We recently released a site for Condo-Garage, a condo built especially for cars. It is a very innovative idea, so I was excited to take on the project. This is the first automobile condo in Canada. The main challenges of the project were:
1. This is a high-end product, so we had to be more aspirational and less utilitarian.

2. This is a new concept, so although we wanted to be aspirational, we still had to describe what the product was.

3. We wanted to use best practices in SEO and usability while maintaining an attractive look on the site.

Marketing to the Affluent

During my research, I found a number of characteristics of affluent consumers (I also added an observation based on my personal experience with affluent Canadians in particular):

• Affluent customers want to be distinguished from the crowd: they only want to be seen in
  a certain place, using only certain brands. They want to be one step ahead of everyone else.
• They seek exclusivity:
  ‘limited editions’, price is an indicator of exclusivity, want to avoid using popular brands.
• They want to feel unique and special: personalization of products and services
• They seek convenience: value their time as much as their money.
• They are willing to pay a premium: They want the best quality, exclusivity, satisfaction
  and outstanding customer service.
• High involvement buying behavior: degree of engagement with the client needs to be high.
  Make buying an experience.
• Canadians: Often take cues from other parts of the world for trends – especially from the US. However, Canadians are less open about conspicuous consumption.

During my development process with partners such as Jar Creative and Arxis, I made sure to show and describe in detail my observations on affluent customers. We created exclusivity by adding images of luxury vehicles throughout the logo, site and rendering and we emphasized personalization and convenience in the copy.

Describing the Product

After years of working in the software industry, I became very frustrated with aspirational marketing, that doesn’t actually inform. Yes, your site looks great - but does your program do what I need? During this project, I made sure that we actually described the product, without appearing too utilitarian. For example, you can see the logo looks very garage-like - emphasizing that you can hold a number of different items inside. We also put a watermark of  Toronto in the background, showing where the garage is located.

SEO and Usability

Most condo sites are built in Flash, but I moved away from that, trading a flashy presentation for a better ranking on search engines. Having additional text also helped us with #2, describing the product. We also added a news section, where we write regular articles that would be of interest for Condo-Garage prospects. We did this mostly for SEO purposes, to continually add new content and be revisited by search engines. To my happy surprise, users are saying that they enjoy the articles and find them helpful.

Conclusion

We are still very early on in this release but so far the results from our AdWords and other campaigns have been successful. I feel that creating a brand based on market research and product needs and making it consistent makes it stand out to the users that we want to impress, while describing the concept. I feel very fortunate to be a part of this project, and I am looking forward to seeing its success continue to grow.

Leave a Reply