What Have We Learned About Marketing Premium Products Digitally?

A premium product, defined

With over 10 years of experience in web development and digital marketing, we’ve picked up a thing or two. One of the most important lessons we learned early on: never market a premium product using standard-product tactics. We’ve pulled together some tools, principles, and thoughts on marketing premium products digitally – successfully, elegantly, and most importantly, in a way that actually drives results.

The best definition of a premium product is: product + premium. When you buy or use a regular product, that’s where it ends. A product, and that’s it. With a premium product, something extra gets added – added value. That added value can show up as look, design, materials, specs, branding, taste, and above all, the feeling it gives you as the owner or user of that product. Buying a premium product is a statement – it can align you with a certain tribe, class, or lifestyle.

In our view, successful premium product marketing – online and off – puts the product front and center. Our favorite approach: “Product first, price later.”

A good premium product almost always knows how to tell a story – one that spells out, directly or indirectly, the premium and the added value. As consumers, we’re willing to pay significantly more than market rate for shoes, a car, even a bag of coffee beans, if they come with the right story. Of course, a premium product’s price tag will be higher than a standard product’s – but that’s not the main point, and we’ll get to price later (product first, remember?).

Who’s the audience, and how do you target them?

The classic thinking is that wealthy, high-means audiences are the ones to target for premium products, on the assumption that people who already have money will want to buy more expensive products to show it off. A reasonable idea, and a workable one. We do carefully target affluent audiences using a variety of techniques – for instance, by area of residence, or targeting people who fly abroad more than X times a year.

But even though that’s the obvious storyline, we’ve discovered, more than once, that an affluent audience in an affluent area isn’t actually a necessary condition for a purchase. Genuinely wealthy audiences don’t spend mindlessly – they won’t buy an expensive brand just because it’s expensive. Wealthy audiences tend to gravitate toward specific, established brands they’re already loyal to (Louis Vuitton, for example), and completely ignore everyone else.

We quickly landed on the conclusion that our core goal in successful premium digital marketing is selling to the right people – the ones who will be genuinely happy to invest in the product and become its next owner. They might be wealthy with plenty of means, or just as easily prefer paying in installments, or treating it as a smart, deliberate purchase for a special occasion.

The reason is baked into the very definition of a premium product – we believe you need to tell the brand’s story, present its premium with subtlety, and only then target and advertise to audiences who’ve shown engagement and interest – and only then invite that audience to buy.

Affordable Premium

We’re living through a fascinating era of Low Cost, which has itself been swept aside by the Ultra Low Cost trend. Market prices have shifted dramatically in recent years, and as a result, the high-end product market has adapted too. Plenty of brands have started marketing “Affordable Premium” products – premium brands within reach. Priced a bit more modestly (not cheap, but attainable), with marketing and positioning very similar to a luxury product, just made more accessible to a wider audience.

Another way to market premium products to a wider audience is, of course, discounts – even though they completely contradict the core essence of a good, expensive product. And yet, even the strongest luxury brands offer discounts on set, agreed-upon dates throughout the year. It’s worth remembering that expensive brands become attainable in an instant during a sale, and that’s where you can generate impressive revenue. Especially online – plenty of shoppers will bookmark a product, save it to favorites, and wait months for sale day, because that’s the day the product becomes attainable for them. Obviously, you don’t want to wear down a premium product with constant discounting, but smart discounts are without question part of the game.

Branding, design, positioning, and perceived value

Branding is like oxygen in the premium world. Good design carries real weight and meaning. For instance, good design and the right UX can be the difference between an apartment that sells for a million and a half and one that sells for six million. Premium brands live on design that’s high quality and precisely tuned to their target audience. We know for a fact that you don’t have to spend a fortune on branding – we’ve seen firsthand how simpler branding work for our clients led to winning brands that sold at astonishing volumes. Design has to hold up to results, and match the taste and palate of the end customer. Good design makes a customer want to be part of the product, and to consume it.

Beyond the initial branding and the brand’s packaging and marketing process, there’s also online branding, which matters just as much. Working correctly with bloggers and influencers who are a precise fit for your brand can make a significant difference. The right people, the right and precise words, the right images – all of it shapes your branding and perception online. Initial branding is, of course, an important step. In our view, it’s just as important to invest in ongoing branding and maintain the standard required.

One bad post can shatter a high-end positioning, which is why marketing premium products means being twice as careful with every word. We always explain it this way: a premium brand is wrapped in a kind of fragile, delicate glass cover that protects its high-end branding, and one word out of place can shatter the whole thing.

When our product’s perceived value is high, we can price it high in a way that feels acceptable and reasonable to the customer. One of our goals is for a visitor to see a product, get interested in it, and not be shocked or startled when they find out the price. In premium product marketing, we don’t always want to reveal the price upfront. If your product only ever sells during sales, its perceived value is probably lower than its actual value.

On pricing, and a few magic numbers we’ve discovered

Everything has a price. If even a crime can be priced with an appropriate fine, then of course a car, shoes, a diamond, or a coffee machine can be priced too. The right pricing can significantly sway a visitor, for better or worse: pricing too low can cheapen the positioning and put people off, just as pricing too high, out of step with the target audience, can push potential customers away.

Working with a wide range of brands and clients, we’ve found pricing has a significant effect on products sold online. For example, products priced under ₪399 sell noticeably more easily, while pricing above ₪400 slows down the sales process (which, by the way, is still entirely achievable). We’ve sold products online worth thousands of shekels too, and there are certain categories – electronics, for instance – where the considerations are completely different. Still, for a lot of consumer products, there’s a real advantage to pricing under ₪399.

Surprise: hard selling is actually fine

You can say “sale.” You can invite the visitor to leave their details. You can ask them to buy. We’ve run into plenty of clients who were simply afraid to market themselves, and it’s a shame. A campaign with no marketing message in it falls flat and produces nothing. Even premium audiences appreciate assertiveness and a direct ask. But – only after you’ve built the funnel, told the brand story, and sparked genuine interest.

So how do you market a premium product digitally?

We’ve made sure to nail the right design, the right price, and to build the brand story and communicate the added premium. And here’s where more of the secrets come in: you need to build a marketing funnel that starts with the brand story and why it’s worth it, tell the visitor exactly what premium they’re getting through copy, images, video, and other tools. From there, encourage the visitor to leave their details, and the sale can continue over the phone. In plenty of cases, starting the deal online – leaving details – and closing it offline solves this problem entirely.

Another tactic: being a little less accessible on purpose, narrowing the window of opportunity to buy or obtain the product, making the premium consumer work a little to get your brand. This tactic is entirely viable, as long as you execute it smartly and correctly.

If you have a premium brand you’d like to market elegantly, smartly, and effectively, we’d love to talk, get to know you, and tell you more.