Why Luxury Brands Market Differently (and how to borrow these tactics for your personal brand).
Ever notice the HYPE-Y-NESS (not a word!) of current marketing?
Luxury brands don’t follow the rules of mainstream marketing.
Here are a few headlines from my inbox today:
“Flash sale, up to 50% off!”
”Free training, learn the art of predictable clients!”
“2 days only, this is INSANE.”
“This won’t be 297 again!”
“My messiest moves!”
You’ll probably open those emails because their subject lines are designed to reach the primal brain. Our subconscious loves the mystery; we are thinking, “OHH, I wonder what is so insane?” Or, “Ohh, messy, I wonder what was messy…oh free! Whee!”
And those subject lines are perfectly fine.
Use them whenever you like!
However, be careful if you have very high ticket offers aimed at savvy clients.
The "Hype" Trap and Why Luxury Brands Avoid It
There are distinctive differences between “hype,” marketing designed to sell regular offers, and luxury marketing designed to sell cars worth $300,000. Or planes worth 50 million dollars. Or watches worth $150,000.
Clientele buying in those arenas expect something different.
Luxury doesn’t follow the rules of mainstream marketing.
If you have a luxury product or brand, using traditional hype marketing can harm your business and create cognitive dissonance in clients' minds.
I get DIOR emails each week, and their emails say, “You’re invited,” “Exclusive Access,” and “In Demand.” Yet another, “Limited availability.” I open every DIOR email. They don’t have to get me to click using BuzzFeed headlines like ‘OMG, this is the best thing since INSYNC!’*
*More of a BackStreet Boys fan here.
Regardless of my questionable 90s music habits:
In luxury, there is no hype.
Instead, luxury marketing invites, teases, cajoles and captivates. The reason we don’t hype is because we don’t need to! Plus, when you mix hype with luxury, your audience’s subconscious brain is royally confused. The audience intuits you are untruthful or inauthentic.
Luxury Brands Don’t Sell—They Create Desire
There is an art and science to Luxury marketing. Because you aren’t selling LUXURY items or offers, you are selling a dream.
Most luxury brands use eight distinct “unmarketing” techniques to promote their products and services.
1. Luxury is truth. You must be authentic to build a luxury brand.
Be entirely and authentically truthful, especially if your coaching prices are $20,000 or more. Truth is LUXE. Authenticity is prized, and fake is reviled.
We don’t want the fake YSL bag. We want real.
If you don’t have mastery in your area, please don’t charge $20,000 or more. Your offer must match the price point. If clients feel you are being inauthentic, your offer won’t sell.
2. In luxury, we don’t use “POSITIONING;” with competition because luxury is not comparable.
In mainstream consumer marketing, you see the unique selling proposition and the competitive advantage; in other words, why choose this brand and not another?
Almost every course or program out there (you’ve probably taken one!) uses a positioning and USP formula regarding program creation, messaging, and business.
In luxury, you have an air of uniqueness, with NO comparison to any competitor. Luxury brands have IDENTITY, not position. The identity factor is hard to understand because it is foreign to us. We usually look at the market to determine our price, formula, offers, marketing, emails, etc. The market doesn’t define luxury; Luxury defines itself with its own taste, creative identity, and history.
Luxury has gravitas.
Your identity stands independent of the market. If you want to hire Oprah to speak at your event, will you take Gayle King instead? I like Gayle, but Gayle isn’t Oprah, no matter how much they hang out.
When you decide to rely on identity instead of market position, your clients won’t interview other coaches. You are no longer comparative; you become superlative.
For instance, Dior doesn’t compete with Hermes; Lady Dior's bags aren't trying to look like a Birkin. The “Return to Tiffany’s” bracelet would never dream of trying to become a Cartier Love bracelet. Rolls Royce doesn’t try to become a Maclaren.
Although I teach “positioning,” I would never recommend you go and review your market —ever! I prefer you think of yourself as the only or Superlative!
3. Fewer words. Luxury doesn’t need many words to express itself.
When you research the most exclusive and expensive brands, their marketing is sparse on words and rich in visuals. With no unnecessary fluff in marketing materials and no verbose or long-winded explanations. Instead, they use confidence, audacity, sophistication, regalness, precision, and directness.
For instance Rolex commercials during any tennis grand slam tournament are filled with action visuals of recognizable tennis champions playing at the top of their game. The video features a few well chosen phrases and words designed to create emotions behind the brand and associate Rolex with playing at the top of your game. We want to be Coco Gauff, Chris Everett, Alcaraz and Federer, and the idea behind this commercial is you ARE JUST LIKE THESE CHAMPIONS if you own a Rolex. No where does the narrator say how Rolex helps to know what time it is.
And ALL the emotions that go with being sophisticated, regal, precise, successful, direct, like satisfaction, delight, courageousness, and feeling powerful!
Luxe brands don’t clutter up their campaigns by adding more, doing more, or saying more. They harness the art of saying less.
What does this mean for you?
Forget everything you see on your social media timelines. Almost no one does luxury marketing correctly in the consulting and coaching space. Most messaging is surface at best and immature at worst. Refer back to point two and start doing things differently; don’t look around at what everyone else is doing.
