Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
I disagree with this suggestion. While I concede that a luxury brand should
be found easily online, I believe that a luxury brand should invest in devel-
oping its social media referencing and offline brand awareness, as these
will play a key role in driving traffic to its website. Brand communications
online and offline are not mutually exclusive and go a long way in comple-
menting one another. In your opinion, would someone looking for a black
luxury handbag type in “black luxury handbag” in the Google search box
or would they go to Gucci, Louis Vuitton or Hermès' websites? If you're
wondering what lesser known brands should do in this case, then I would
say use the social web to create an online buzz about your brand but invest
in also creating a buzz offline simultaneously. Paying Google to list you
first when people search for “luxury cars” or “luxury wines” will likely not
get a brand very far in the long term. Luxury clients online will not always
choose a Porsche or bottle of wine from
Chateau Mouton Rothschild
but
they will also include you in their choice selection only if they know you
and understand your brand message and believe in what you represent.
The competence is the backbone of a website and plays a key role in
crafting the online experience through effortless navigation, functionality
and usability. In formulating the most feasible approach to the competence
features, it is important for a luxury brand to retain a focus on the evolu-
tion of digital media technologies and applications, as well as the adoption
rate of these technologies by Internet users, particularly the target audi-
ence. Technology is constantly changing and the usability and functionality
choices made for the website should reflect the core essence of the brand and
add value to the each user's web experience. Wealthy clients expect excep-
tional experiences from every touch-point of the brand and this includes the
website. Online touch-points are the different ways that a brand's universe
may be experienced on the website, including videos, interviews, panoramic
visits of premises and their neighborhoods, music, special collections, prod-
uct demos, advertisements, care guides, special online events and so on.
Enhanced experiences from touch-points are likely to strike a chord in the
way the brand is related with.
To finalize, again here are a few tips for website competence optimization:
1. Understand the difference between a welcome page and a home page and
optimize both for their symbolic and functional benefits.
2. Invest in a powerful welcome page and home page or whatever page peo-
ple arrive at upon clicking on your domain name.
3. Never save the best pages for last. This is not the Grammy Awards
ceremony.
4. Integrate control tools on all video and sound files. Please do so, for
Pete's sake.
5. Avoid multiple sequential click-through pages. It leads nowhere, literally.
