Building a luxury brand experience for your business

We can all build a business. Literally anyone can set up a business with minimal investment now. The online world gives SO many more opportunities for anyone to grow a business with website templates, free resources on YouTube and downloads to help along the way.

But, for those that don’t just want to build a hobby business. Those that really want to build a luxury brand that allows you to charge your worth and have that amazing work/life balance with the freedom to travel and do things you love with your family (I hear you!)…

You know you can get things done on the cheap. DIY WIX websites, cheap printed business cards with that shiny finish and colours that never seem to print right, even taking snap shots for your business on your phone.

You want more!

You want to build a brand where your clients aren’t just paying you to do a job. You want them to feel good! To get excited about working with you! You want to ensure each part of your client/customers journey of working with you is top notch and gives that ‘ooh La La, this girl knows what she’s doing’ vibes.

If you want to build a luxury brand experience to attract those dream clients to your business, you’re in the right place!

First things first…

What do you want? What is your why? Why are you doing this?

Just take a minute to think about this because knowing this is going to help you to build a brand that has YOU at the heart of it and to give you that drive to take your business to those massive highs!

Secondly, who is your ideal client?

I don’t just mean, they’re in their 20s and getting married. I mean who are they? What kind of person are they? Who do you want to work with?

What’s their background? What is it they’re looking for? Why do you want to work with this kind of person?

You 100% need to know who you are targeting because if you don’t it’s going to be SO much harder to build a luxury experience for the right clients.

Now, how do you want your clients to feel when they work with you?

This is a biggie! For me, I want my clients to feel excited, to know they can trust me to create their beautiful branding or scroll stopping images that’s perfect for them.

Now you can get started on the creative elements of building your luxury brand experience (the mistake so many entrepreneurs make is jumping straight to this and not doing the initial steps above).

YOUR BRAND

Now I’m not going to go into full details of this because it’s a topic I could cover for hours as there is SO much to talk about.

Here are the essentials…

• Know your brand message. In a short paragraph or even a sentence, what is your brand message? What do you do, who do you help and how does it help them?

• Your brand identity design – obviously as a specialist in this I know the importance but so many people don’t and will opt for a DIY logo to create a design they think looks pretty, rather than what’s right for their business. Your brand identity forms the foundations of all of your visual assets for your business. It’s your font choices, the logo, submarks, patterns and backgrounds, colour palette etc. and then sticking to these across every touchpoint! (You’d never see coco cola using a different shade of red or mc Donald’s using a different shade of yellow for those Golden Arches!)

• Your imagery. I’ve put this before the website design because no website will look good without good images, fact! Even if you invest in working with a website designer like myself, your website will never look great without the images and branding that form the overall look and feel of your website. So if you’ve never had one, book in a brand shoot with a photographer who’s style perfectly fits your brand.

• The website – if you’re an online business, chances are nearly all of your clients will be booking you through your website. So it needs to look great and work efficiently for you. Making sure it’s mobile optimised. Getting the right balance of copy on each page right. Ensuring it’s easy to navigate. This is your online shop window. Your opportunity to get those dream clients hooked and wanting to know more so you’ll definitely want to get it right!

If you have the above all sorted and it’s all looking beautiful AND fits with your brand, you can start mapping out your client journey to help you create a luxury experience for them, from that very first time they see you through to delivery of your product/service.

Write down each step your client will take when working with you. As an example…

1. They find you on instagram (so you’ll want to make sure your feed looks amazing and has a consistent aesthetic across every area. Not so much stories though, these can and should show more of the real you so your audience can connect with you)
2. They click the link to head to your website (did you know you have less than 2 seconds to get their attention when they land on your first page of the website? If it doesn’t appeal to them, if links are broken or if the layout is all over the place, this is going to have them going elsewhere!)
3. They complete a booking form (how do you then follow up? Do you send a friendly automated email? Do they receive a beautifully designed brochure giving them more details that makes you hard to resist?)
4. They book (yay! What’s next? What do they get when they book? How could you make them feel special?)
5. You provide the service/product 
6. Client journey complete (how do you follow up for feedback or to thank them for their booking?)

This will give you ideas of how you can make your clients feel special through each and every touchpoint.

It’s not just about throwing around the word ‘luxury’ and charging a higher price point.

It’s about creating a luxury experience for your clients so they absolutely love to work with you. They get excited about receiving your emails. They shout about you to others. Then they can’t not leave you an amazing testimonial because they’ve had such an amazing experience of working with you.

It’s things like your stationery. Creating beautiful welcome boxes or sample boxes you could send out as part of the booking process.

Beautifully presented and finished with high quality printed materials. Branded ribbons. Tissue or vellum wraps with your brand pattern and a wax seal to close.

All of these things can really help your business! Yes it’s an investment but one that you can get back really quick if you are consistent and attract those dream clients paying those new prices!

THIS is the power of building a luxury brand experience!

Always think about how you could go that extra mile. Charge for those extras and factor it into your costs. It doesn’t have to take a chunk out of what you already charge.

Get each touchpoint looking amazing, your clients will thank you for it!