4. With Luxury, the client searches for the right person/provider, not the product or service.
No matter how much they market to me, I will not buy a Louis Vuitton bag. I am loyal to Dior. If I want a watch, I will buy Omega. I am not going to price-shop Citizen watches! Remember, the luxury-level client wants the right person or brand. Not the right program. Your brand must possess trustworthiness, authority, personal celebrity, specificity, affinity, and exclusivity.
Bonus point: if you want to attract higher-level people into your world, most luxury-level buyers aren’t online all day—they are busy!
Luxury brands use a combination of holistic marketing online to offline and offline to online. Even though I get Dior emails, I also go into the Dior store in Lenox Square in Atlanta, Rodeo Drive in LA or Vegas at Wynn shops.
Most mainstream online businesses have no clue about offline marketing. Many of my clients use a strategy of outreach appealing to their perfect-fit clients’ values. When you move from online to off or offline to on with marketing or selling, you create opportunities to “get your foot in the door.” (So to speak.) They work the room at conferences but also put themselves at the table by leveraging online events.
If you want to learn more about how we would do this together, head over to this link to watch how we can move you from scrambling and competing for clients to being the only option!
5. Luxury brands use Mission to fuel marketing using Legacy, not benefits.
Most luxury brands start with a heritage, a legacy. This backstory has a mission BEYOND just making money.
Your mission needs to be irresistible and authentic. The mission should drive the products, the branding, and even the clients you take on! Tory Burch is considered a mid-market luxury but has an entire foundation dedicated to promoting women in business.
M.A.C. Cosmetics positions itself around equity, inclusion, and AIDS research. Warby Parker is committed to giving a pair of glasses for each pair they sell.
Ask yourself, what dreams do you have for the world? Are your customers buying into that dream or just consuming? An excellent luxury brand makes their clients feel like they’re part of that dream!
6. A Luxury brand creates an intense longing because their product is scarce or inaccessible.
The Birkin bag is a perfect example of something scarce. Birkin owners usually have to wait a year or more to acquire a bag, and often the color of choice isn’t available! When something is a limited edition, more people want it than can get it. You want to create a sense of exclusivity. Fans and buyers feel privileged, and this keeps them longing for more. The more accessible something is, the less expensive and elusive it becomes. Meaning, it is more mainstream and less luxe.
Luxury has limited capacity.
Be what your clients aspire too.
The idea of unlimited seats, hundreds of participants, or thousands of people in a room gives me low-end vibes. Limit your programs, shut down capacity, and make sure your clients understand they are privileged to buy!
7. Luxury is all about Seducing, not selling.
Luxury doesn’t push products and services: we want to create desire for the dream.
Be what your clients aspire to. Be careful not to try too hard to be famous or jump on trends. I see this happening now in the online space; being super controversial gets loads of engagement but doesn’t necessarily position you or your products as a high-end, sought after brand.
You want to stir up emotions, but be careful about evoking negative emotions.
Many coaches get confused because they have great engagement and even good sales, yet they are also getting chargebacks, cancellations, and non-payment from clients. Most of the time, this comes back to how they marketed their programs. They spoke to the least-resourced clients in disempowering, negative ways and SOLD to them. Remember, your best clients value success, power, autonomy, vision, adventure, and achievement. They won't be attracted to controversy. They are beyond it.
8. Luxury has the most Unique Essence.
Your brand needs incredibly original and indelible markers, (a framework, your own essence, your style, your personality) to prevent "copycats" and promote your intrigue and distinction. You want to be unmistakable.
So many coaching websites feature the coach with the exact same pose, outfit, same hair, and message as everyone else in the industry. Someone who wanted to pull a prank could easily interchange the photos with other coaches! Just swap the heads out, and y’all look the same!
Hotels are notorious for looking generic on their websites. Hyatt and Hilton have the same janky site where you can barely see the rooms, and the galleries are tiny, too. You can’t tell what site you are on because they look the same! They even have some of the same copywriting!
(Hilton, do you want some help with this? You need help!)
Boutique hotels go the extra mile with interactive maps, beautiful full-page photos, and all the tiny details to make their essence come alive. Hyatt and Hilton? Not so much.
Develop your methods to be just as iconic and unique. If the trend is rolling one way, consider going the opposite way. Create phrases and new words that resonate with your brand and make your world recognizable.
Need help with this? You aren’t alone. Most clients who book sales calls with me want to move to the next level in their business and are tired of fighting the algorithm. They want to get clients easier by standing out as the only option. If that is you, it is time to reach out to see if you are a good fit for my programs. Using a mix of private coaching and structured plans for your marketing, we can move you to the level you want to go.
Key Takeaways: How to Build a Luxury Brand.
Be authentic.
Be superlative and stop looking around at your competition.
Use fewer words; you don’t need more; you need less.
Be the right person or brand instead of trying to get your offers perfect. Mix things up, bring clients online who are offline and offline who are online.
Use your mission and legacy to create your marketing
Create longing through scarcity
Seduce and invite, don’t ‘sell.’
Create a unique essence about yourself and your company.
