Tap into their Lifestyle.
Now that advertisers are realizing that most everyone actually is online at some point in their daily routines it’s time to figure out how to make your web presence more enticing and inviting to the consumer. It’s time to figure out how to use your website to heighten awareness of your brand and better service your customers.
Now that the web offers the consumer everything they could ever dream of and the ability to comparison shop with a click of the mouse, it’s time to figure out what your distinction is and how to make your consumer more dedicated to your brand. How can you make your website bookmarked in your customer’s mail box as “favorites”. The answer to this is all about the experience the customer has when he visits your brand online.
Traditional advertisers, especially regional retailers, really don’t have the advantage of location anymore-especially for big ticket items. If a competitor is price competitive and really stands out in the consumer’s mind they will drive the distance to get the desired items. So the issue becomes how to create that sense of desire around your brand.
The retailer’s website has the ability to communicate with the customer much more personally than traditional marketing. You can address issues that relate to the customer’s habits and interests when communicating with them online. By tapping into your customer’s lifestyle through online promotions and events you become more engaging to the consumer, more in tune with the issues that are important to them and the sense of trust becomes much more bonded in the consumer’s mind.
To offer aspirational, non competitive products and information makes the consumer more knowledgeable in their areas of interest. You can use your online environment to better service your customer’s needs by partnering with elements, individuals and non competitive brands that enhance the perception of you as a merchant in your customer’s eyes. This gives the consumer the feeling that you enhance their lifestyle as the imprimatur of style, or taste, or cool.
This idea of lifestyle marketing is what distinguishes one brand from another. It’s all about creative thinking on how you can enrich the lives of your customers, not just sell a product. As a merchant you have to try harder and dig deeper into the customer’s lifestyle to serve them better because the technology is available for your competitors to do so. And sooner or later they will.
In my mind this puts the fun back into retailing. In expanding how you service your customers through appealing to their lifestyles, you become more engaged in them personally. And this takes new creative ways of doing business. The more tuned in you are, the more turned on your customers will be. At The Yaffe group we believe this is important. That’s why we’re creating programs/plans to show clients how to use the online environment to get “closer” to their customers. It’s something I am passionate about and that makes now a very fun time to be a marketer. What do you think?
Joan Abraham, online & lifestyle marketing
