Creating an effective strategy for lifestyle branding can be tedious at times. You’ll need to be clear in showcasing your values, beliefs, and your brand’s story. That way it will be alluring for your target audience. In this article, you’ll get to learn to create an effective strategy to form a brand that resonates and appeals to your target audience.
Lifestyle Branding: An Overview
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Before we head over to the strategies to form a brand that resonates with your audience, let’s get to know what is it. Lifestyle branding is a form of marketing that focuses on forming an image of your brand. The image must resonate well with your targeted audience to make it stand out from the competitors.
You’ll need to use a combination of visuals, created content, outreach campaigns, and other strategies. The whole point of using these means of promotion is to create a brand identity. Now with that said, let’s cover the strategies to form a brand that resonates with your audience.
How to Form a Brand that Resonates with Your Audience?
Speaking with your audience is a long process. You will need to employ a variety of tactics to keep their attention glued to your brand. A well-implemented lifestyle brand will continue to gather views and potential clients in the longrun. So here are the steps you need to take to ensure that your brand will catch attention, here they are as listed:
- Brainstorming Lifestyle Brands & Niches
- Now that you’ve identified your audience, look for a suitable niche that your lifestyle brand will occupy. Are you dealing with potential leaders and professionals? Perhaps you’d want to for a business-focused lifestyle brand. Are you aiming at outdoorsy folks? Go for a lifestyle brand that centres on adventure, travel, and exploration.
- Another tactic that you can consider is the creation of a brand persona. For those who are unaware – a brand persona is the depiction of the brand but as an individual. It involves the creation of a fictitious person with likes, hobbies, and other traits, but is the face of your lifestyle brand.
- Forming a brand persona is also a process. You’ll need to brainstorm what character archetype they should be. You can also use a mood board to flesh out your brand persona and its voice. Make sure that the persona aligns well with your brand’s vision and goals.
- Research your Target Market!
- One flaw that marketers make when it comes to lifestyle branding is going in without knowing their audience. What you’ll need to do here is to research what your target audience values. What do they aim to achieve? What kind of lifestyle does your audience follow?
- Once you’ve managed to answer these questions is when you can take your first step in forming a strategy. A strategy that where your brand will resonate with your target audience
- Understand the Audience’s Needs and Wants
- To resonate with your audience, you need to know what they need and what they want from you. Understanding the needs and wants of an audience is essential in forming your brand identity. Don’t form a lifestyle branding strategy without understanding the needs and wants.
- Take note that your audience ages. Studying the history of your demographics can help you tweak your approach to lifestyle branding. In turn, you can catch the attention of future audiences under the demographics you’ve targeted.
- Try to Stand Out from the Competition
- One of the golden rules of forming a digital branding strategy is to try to stand out. Competition is everywhere and every one of them is vying for the audience’s attention. Think of what makes your brand both interesting and unique. Use these unique traits to make your potential clients identify with you and aspire to become a part of.
- Form your Unique Story!
- Stories draw the attention of individuals; and are the core of forming a strategy for lifestyle branding. Your brand doesn’t only have to be products and services, turn it into an experience. By turning your brand into an experience, you can draw the attention of new people and retain previous customers better.
- Forming the story of your brand also reflects the core values and your vision. It will evoke emotions in the hearts of your customers; both old and new. The narrative, however, must be something that resonates with them.
- Please take note that you’d want to be authentic and transparent as much as possible. Make your brand defined by original thoughts and ideas. Customers are more drawn to brands that reflect their actual thoughts.
- Harness the Power of Social Media Marketing
- Lifestyle branding isn’t just all about posting images on social media. You must immerse yourself into the lifestyle cultures that your brand is connected to. By immersing yourself in the lifestyle culture, you’ll understand your niche better. In turn, when you understand your niche better – you can deliver your message with clarity to your audience.
- Using various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter – you can showcase your products or services there. Explain how these services or products can be applied in the lifestyle niche that you occupy.
- Create Content that Resonates with your Customers
- Usage of videos, images, and other visuals allows companies to “communicate” with their audience. Through these visuals, companies convey to their audience how their products can fit in with everyday life.
- You can also back up your statements in some of the content through infographics. Your audience will appreciate the backed-up information and are likely to be convinced to go with your lifestyle brand.
- Aside from content created by your team and company, you can invite guest posters. User-generated content can contribute to conveying the message of your brand better. Events whether on-site or virtual can also help in spreading brand awareness.
These are the steps to consider when you’re forming a lifestyle branding strategy. It may be tedious to do at first, but it’s worth it in end. Do note to not skip a step as they are all crucial to your strategy. One missing piece of the strategy might result in some unforeseen negative effects.
To Resonate with your Audience is a Process
There’s no magic sauce or shortcuts in lifestyle branding to resonate with your audience. To make your brand resonate, it is a long process that you must undertake. You must first identify to whom you’re addressing your products; in short your target audience. The next step is to know which niche are you going to occupy.
From there on, it’s all a matter of understanding their needs and trying to be unique against the competition. You will also need to use content creation to create engaging material for your audience. Your brand’s uniqueness and message must be authentic to ensure people will come back to you. Once you’ve managed to pull these off, your brand is all set to meet success soon.
FAQs
- Should I Mimic Other Lifestyle Brands’ Styles?
- It may seem tempting to do so but it is ill-advised. As stated earlier in the article, customers prefer an authentic lifestyle brand. It must tell your voice, not a copy of another. Mimicking another lifestyle brand kills off your unique identity and customers aren’t fond of that.
- Can I Factor in Age for My Lifestyle Brand?
- Depends, but in general; yes. Some lifestyle brands do focus on a younger demographic. An example is the leadership and business-focused lifestyle brands. They aim to transform fresh graduates into capable leaders and workers in the workforce.
- However, it still depends on you. You can try to focus on a certain age demographic. Alternatively, you can make your lifestyle brand accessible to a wider demographic. Good examples are healthy lifestyle brands or those that focus on travel and adventure.
- Why is Guest Posting Powerful for a Lifestyle Brand?
- Guest posting shows your lifestyle brand’s credibility. Having a guest poster who personally has benefitted from your brand gives you a lot of advantages. The said advantages are a wider brand reach and better brand loyalty.