
Now that we have a little background into what motivates luxury customers to buy. Let’s go over why your branding plays a significant role in how they perceive your business.
Your Brand Message Doesn’t Capture Luxury Customer’s Attention
One of the best ways to get the attention of luxury customers is to have a solid brand message.
A brand message is your unique connection point between your offer and your customer’s desires.
The right message will attract aligned customers to your business because they will feel you are speaking directly to them.
Here are some examples of brand messages
- “The ultimate driving machine.” – BMW.
- “Think different.” – Apple.
- “Just do it.” – Nike.
Those are some well-known examples, but I believe brands connect more deeply and meaningfully when they take the time to humanize their brand through messaging.
A brand that does this well is Dove. They focus on appreciating inner beauty as well as outer beauty.
Dove showcases this well in the following ad, where a forensic artist sketches photos of people as they describe themselves. He doesn’t see their faces but can ask them questions about their features.
He takes the time to sketch what they share with him.
Then he asks people who have met them to describe their features, and he sketches their descriptions.
Later, each person is brought into a room to compare how they view themselves and others. You can tell from their reactions that they weren’t expecting what they saw.
Watch the video below to see the full story unfold.
Imagine having a brand message that connects to your customer’s innermost desires. Luxury customers want to feel part of the brand and the experience.
If your brand message isn’t solid and considers luxury customers’ desires, you will repel them from your business.
Next, let’s go over how your brand identity plays a part in repelling luxury customers.
Your Brand Identity or Online Presence Isn’t Captivating
The first impression of your brand matters. Luxury customers look for signs of quality and authenticity in the visuals of your branding.
They can tell if your brand identity could be of better quality.
For example, if you DIY your branding and it’s not your area of expertise.
While the quality of your products may be excellent, your DIY brand design and packaging will turn off luxury customers.
You may have been guilty of this as well as a consumer, where you judge the quality of a brand by its design and packaging. I’ve refused to buy a product because the packaging was a turnoff.
Psychologically if the claimed quality of the brand and its package design is off, it creates a level of doubt. You want to reduce and eradicate as much doubt as possible.
Luxury customers look for quality branding in every aspect of their experience.
So if you have branding not designed to attract and captive high-end customers, you are missing out on having them as a customer.
Read this article on When is The Right Time to Rebrand Your Luxury Brand for further insights.
You Aren’t Personalizing Your Customer Experience
A quality experience is the chef’s kiss to any business.
Now more than ever, customers want a more personalized experience when they are shopping. They want product recommendations that speak to their needs and desires.
Look at your current customer experience. Are you offering personalization?
If not, why aren’t you offering your customers this option?
You may think personalization is complex, but with the right strategy, you can implement this into your business and elevate your brand.
What Can You Do to Stop Repelling Luxury Customers?
There are a few things that you could do. The first step is to look at your luxury brand strategy and ensure that you incorporate luxury consumers into your brand vision, mission, and messaging.
Your luxury brand strategy is your unique plan for attracting and retaining customers.
Next is to look at your luxury branding, which can include things such as your brand design and package design. Does it captivate a luxury customer’s attention? If it doesn’t, you need to look at re-branding so that your brand reflects the type of customers you would like to attract to your business.
After that, I would look at your website experience. You want to ensure that luxury consumers have a fantastic place to shop online and can easily discover your products without friction to make a seamless purchase.
If your online store isn’t reflective of the quality of the products that you sell, this is going to reduce the likelihood of you retaining a luxury consumer and also reduce the trust factor of your brand.
Finally, how are you managing relationships? A solid relationship with your customers and those who plan to be your customers is essential. One way you can honor your relationships is through email marketing.
Do you have an effective email marketing strategy that creates a more personalized experience?
When someone opens their email, you don’t want them to feel like another reader or subscriber. Instead, use email marketing to create a personal relationship that includes value.
Overall, luxury consumers expect a higher quality experience from the beginning to the end.
If this is something that you are struggling with or you would like to have a more elevated experience, please reach out and connect with me. I’ll be happy to discuss how we can work together via strategic luxury branding and website design to help you elevate your brand.
