Outlook 2016: 5 Trends In Luxury Digital Marketing

From WeChat to opinion leader KOL, luxury brands are constantly innovating their digital strategy in the Chinese market.

Recently, Luxury Society held the "DigitalLuxury Keynote" Luxury Summit in Shanghai. Data experts from Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, four seasons, Pernod Ricard, Alibaba, Baidu and other top companies gathered to discuss the latest Chinese luxury market.

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The practice of luxury brands in China can effectively help them collect data and enhance digital marketing skills. Here are the 5 trends that must be followed in the global luxury industry in the coming year:

Luxury brands should make good use of WeChat CRM function

Although most luxury brands now have WeChat public numbers, many accounts are just beginning in functional applications, including advanced customer management (CRM) systems that are still not being used properly.

"The WeChat revolution has begun, but we seem to have not yet achieved the desired results," said PabloMauron, general manager of Digital LuxuryGroup digitization luxury group.

He pointed out that user loyalty programs and community management functions are important incentive mechanisms to attract users' attention, but only 12% of luxury brands still have these functions on WeChat account.

He stressed: "it is the greatest recognition of WeChat to pay attention to a brand.

Because this ensures that the message will go directly into the user's WeChat main interface, and on this interface, users will also have to view messages from family members and friends.

Users will not be concerned with brands just because they see a cool brand advertisement or activity.

Therefore, excellent customer service, exclusive presentation and offline activities can give brand VIP strong reasons to keep their attention to luxury brand accounts.

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In terms of opinion leader KOL selection, quality is superior to quantity.

In recent years, key opinion leaders (KOL) such as

It has been widely involved in the endorsement of big brands, and usually can earn huge fees by publishing content on their social media accounts.

"We will always use bloggers; we will only hire influential bloggers," said Alex Tang, deputy director of MCM's global agency market.

But in fact, this did not really bring sales.

This is something that needs to be kept in mind.

Reuter PR founder and CEO Chlo Reuter agrees: "in a relatively discriminative society, I don't know if anyone really cares about blogs.

Look at Shanghai and Beijing. People here have a high degree of awareness of brands. They travel independently. They are very smart.

I don't know if these people will really be influenced by bloggers.

According to the discussion of activities, brands are becoming more and more smart. They will study which KOL can truly represent the product and have an impact on high-end consumers.

The conclusion is that quality is more important than quantity.

Chlo Reuter stressed: "as a

Who cares if KOL has 60 million fans? They are not necessarily the ones who will buy brand handbags.

According to her analysis, "we will focus on those who have a small number of fans but who can really influence them."

Create content with users and let brands listen to consumers' aspirations.

According to JohnHamilton, Asia Pacific Marketing Director of Four Seasons Hotels, the content of luxury brands released by customers on social media is often more reliable and truer than brand advertising.

"No matter how beautiful the photos that the brand has published, our customers' photos are more authoritative than brand photographs."

As a result, brands like Four Seasons Hotels pay more and more attention to user generated content.

He said that this is not only a trend for consumers after 00, but consumers of all ages will want to connect with their brands in their favorite ways.

The electronic commerce platform will become the main battlefield of luxury accessories.

Today, only a few luxury brands are registered with Tmall and Jingdong mall stores. According to Kung Fu Data founder and CEO JoshGardner, these platforms are best suited to sell 5000 yuan (US $772) products.

Therefore, low price luxury accessories, cosmetics and foreign wine are the most significant categories of online sales.

Josh Gardner stressed: "there is no real luxury paction happening on these platforms, but over the past year, the average online sale price of cosmetics and personal care products has risen, which means that the online sales channels of these products are most feasible.

Luxury brands need to strengthen communication with Chinese tourists at WeChat

According to the Mauron survey, even strong WeChat exposure brands rarely attract overseas tourists' attention, though most Chinese consumers' luxury consumption takes place overseas.

He pointed out that very few luxury brands offer Chinese version of location and service functions of overseas stores, or attract WeChat fans in overseas stores.

He said: "since we know that tourism shopping is the current popular consumption mode, we are prepared to expand the service function abroad to add value to the brand and establish a trust relationship with the fans."

Another major challenge comes from duty-free shops. Chinese consumption accounts for a large proportion of duty-free shops.

He suggests that brands can put the brand WeChat account two-dimensional code on the handbag, so that if Chinese consumers buy branded goods in duty-free shops, they will not miss the opportunity to pay attention to the luxury brand public numbers.