As marketers, we seek to build a customer relationship with affluent shoppers.Essentially, we want to attract them to our brands, our stores, our companies in order to make a sale.


But making a sale isn't building loyalty—executing a transaction with the customer isn’t building a relationship.The marketers' goal has to be more than just making a sale; it's about making a true and meaningful connection with the customer.

 

In order to make that connection, marketers and their brands must engage the customer as a person with a life beyond the store and with values that guide them in the many facets of their lives.It extends far beyond their identity as customers.Therefore, we need to engage our customers and potential customers. They are a complete people who are passionate about their lives, their families, their careers, their societies, and also passionate about shopping.Marketers need to engage the customer in all the many facets of his or her life that they care passionately about.

 

Marketers have to earn the customers’ trust and respect.In order to build a true connection with the customer, not just a transaction, marketers need to take a 360° lifestyle approach.Marketers need to understand the many different dimensions, values and priorities of their customers and use that understanding as a platform to build a long-term lasting brand connection with them.

 

Learn how Patek Philippe does lifestyle marketing for the luxury consumer. Visit http://bit.ly/fi4UUq

Pamela N. Danziger is an internationally recognized expert specializing in consumer insights, especially for marketers and retailers that sell luxury goods and experiences to the masses or the ‘classes.’ She is president of Unity Marketing, a marketing consulting firm she founded in 1992.

Advising such clients as PPR, Diageo, Google, Polo Ralph Lauren, Swarovski, Constellation Wines, Lenox, Swarovski, Luxottica, Orient-Express Hotels, Marie Claire magazine, The World Gold Council and The Conference Board, Danziger taps consumer psychology to help clients navigate and master the changing luxury consumer marketplace.

In recognition of her ground-breaking work in the luxury consumer market, Pam received the Global Luxury Award presented by Harper’s Bazaar for top luxury industry achievers in 2007.

She is currently working on a new book, Putting the Luxe Back in Luxury to be published by Paramount Market Publishing in early 2011.(http://bit.ly/dmxV62) Her other books include Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, published by Kaplan Publishing in October 2006; Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses—as well as the Classes, (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $27, hardcover) and Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004).