Lifestyle Marketing
There are many options available to market your company or brand. Please contact Phantasia Consulting to find out what would suit your needs. Below is a summary of the various marketing strategies we can implement for you.
What is luxury lifestyle marketing?
Luxury lifestyle marketing is the process of high-end brands forming a relationship with a targeted group on the basis of their shared values and interests. High-end brands use their products as a means of communicating and forging deep emotional connections with their consumers.
Each brand has an identity. For example, Jeep’s identity is the “adventurer”. Adidas’ identity is “athletic”. Each brand has an identity that’s connected to a specific set of attitudes, values, and interests. Consumers, then, want to engage with brands that have a similar identity to theirs. So, when a brand with a particular set of values appeals to a consumer with a similar set of values, that process of influence is an example of luxury brand marketing.
Lifestyle marketing criteria
If only branding were as simple as having a checklist to mark off when you meet certain criteria. Unfortunately, many brands that set out to be in the lifestyle category can miss the mark by not doing their due diligence and research. But you can avoid that but doing the following:
Define your market: The first step to effective lifestyle marketing is deeply understanding your market. And, yes, we mean having a basic idea of demographics and psychographics. But dig deeper. What habits, skills, and hobbies do your audience members have? Why would they be interested in your brand for the long term? Do you know what or who inspires them and what their goals are? Lifestyle brands “dissect every aspect of their audience until they know exactly what makes them tick.”
Know where your audience gets their information: It’s hardly worth marketing to your audience if you don’t know where to find them. Or even what they’re looking for. Where your audience gets their information might depend on age, financial status, relationship status, etc. Are they on social or watching TV more? Do they drive around and look at billboards? Are they using popular apps? From here, you can figure out which channels make the most sense for your brand.
Position your brand for success: Brand positioning is essential, especially in the digital age. Positioning takes into account your audience and their habits. It also means you’ve done your research about the brand itself (and your competitors) and how what you offer is unique and valuable. Plus, “brand positioning strategies are directly linked to consumer loyalty, consumer-based brand equity and the willingness to purchase the brand.” All of which can contribute to a successful lifestyle brand.
Why lifestyle marketing matters
The average person might not think about why a brand makes sense with specific audiences or what creates brand loyalty. But you, being savvy, know that creating a brand as immersive as a lifestyle brand takes time. Lifestyle marketing matters because these brands are deeply ingrained in an audience’s psyche. They are also starting to fill the void of failing institutional structures (think low church attendance and marriage rates down)––types of “shared systems of any kind that help us make sense of the world.” In other words, as these institutional structures fall, something needs to feel the void. In this case, it’s certain brands creating meaning in our lives––which is a huge responsibility for marketers.
Not to mention that lifestyle brands are “loyalty-inspiring” and consistently earn the respect of consumers. In doing so, they are also meeting their customer’s needs and helping them to not only fill a void but to self-actualize as well. And, from a marketing perspective, lifestyle marketing is very effective and “works on a much deeper level than traditional advertising.”
Digital & Mobile Marketing
Digital Marketing Overview
Digital marketing technically encompasses everything that involves sending marketing messages and launching campaigns through websites, social media, email, WiFi analytics or any other digital means. It also encompasses marketing tailored to different devices, including laptops, tablets and mobiles.
Digital marketing has many components. They include strategies, tools and tactics such as:
Pay per click advertising. Placing advertisements on search engine results that include keywords related to what the business offers.
Search engine optimization. Using content and coding on a webpage to help a site rank higher on search engine results.
Content. Creation and publishing of content that provides useful information to people searching for specific keywords.
Website. Using words, images and designs to create attractive websites that also have success converting website traffic into paying customers.
Social media. Popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide marketers a chance to interact with large numbers of potential customers, having conversations on issues that involve their products and services.
Email. Although one of the oldest digital marketing methods, email remains highly effective at reaching potential customers or keeping current customers loyal to your brand.
Data analytics. Data is the tool behind all these strategies, as digital marketers use information found through data analysis to guide more targeted, successful marketing campaigns.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing takes many of the above approaches, but tailors them specifically to those who use their mobile devices to conduct searches, visit social media platforms and check out websites.
This is becoming increasingly important as more consumers transition into using mobile devices to find and purchase products and services. AdWeek reports that about one third of all purchases in 2018 were on smartphones and other mobile devices. Also, Google surveys have found up to 46% of respondents report they prefer completing purchases via mobile, according to AdWeek,
The American Marketing Association provides an entire toolkit for using mobile marketing, including developing a strategy, analyzing data, tracking customer activity and properly assessing any risks.
One key step when it comes to both digital and mobile marketing for many businesses is to hire consultants who are digital marketing professionals and can help both develop and execute marketing strategy.
Some of those strategies include:
Making websites mobile-friendly (Google ranks such sites higher in search engine results)
Emphasize email, as 65% of all emails are first opened on mobile devices, according to Marketo
SMS and MMS text marketing, sending messages directly to a person’s mobile device
Developing mobile apps for your business
That’s just a taste of the digital and mobile marketing techniques companies can use to reach a wider customer base. In the new age of marketing, both are necessary to keep pace with the competition.
CRM & Database Marketing
CRM and database marketing work together, but they are two very different things. Database marketing falls under the customer relationship management umbrella, as CRM includes all sales, marketing and customer service initiatives in an organization. Database marketing is a data-driven approach toward improving customer experience, while CRM is process-driven. Here are some key components of each.
CRM
Customer relationship management is made up of practices, strategies and technologies that businesses use to manage customer relationships throughout the customer life cycle. A CRM system compiles customer data from multiple channels, including a company’s website, phone logs, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials and social media.
CRM systems can be of great benefit to businesses. The components of CRM software include:
Marketing automation — tools that automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as automatically sending emails to prospects;
Sales force automation — tools that collect, analyze and distribute data in a sale pipeline;
Contact center automation — tools such as chatbots that offer customer self-service that help cut down contact center agent tasks;
Workflow automation — tools that automate manual work, such as data entry;
Lead management — tools that track sales leads;
Human resources management — tools that help track employee information;
Analytics — tools that analyze customer data; and
Artificial intelligence — some tools, such as Salesforce Einstein, rely on AI to automate repetitive tasks and analyze customer behaviours.
Over time, however, customer relationship management has evolved into customer experience management (CXM). While CRM shows a company what a customer looks like, CXM shows businesses what they look like to a customer. It’s no longer enough to just define a customer — businesses want to know how customers perceive them to improve customer experience, win loyalty and retain customers.
Database marketing
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses a company’s customer databases — sometimes augmented with leads from a data broker — to generate targeted email lists for marketing campaigns, known as customer segmentation. Marketing databases generally include information such as customer names, addresses, phone numbers, emails and transaction histories. Businesses can get this information from customers through web forms, newsletter subscriptions, product warranty cards and abandoned shopping carts.
A customer data platform (CDP) can help unify customer data from multiple sources — CRM systems, ERP systems, e-commerce systems and legacy systems — and put them together into one golden record of the customer. CDPs can be a component for building an effective personalization strategy. Marketing departments can use the customer information in a CDP to paint a more accurate picture of the customer and provide them with the most customized marketing correspondence possible.
Some benefits of database marketing include:
the ability to identify and segment customer groups;
the ability to send relevant content and personalize the customer experience;
improved marketing efficiency; and
effective customer loyalty programs.