For luxury brands, the target customer is a minutely-drilled down avatar. It’s not just a “Millennial female in the Midwest,” but instead a “26 year-old female from St. Louis with an income of $100K or higher who’s interested in fashion, travel and shoes.”
It’s specific. It’s detailed. It’s exclusive.
At first glance, many marketers think appealing to more people is the best way – it means more potential, business (and more potential sales), right?
Logically, that seems correct, but in the luxury world, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
To build a luxury brand, you don’t want to reach the masses. You want to reach a small, highly qualified subset of people.
In fact, you may even want to take it one step further and, instead of just simply pulling in those who are qualified to be your brand’s customer, work on repelling those who aren’t.
Where Your ‘Tribe’ Comes In
There are a few ways you can think of “tribes.” There’s the age-old type – communities of indigenous people that span generations – or the new-age type – like crunchy yoga PTA moms or just the “tribe” of friends you regularly hit up $5 sushi night with.
Either way, these “tribes” are exclusive. They have a “you’re in or you’re out” mentality, and their doors aren’t open to just anyone. You have to meet certain qualifications, be they gender, income level, geographic location, or even something as superficial as hair color or weight.
In our increasingly politically correct world, making yourself this hard-lined exclusive can be scary. After all, won’t alienating people hurt your brand?
For your average brand – one that wants to appeal to everyone and get business equally across demos, yes, it very well may. But for a luxury brand? It can only help.
You see, building an exclusive tribe, a group that only a certain, limited amount of people can join, is a way to build standing for your brand. It makes you special. It makes you in-demand. It makes you a marker of status.
And, best of all, it makes customers come to you – not the other way around.
Do You Have a Tribe Yet?
You can be as subtle or as in-your-face as you like about your luxury brand’s exclusivity, but the goal is to build an “us” mentality with your tribe – a feeling of solidarity and similarity amongst those who belong to it.
Do it right, and you’ll have lifelong customers who are loyal to your brand and vocal about it in their circles. And that’s something any brand would want, luxury or not.
Do you need help building your brand’s tribe? Contact Haley Aerospace today. Our luxury branding experts can help.
