Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.
In today’s episode we’re talking about the steps and points to building a luxury brand. We’ll be covering the key points – from design to emotion anchors and dreams that the clientele can be enthusiastic about to quality and client experience. If you’re in the midst of building your own luxury brand or refining and redefining your brand positioning, this episode is for you.
Price
This is the easiest way to steer clientele away from your brand even if your branding matches what we’ll list out next in the design point of designing a luxury brand.
If you have a stunning design, the messaging hits just right, the pillars of a luxury brand are achieved, but your price is at a budget-point or even a premium-brand rate… you’re immediately disqualified by your ideal client because they are used to getting what they pay for.
If they’re used to getting what they pay for then pricing must match the desire they have to receive a certain level of experience and service with what they pay for. If your branding says high-end, but your pricing shows that you’d let budget-buyers in… then you’ve disqualified yourself by pricing, exclusivity, experience, and quality immediately.
Pricing is something clients come to us with all of the time and I regularly see female founders underpricing themselves, overperforming, and overgiving in their services and with their products because they’re used to being underpaid. Don’t let this old wound keep you from new places.
Design
To design a luxury brand is both simple and difficult. The breakdown of a luxury brand and how it’s usually described: simple, a bit mysterious, signature, stylistic, heritage, homage, iconic, creative expression, craftsmanship, tradition, history, legacy, elegant, quality, exclusive, out of reach from budget-buyers (as aforementioned by the price), aesthetic, having a sense of place and remembering that sense of place through repetition.
The design communicates that the consumer will receive an exclusive, high quality service with the utmost customer service that is exceptional and in line with a concierge-level experience.
Emotional Anchors & Meaning
The thing that sets luxury brands apart from everything else in the marketplace isn’t neutral branding, sleek communication, and simplistic design and approach to each portion of the business model…
It’s enthusiasm.
The enthusiasm that can be quickly started around something creates the unseen, but very felt dream and vision of the luxury brand. Enthusiasm can only truly be derived from identity and a dream to become that identity.
So, from Burberry to Versace to Tiffany to Prada to Rolex and Chanel, the identity is directly linked to enthusiasm about the identity and the identity is selling a dream that the enthusiasts (or consumers) can link to and be interested in becoming, all while the brands are creating absolute customer retention because the dream is never achieved by one purchase. The act of enthusiasm then becomes centered on trends, seasons, and the re-achievement that can only be achieved through purchasing again and again to stay up to date.
You can do this in your service and product suite with a little finesse. Think about what your clientele can be enthusiastic about within your brand. Design your suite around it. And if you need support, you know where to find us.
Quality
This point just speaks for itself. Folks are quick to get a minimum viable product up, or an MVP without consideration of the quality of the space or product, the sophistication in the marketplace and in correlation to the competition while leveraging a unique selling point or USP, and it shows.
Before creating a product or service to bring to the marketplace, we ask that brands build it based on their craft, refine the original idea through questions against the needs of the consumer and what’s in the marketplace already to sophisticate the product or service, identify the target market (especially based on psychographics), research the market, create a prototype or MVP, and brand the hell out of it to create enthusiasm around the idea (which is a necessary token and obvious mark of a luxury brand and product/service).
You’re actively considering quality when you’re following this step-by-step process because your eyes are focused on the consumer, what’s in the marketplace, and the journey to commercialization of your product or service.
Uniqueness
Your competitive advantage starts with the combination of factors that most folks will overlook in the midst of building the brand: design, innovation above the competition, price, service, branding, reputation, product quality, functionality, and client experience. These are the key factors and within the brand you’ll focus on brand personality and bringing a different flavor to the marketplace, but what I want you to really really really focus on is that your brand personality is the only thing that will influence you to stand out in the marketplace because there should be similarities within your products and services to your competition in order to sophisticate the market.
I encourage you to hone in on the emotional meaning and heritage behind your brand and what you’re talking about now. Within that I want you to showcase your experience to the uttermost and not be afraid of self-promotion. If you’re able to show every little thing, it will be transparent to your community that your client experience is unlike any other.
Focus on the identity, creativity and expression YOU’RE bringing to the table.
If you’re seeking ways to stand out with brand personality, listen to episodes 2 and 3 for detailed questions to use while you’re refining and redefining your positioning.
Client experience
We focus on traditional customer service at The Cheetah Company even while we leverage technology and the innovations of today to support the traditionality that we use in our day-to-day customer service. Most folks feel like they’re another number in business and especially to corporations – if your goal is to have a corporation one day, the highrise and all, then traditional customer service will truly influence your brand to stand out in the marketplace because most folks aren’t taking the time to communicate with their customers.
Aside from customer service – which is a huge part of your pre-client experience – the focus on customer service can be simple but profound. Communication, detailed information in several modalities for easy learning (Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinaesthetic), allowance for questions without fear, touchpoints throughout the customer journey pre, during, and after the experience with your brand, and consistent communication with an eye on intentionality.
The way we do this is by leveraging systems to support clients in their journeys: communication via video and written word for our communities, onboarding and offboarding processes that include surveys and questionnaires to collect data to make our services better in the future and to fix anything in the midst that may be performing but not performing at the highest level that we could be, remembering birthdays, anniversaries, and sending gifts accordingly, designing delightful points of connection (pop-up gifts and celebrations for milestones achieved, for special occasions outside of birthdays and anniversaries, progress reports as folks are working with us in consulting), and there’s probably more that we do, but our clientele constantly comment on how much we remember about them and it’s because we take detailed notes and create systems to circle back and remember those important moments.
Resources:
Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.
Bio:
Ashleigh Henry has been in marketing, sales, and leadership positions for the last decade and it was exhilarating for Ashleigh to climb the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up ladder holding positions such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor…until it wasn’t. Alongside her degree, Ashleigh decided to bring all of her experience into the freelancing world until it became clear that she didn’t just want to pay the bills – she wanted to create a company that was foundationally built on cheetah print, legacy-minded marketing, and sexy sales structures that could stand the test of trend and time. The Cheetah Company, founded by Ashleigh, does this for female entrepreneurs through their education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more about Ashleigh here.