Traditional advertising is a great way to raise brand awareness, but it’s still tricky to make your brand relatable to its audience. If you’re struggling with brand loyalty, consider switching to a lifestyle marketing approach. Lifestyle marketing establishes your brand as a long-standing, representative part of your audience’s life. Nike is a popular example, due to how they promote stylish sportswear while encouraging an active lifestyle. However, lifestyle marketing still isn’t a foolproof solution for an ineffective marketing strategy.
Properly implementing a lifestyle strategy requires a good understanding of your company’s strengths, what your competition offers, and your future business goals. From there, you can focus on your target audience and develop your brand to best suit their interests. Along the way, frequently refer to analytics to gauge the impact of your marketing tactics.
Lifestyle marketing can be especially effective with ad retargeting. It’s something new and exciting that your company offers, which will attract past customers who may have lost interest. You can also use many cost-effective solutions to promote your business’s new direction, such as community events and social media campaigns.
What Does a Lifestyle Strategy Look Like?
Lifestyle brands often present an appealing way of living that naturally attracts customers. For instance, luxury brands like Gucci started by producing fancy clothes, then progressed to creating beauty products and furniture. Customers can use Gucci products in multiple areas of their life, promoting a truly opulent lifestyle.
Even if you don’t want to develop your brand into a lifestyle brand altogether, you can incorporate elements into your strategy. By using demonstration videos that showcase your culture, as well as how to use your products, you can make more relatable materials. Other options are sponsoring segments on lifestyle TV stations to similarly demonstrate your products while showing how they fit into your customer’s lives.
Some lifestyle strategies skew towards a more significant cause rather than personal self-development. On its surface, Whole Foods is just a grocery store that carries many organic and ethically sourced products. However, the company is also dedicated to eco-friendly business practices, like reducing plastic in the packaging of its products. Some stores even employ the use of solar power and green building architecture.
How Effective is Lifestyle Marketing?
A lifestyle marketing approach has more staying power because it genuinely resonates with customers rather than simply selling a product. A meaningful message is better for your business, since 77% of customers want to support brands that share their values, and 64% appreciate brands that speak out on social issues.
Aligning your brand with a specific lifestyle can improve the consistency of your messaging, which customers also appreciate. Companies that use cohesive branding reported a 33% revenue increase in 2019. It also makes your brand appear more authentic, which 86% of consumers consider essential.
How Will It Benefit Me?
Lifestyle marketing yields a high ROI due to its indirect advertising. Lifestyle marketing also has a host of other benefits, including:
Increased Awareness Amongst Your Audience
It can be difficult to appeal to your target customers if you’re not sure what they want. You have to know where they spend their time and money, then create meaningful content accordingly. However, a customer’s interests can shift over time and lead them to seek out competing brands.
Lifestyle marketing has a consistent appeal towards customers because it promotes a positive, meaningful message. Customers are less likely to drift away from a brand that consistently caters to their lifestyle. It also attracts newcomers who want to enrich their lives, ensuring healthy business growth and continued brand awareness.
Personally Connect With Your Customers
At its core, lifestyle marketing centers around your customers’ lives and ambitions. Because of this, many people form emotional connections with companies that use this marketing tactic. Connecting with your audience personally also increases brand trust, and 81% of customers feel brand trust is necessary.
Lifestyle marketing encourages customers to form a brand community, which naturally attracts curious newcomers to your company. Customers are also more inclined to interact with your brand on social media if it presents itself as more personable. More interactions online translate to positive impressions and an increased likelihood of sales.
Demonstrating How You’re the Solution (Without Being Pushy)
Any given brand has dozens of competitors, all using similar messaging and marketing tactics. Bombarding your customers with aggressive messaging can cause them to become overwhelmed and indecisive. Even worse, it can make consumers so annoyed that they avoid your brand entirely.
In contrast, lifestyle marketing showcases all your brand’s strengths using an indirect approach. As long as you have a relevant brand mission, you won’t have to work nearly as hard to attract your target audience. It saves you a lot of time and advertising costs, in addition to improving the customer experience.
Integrating Lifestyle Marketing with a Media Partner
Lifestyle marketing is a relaxed, practical advertising approach that garners customer loyalty and almost certainly guarantees success. If you’re unsure how to integrate lifestyle marketing into your existing strategy, you might need help from a media partner. Media partners can help you showcase your brand with sponsored lifestyle segments on local television or radio programs.
