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lifestyle products

How Lifestyle Products Affect Our Daily Lives

We have a lot going on in our lives – every day, we are bombarded with images, adverts, and information. It is essential to start tuning out some of the noise, and for most consumers, this means tuning out advertising.

It’s official, advertising your product based on just its features is outdated. Consumers don’t really care about your product. They are too wrapped up with their own lives. If you want to market to them effectively, you need to start introducing lifestyle marketing.

What Does Lifestyle Mean?

You know those soft-drink ads that you see all over. The ones where people are enjoying a Coke and having a great time? That is an example of lifestyle products. The message is simple, share a Coke with someone, and you will make friends and have a good time.

Creating a Lifestyle Brand

When creating a lifestyle brand, you go further than just the features of your product. You have to define your target market carefully in terms of their opinions, interests, and ideas. It is about marketing a particular culture, something that your target market wants to achieve.

It’s about connecting your product to the needs of your consumers at a deeper level.

What Are Lifestyle Products?

Lifestyle products are items that have a unique selling proposition that is appealing to your target market. We are already surrounded by them in our day to day lives. We use these products to fit in with a specific culture.

Take a look at marketing that has been really effective for you in the past. What were you buying – the product itself specifically, or the lifestyle behind it? Why do you choose a particular brand of soda?

Take vaping, for example. It is seen as a cooler and safer alternative to smoking. People who buy these products are buying into a lifestyle. If you smoke real cigarettes, you are seen as being inconsiderate and unhealthy.

If you smoke electronic cigarettes, it is more like you are one of the cool kids.

What is key here is that a perception is created. Vaping is more socially acceptable than smoking because it doesn’t produce such a foul smell. However, the liquids vaporized might still contain nicotine and other harmful substances.

You can get just as addicted to vaping as you can to cigarettes.

How Small Companies Can Benefit

Small companies are ideally suited to building a lifestyle brand. Think about the artisan baker, or the organic farmer. Organic food and artisan goods can be sold at a higher price if the business can establish a lifestyle brand.

A good example of how a small company can leverage this is, believe it or not, Starbucks. It’s huge now but, initially, the idea behind it was producing good coffee. Former CEO, Howard Schultz had a vision of the coffee shop becoming a sort of home away from home and being warm and inviting.

Starbucks employees are trained to focus on making the customer experience a great one. They are encouraged to learn client’s names, to be happy and outgoing and to go the extra mile wherever possible.

People go to Starbucks for the coffee certainly, but it’s about more than the coffee for most people. It’s about a warm atmosphere and the vibe. The idea of a fun place that makes it easy for you to relax and enjoy your coffee.

It was a simple concept that proved highly effective, and it is something that every business can apply. Instead of featuring your product, start looking at what lifestyle your product allows your clients to enjoy. Then create a marketing strategy to match – everything from lifestyle websites to a simple flyer.

Find your own “Starbucks” effect and your business will also be able to grow.

lifestyle brands

Why We Like the Brands and Products We Like

Businesses always try and figure out how people gravitate to products and brands they have an affinity for. As they are trying to figure out what it is their brand or product needs to be that go-to brand for their audience, it’s also interesting to know why we like the things that we like! Let’s take a look at why people seem to always go towards the lifestyle brands or products that they have an affinity for:

Reliability

Even though you might not even think about it, you seem to unconsciously stick with a brand based off of its reliability. Even if you haven’t seen anything significant, if that brand didn’t cause any problems for you or affect anything negatively, people have a tendency to just stick to that brand of product. For example, if you decide to buy your first bottle of shampoo after you move into your first home, and that shampoo made your hair feel fantastic, you are most likely going to buy that same brand again when you run out! In some way or form, that product or brand has made you rely on its performance.

Effectiveness

Whether you realize it or not, we rely on the brands or product that was most effective. If the product was ineffective and caused no results or caused any problems, which is most likely not a product you would go back too. With that said, we tend to always gravitate to the service or product that already passed our test. Sometimes these decisions aren’t even made on hard proof!

Price

Price always goes a long way, if we didn’t care about money, we would all probably be using the same expensive product! Sometimes our go-to choices are based on the price, not necessarily the cheapest one, but one that fits more comfortably in our budget. Say you love the way brand A protein supplement tastes, but it’s twice as much as brand B but holds the same results. You are most likely going to always stick to brand B, if the price is one of your influences. It’s a known fact, we tend to gravitate towards the same brands we can afford.

If It’s Worked Before It Will Work Again!

The number one thing we do is keep sticking with a product or brand that has worked for us before. We think, “why should I stop using something that has already been working for me?”. This is the case for many people whether they notice it or not. It doesn’t mean you’re reluctant to try a product you do not have an affinity for, but you wouldn’t gravitate toward it over your regular (or normal) brand or product.

Passed Down

If your momma used it, you’re bound to use it too! Whether your parent had a favourite sauce, go-to car shop, or favourite grocery store, you’re bound to continue on their traditions because it is what you are used to.


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