A $106bn luxury fashion market
In 2021, the global Luxury Fashion sector; including apparel and footwear, saw revenues of $106bn with further growth expected in the next 5 years. For brands in this sector, grabbing a percentage of this revenue will be key to allowing continued product innovation as well as evolving to a more sustainable future.
Brands must act decisively for the anticipated shift in consumer behavior. Moreover, they must plan and prepare for the digital world we are now living. However, with many different channels available. Which channels are right for luxury fashion?
Simply put, we believe that a full-funnel marketing strategy can help provide a more personalized service, create more memorable experiences and reach new customer segments.
Therefore, today we discuss how luxury fashion brands can benefit from a strong full-funnel marketing strategy.
What is full-funnel marketing?
The emergence of digital technologies has led to significant changes in luxury fashion retail. The rise of social media and mobile apps has provided opportunities for brands to market specifically to how audiences consume information.
A strong full-funnel strategy focuses on tailoring your marketing to particular stages of the customer journey. Although a focus on sales is always the ultimate priority, it also involves driving awareness and consideration. Ultimately, attempting to nurture customer relationships with your brand and build better buying experiences.
Get your awareness right.
According to a report by McKinsey digital now influences at least 45% of all luxury sales. Furthermore, luxury fashion brands evoke the aspirational emotions that we connect with wearing designer clothes. Allowing them to differentiate from other mainstream brands.
Building awareness at the top of the funnel allows a brand to diligently select the lucrative segment they can target. Choosing the right authoritative publications and speaking to the audiences with tailored messaging can help get the cut-through needed.
Furthermore, allowing organic strategy to play a role in content that feeds inspiration and ideas can be really important. By targeting your strategy at more discovery-based search queries you can position your brand to pick up this traffic.
Finally, presenting the right content in the right locations, can help eliminate audiences that otherwise may bloat your spending further down the funnel.
Using social to power the symbolic value.
In recent times, luxury fashion brands have begun harnessing the power of social media. Powerhouses Gucci and Chanel lead the way with 48m and 50m followers each. As such, the symbolic value of a large following reflects the extent to which to brand is validated by its customers.
Furthermore, by taking advantage of visual social networks like Instagram and Pinterest, brands can tell the unique stories behind the products and can nurture the right audiences through the funnel.
In addition, with luxury fashion brands going after very targeted audiences, paid social also has a role to play. Due to the variety of engaging platforms used to inspire, social targeting is a key tool in a luxury brand’s arsenal.
Finally, embracing the power of influencers can be hugely beneficial in keeping your audiences engaged. Creating meaningful experiences, trust and emotion can have a huge impact on the consideration phase of the marketing funnel. As consumers prepare to pay a higher price point social proof can be everything.
Don’t underestimate the power of SEO and content.
Statistics show that organic search on Google is responsible for more than 59% of the world’s web traffic. Therefore, luxury brands should be targeting this traffic to deliver long-term sustainable growth. Driving the right audiences to your website through a mix of SEO-led digital PR can be powerful when used correctly.
It is no longer about forcing backlinks but creating unique and powerful brand stories that publications want to share. Luxury fashion brands have a brand sentiment that they can use to produce valuable, authentic content.
This content is critical for building new audiences and nurturing existing audiences. By harnessing your keyword strategy and layering it alongside external audience data sources, the perfect story can unfold right before your eyes.
Why last-click attribution is still important.
It is important to consider that building new audiences and nurturing them doesn’t fulfill the need to convert them into a customer.
Historically, luxury fashion has benefitted from higher Return on ad spend (ROAS) targets and a larger cost per acquisition (CPA) threshold. Therefore, brands have tended to increase spending on PPC to drive return. However, without continuing the fill the top of the marketing funnel it can quickly become saturated, driving CPA up and ROAS down.
Importantly, a full-funnel is what is needed. Whilst PPC will dominate the high-intent search keywords. Organic traffic remains key when consumers are looking for inspiration or ideas that luxury fashion will often provide.
Consider the right mix.
Prioritizing the correct channel mix of SEO, PPC, PR, and Content can be tricky. How you spend your budget should be built upon insights and data analysis and not left to chance or gut feel. A thorough understanding of your audience and goals is a great place to begin, and strategies should be kept fluid to allow you to react to market demands.
The PHA Group is well placed to support your luxury fashion brand. Having worked with premium and luxury brands like Needle and Thread, Joseph, La Perla, Hugo Boss, and many more. If you would like to chat more then please get in touch here.
