The significant lifestyle changes that resulted from COVID-19 have contributed to the development of new social values and trends in online behaviour and consumer preferences. While life slowly returns to normal, there will undoubtedly continue to be – lasting effects across social, economic, digital, and behavioural aspects of life. These changes mean that brands must rethink how they market to customers and find new ways to build loyalty.
Brands and their marketing teams can leverage these luxury marketing trends to revise and improve their luxury brand marketing strategies. Considering your consumers behaviours and actions post-pandemic will ensure that your marketing efforts are relevant and will produce a positive ROI. Read on below for the 4 post-covid luxury marketing trends brands can’t ignore.
Ecommerce is crucial to brand success
As a result of the pandemic, one of the largest luxury marketing trends we saw was the rise of Ecommerce. In fact, the luxury Ecommerce trend was so great that global Ecommerce sales rose to nearly $4.28 trillion, with almost $432 billion generated in the US. Between 2019 and 2021, retail platforms reported a surge of 22 billion visits in June, up from 16 billion visits just five months earlier, according to Statista.
Despite lockdowns ending, Charged Retail reported that online sales broke records by reaching £10 billion in July 2021 as 40% of people in the UK chose to shop from home rather than visit a physical store. Luxury brand Ecommerce continues to grow even after the introduction of mass vaccinations and the return to everyday life.
Whether you implement Ecommerce directly on your brand website, through social media or on a third-party site, optimising your luxury brand’s Ecommerce offering will generate more leads and sales in a new digital era.
Content marketing for luxury brands
Throughout the pandemic, individuals spent more time online than ever before. While brick-and-mortar establishments were closed for some time, customers took to the internet to find online resources that would replace their in-person experiences. With this, there is now ample opportunity to extend the value of your brand by refining your content marketing strategy.
Consider using this new content marketing for luxury brands opportunity to create or improve website content or even get creative with new marketing channels to promote what’s relevant to your consumers. It is also important to align your strategy with what they are searching for and engaging with, such as instructional “how-to” videos or virtual events. Staying abreast with luxury marketing trends can help promote brand awareness and contribute to a more unique brand experience.
Short-form video content – less than 10 minutes long – was growing in popularity before the pandemic hit. However, the pandemic has served as a catalyst for massive growth of the vertical, as 84% of consumers cited spending more time watching short-form videos during the pandemic than before, with many using these quick videos to help them adjust to and cope with disruptions to everyday life.
Since lockdown restrictions were set in place, more than two-thirds of consumers in the U.S. (69%) spent between 30 minutes to three hours watching short online video content. Gen Z’s are also the largest consumers of short video content, spending two hours or more on video platforms, including Tiktok, Instagram Reels and Youtube.
In fact, according to a survey by The Soul Publishing, one of the largest independent digital studios, music videos (38%), comedy (36%), cooking or baking (33%), and DIY or crafting videos (29%) were the most frequently selected categories of short-form videos consumers are watching more of post pandemic.
There has never been a better time than now for luxury brands to prioritise content marketing in order to resonate and connect with today’s consumer.
Make customer connection a priority
During a global pandemic, the need for brands to demonstrate empathy, trust and safety to customers has never been more imperative and is one of the latest luxury marketing trends brands are making the most of. In an article by Forbes, brands that provide an emotional connection with customers outperform the sales of their competitors by 85%.
One way to implement the luxury marketing trend and make the most of a customer-centric strategy is to provide real-time assistance through live chat software, deploy 24×7 chatbots and create a comprehensive knowledge base to allow your customers to help themselves without requiring personal assistance. In fact, 63% of consumers reported that they are more likely to return to a website that offers real-time support, according to Statista.
While acquiring new customers is crucial to the growth and success of your business, brands should not forget that there is potential for revenue in their existing customers. Intelligent follow-ups at the right times can have a very powerful impact on your prospective clients. Make sure to send a thank-you in an email after the sale, check in with your clients after the sale and find out how everything is going, and offer additional advice on how the customer’s problems can be resolved.
Another way to keep your existing customers is to blend your luxury brand marketing strategies with innovative customer loyalty programs. It will help increase customer engagement, boost satisfaction and drive conversions.
The metaverse
The metaverse is a new and powerful way luxury brand marketers can connect with their customers. Usage of the luxury brand metaverse – a shared virtual space where avatars represent users – has more than doubled since 2017, with most of its growth occurring throughout the pandemic. In fact, the global crisis accelerated some of the cultural trends and behaviors that needed to be in place for a luxury brand metaverse to be created.
Since quarantine and social distancing forced everyones lives online, the limitations of our current platforms started to become apparent. With this, today’s consumers are now seeing the value in a luxury brand metaverse far beyond anything we would have imagined.
With global revenue potential predicted to reach $800m by 2024, various industries have begun to explore opportunities for growth into the metaverse for entertainment, shopping, socialising, and more.
Millennials and Gen Z are avid users of metaverses, such as games like Fornite and technologies like VR. With that in mind, aim to create digital experiences that parallel real-world experiences or what your brand already does in real life. In fact, 3.2 billion hours were spent on Fornite in April 2020, making it essential for brands to be paying attention to games as such as they are capturing an ever-increasing amount of attention.
As the pandemic has normalised paying for digital goods for a new wave of consumers, try offering virtual advertising by placing ads on virtual billboards within video games or offer branded installations and virtual events that users can interact with. It is also a place to offer limited-edition assets or virtual products that consumers can only obtain in the luxury brand metaverse.
This will be important for our future metaverse as they will require a sustainable business model, not just for brands, but to encourage user-created content on their platforms.Consumers have formed new expectations over the past year, requiring brands to find new ways to resume business to stay relevant and successful. Contact Relevance’s specialists for advice on any of the luxury marketing trends discussed and how to develop your digital marketing strategy post-COVID-19.