Over the last several months, I’ve shared the differences between product marketing, brand marketing and lifestyle marketing, and we’ve also done deep dives into the first two facets of marketing. Today, we tackle the third: Lifestyle marketing. For most marketing professionals, regardless of industry, integrating lifestyle marketing into the overall strategy happens after the brand has been established. It requires actually having created a community in which users of your products showcase a particular lifestyle (or lifestyles) through using your offerings.
Lifestyle marketing is not about the nuts and bolts of the company, nor the product. Instead, lifestyle marketing is about making your customer the hero – and placing your product as the enabling tool in them living their chosen lifestyle. The product and the brand – which is usually the primary focus of marketing – is secondary in lifestyle marketing initiatives. Lifestyle marketing is all about the customer: their needs, wants and experiences.
Lifestyle Matters More in RV
Not every brand is going to be able to espouse a lifestyle equally. Certain brands have created a community around their offering which dictates the lifestyle that their offer supports. For companies with very intangible products (think technology offerings such as Salesforce or HubSpot), making customers a hero in your marketing to inspire others to join in on the fun is simply a bit of a leap – although they are creative and have been able to accomplish this from time to time. RV marketers, on the other hand, have a product which is a huge part of living an adventurous, outdoor lifestyle. The challenge you face is to create an intangible benefit from a tangible product. This is where lifestyle marketing shines. Whereas product marketing talks about the features and benefits, and brand marketing develops the feelings associated with your business, lifestyle marketing gives your potential customers a chance to feel the emotions they can experience through your products.
There is a huge opportunity to make an emotional connection through lifestyle marketing in the RV industry. This is because your customers are buying recreational vehicles they can use to explore the country, get closer to nature and feel free. The lifestyle that an RV brings is certainly distinct, and it is this lifestyle many customers are after. They don’t want to buy an aluminum box; they want to buy the emotion this aluminum box can give them. Let them picture themselves waking up in their coach and walking just steps outside to go fishing, wade in a stream or hike up a mountain. Allowing them to better picture how they can use an RV will likely make them want to have it even more. Lifestyle marketing allows us to play into the dreams and memories of customers. The lifestyle that an RV brings can be idyllic; let the marketing tell that story.
Lifestyle Marketing is a Key Part of the Entire Marketing Strategy
Marketing is constantly looking for how to showcase an ROI for the business – and rightly so. We track things like click-through rates, website traffic, conversion rates, and many other metrics to understand what is working in our strategy, and what needs to be adjusted. While this is an excellent approach to improving your marketing’s performance over time, it often leads marketers to prioritize low-funnel activities and sales-focused content over top-of-funnel brand awareness efforts. A well-built marketing strategy has both. Many product marketing efforts align with questions buyers have as they move their way toward a purchase. However, when someone is learning about your company, they’re likely less intent on learning all of the features of each of your RVs. They never get there if you can’t tell them a great story to get them interested. Lifestyle marketing truly shines in this way.
As an example of lifestyle marketing at work, I’ll share some work my company, Element Three, recently did with our partner, Newmar. Newmar has amazing customers who use their motorhomes to live incredible lives. Newmar’s team knew this, and wanted to capture those stories to better highlight how customers are using their motorhomes on a day-to-day basis. The result of this work is The Adventurists. The story highlights the incredible life a married couple is leading in their Newmar. This work is done in tandem with the other elements of the full Newmar marketing strategy; we don’t expect lifestyle marketing to live independently of brand marketing or product marketing. All have a role to play in a cohesive plan.
As you finalize marketing plans for 2022, consider the story behind the products you’re selling. Find ways to weave lifestyle marketing into your marketing efforts in a way that will feel authentic and natural. Remember that when people are thinking about buying an RV, they are thinking of more than a product. They’re thinking about the memories they can make and the places they can visit with the help of that product. Let those future memories and the emotions tied to them guide your lifestyle marketing efforts.
Joe Mills is the Business Development Manager at Element Three, an Indiana-based marketing consultancy. He can be reached at joe.mills@elementthree.com