Monthly Archives: December 2017

Luxury brands – Are their marketing strategies as deluxe as their products?

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Traditional, elite and exclusive are three adjectives which can be used to describe luxury. On the other hand, the Internet does not relate to any of those concepts, it is possibly the complete opposite. However, combining the two, (exclusivity and technology) has been the perfect formula for many luxury brands over the recent past years.  The Luxury industry has had to understand how fundamental ecommerce is in today’s digital universe, hence embracing change and thriving for new opportunities.

IMAGE [http://www.wearona.com/style/best-luxury-brands-digital-age/]

There is an obvious shift in consumers’ behaviour in every sector, including the luxury one. People prefer online shopping over physical stores. Already in 2014 a report by McKinsey estimated that digital was influencing at least 45% of all luxury sales. Moreover, according to Chris Bischop, 2016 luxury brand customers are “cash rich and time poor”, but their lifestyles make them constantly online and on mobile devices. Across the world 95% of luxury shoppers have a smartphone (McKinsey, 2014). They have the best devices and expect their online shopping experiences they have on them to be equally high spec.

Brands are aware of this change and therefore have had to implement new digital marketing strategies. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a key one and when replacing traditional offline media it has helped to stay competitive and boost sales.

“Google is one of the most influential channels when it comes to helping luxury shoppers find products, learn more about brands, and make their purchase”, Marcus Taylor 2017 (VentureHarbour).

 

Getting your website ranking high enough to be noticed in web searches and knowing about what potential customers are searching for (recent trends) as well as and matching keywords is critical for businesses. Furthermore, even if luxury is still one of the leading sectors for in store purchases (82%), consumers tend to look at the webpage before buying – 78% of shoppers research online before buying, (Simon Bell, 2016).

 

 

According to Diligent 2015, when researching online only 7% of shoppers start their search with the brand name. It is common to start with the generic product category keywords e.g. “stiletto high heels”. It is after this then narrow their search by adding manufacturer or retailer’s name based on whom they find in their first search. If your site doesn’t come up on the first page of search results for these generic terms it is very unlikely you would be found by majority of customers looking for your products. So, it is absolutely crucial to have a good exposure in search engines.

 

SEO has experimented changes as businesses don’t tend to give as much importance to links and keywords, but rather focus on strong content and web design. Other advanced changes include the mobile world SEO with big impact of mobile devices that know your location, knowing the exact address of the client.

“Previously, SEO was about building links and about putting pages up with keywords so you can rank. Now it is about content that is engaging, great site design, pages that load fast. The old-fashioned and dishonest methods are starting to die away. It is becoming much more difficult for people to get any sort of results doing that, which is good for the industry.” Ian Duncan, from digital marketing agency MediaCo.

Nevertheless, some luxury brands have poor websites and not the best SEO either, making it difficult to capture potential customers. For example, when I type in Hermes in Google. Although it comes first up it is only one time and I find many other companies also called Hermes which seem to have higher relevance – particularly the delivery group Hermes. This is due to poor keyword targeting and poor on-site structure from the French luxury brand Hermès:

 

The fact that people spend more time online also means they spend more time inside apps like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. For some luxury brands, SEO and social media work together in harmony with social media marketing (with influencers making it even more effective). They both play important roles and therefore are being combined to obtain the best possible outcome.

 

Unlike other brands, luxury brands do not use the Internet as a strategy to reach a wider distribution of the actual goods but rather as a strategy to make a wider distribution of the content that creates the desire to buy their luxury goods.

 

Anderson, Tim (2014), Choose your weapon: SEO or social media?, The Guardian [online] <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/06/seo-or-social-media> [accessed November 26th 2017]

Bishop, Chris (2016) How creative SEO can deliver big wins for luxury fashion retailers [online] <https://www.econsultancy.com/blog/67439-how-creative-seo-can-deliver-big-wins-for-luxury-fashion-retailers> [accessed November 26th 2017]

Taylor, Marcus (2017)
10 Highly Effective Luxury Brand Digital Marketing Strategies, Venture Harbour [online] <https://www.ventureharbour.com/luxury-brand-digital-marketing/> [accessed November 26th 2017]

Bell, Simon (2016) Do Luxury Ecommerce Brands Need SEO?, Linkedin

[online] <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-luxury-ecommerce-brands-need-seo-simon-bell/> [accessed November 27th 2017]

Diligent (2015) WHY LUXURY BRANDS NEED AN SEO STRATEGY!

[online] <http://diligentcommerce.com/news/digital-marketing/luxury-brands-need-seo/> [accessed November 25th 2017]

Schmidt J.,Dörner K. et al (2015) The opportunity in online luxury fashion, McKinsey [online] <https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-opportunity-in-online-luxury-fashion> [accessed November 24th 2017]