Conversion Copywriting for Luxury Brands

Copywriting for luxury brands? It’s usually the domain of high-end ad agencies. 

But what if you’re a luxury brand marketer obsessed with ROI? What if you want a copywriter who’s equally focused on conversions?

Very few conversion copywriters specialize in luxury brands. And I’ll tell you why.

4 Reasons Conversion Copywriting is Harder for Luxury Brands

1. Customer insight is harder to find

If luxury were about conspicuous consumption, conversion copywriting would be easy.

But clients of elite services are often discrete about their buying decisions and experiences. In fact, discretion is one of the key selling points of private jet travel.

Private jet patrons don’t generally post on Reddit. They rarely leave public reviews. And they’re less likely to answer surveys or agree to interviews…

Which makes it hard to tap into the motivations of the buyer. (Key for conversion copy.)

2. We’re working with small data sets

Unless you’re the private jet company owned by Warren Buffet, chances are you get low traffic volume. In these markets, getting to a statistically significant lift in conversions is tough.

I’ve written copy for “luxury” skincare and mattresses, but those are luxuries within reach for hundreds of millions. 

Private jet travel is truly rarified. After all, how many people can afford to spend tens of thousands on a short-haul flight? 

3. Luxury services are high-touch sales

Also challenging: the sale isn’t made on the page. The page is the portal to a high-touch sale.

For high-end services, the copy can only drive leads. The results, ultimately, depend on whether the salesperson on the call can stick the landing.

4. Entering a luxury market means building a brand

While we can sell mass-market goods based on features and benefits, when it comes to luxury, the brand is everything.

If you’re spending $50k on private jet travel, you’re used to paying more for intangibles, like brand.

And your sense of safety is deeply tied in with brand… by which I mean not only the brand’s key messages and design but reputation.

That makes it harder for newer or smaller luxury brands to get a foothold – even with conversion copy.

Why we took on this luxury copywriting project anyway

We had reasons to doubt. 

To doubt that the tools of conversion copy could ever work here. But the more I underlined the risk to InsiJets, the more they wanted to work together… 

Plus, I’ve got to admit, the vicarious travel was a huge draw. We’re all locked down with the pandemic indefinitely, so imagining a world of travel with no limits is the ultimate fantasy… if morally questionable, am I right?

Let’s just say we offset the carbon emissions incurred by selling private jet travel via our work with this eco-friendly charity. Is that a thing we can claim?

In any case…

While the conversion rate is still TBD, we have some interesting early results.

Since going live, we’re seeing about a 500% increase in organic pageviews of the Jet Card page and an increase of about ~300% for About Us.

Higher rankings are just one more benefit of long-form sales copy.

How we approached the luxury challenge to write this copy

For some B2C brands, there are treasure troves of voice-of-customer data online. 

For example, I once wrote copy for a golden retriever supplement brand and found myself deep in the mind of the golden lover. Pet owners post online prolifically.

When your audience is vocal about your product or service online, it’s easy to discover their:

• Pain points solved by your product or service
• What else they’ve tried and how that worked
• Priorities (which benefits and features matter most)
• Objections and beliefs around purchases

In other words, with access to this kind of customer insight, you can find all of the key ingredients for high-converting copy.

As expected, the private jet crowd is not so emotive online. They rarely chat in forums or post public reviews about their luxury travel experiences.

So, I turned to other conversion copy research techniques. Namely:

1. Analysis of other private jet brokerages’ copywriting 
2. A deep dive into the media coverage of private jet travel

Here’s how these techniques work.

Competitor Messaging Audits

First, why do we audit competitor messaging to write conversion copy?

Isn’t that, like, copying?

Nope. It’s actually quite the opposite.

What we want is to break down the competitors’ claims and find opportunities to differentiate.

• What problem do your competitors say they solve?
• Why do they say they’re different and better?
• What benefits and features do they highlight?
• What proofs or reasons to believe do they include?

Once we understand the world of alternatives for your customer, we can come up with copy that shows why your luxury brand is different and better. 

My job was easier here because Insijets is clearly differentiated. 

InsiJets gives clients more freedom and flexibility to choose flights and aircraft on short notice, and their brokerage services are more cost-effective.

Unless we know the answer to why your customer should choose you over the competition, we can’t write really persuasive copy.

To learn more, read my post on positioning.

Media Analysis

If your customers aren’t talking about your luxury product or service online, who is?

Well, sometimes the media.

Some media will publish unvarnished, authentic reviews. But not all.

Take beauty, for example. Beauty media coverage is driven by affiliate revenue or ad spend. You rarely get a true critique or deep insights from classic, magazine-style media coverage.

Sometimes you can find independent industry experts in a niche – reporters or influencers whose coverage of brands isn’t as obviously biased. 

Luckily, I found just this for the Insijets project. It’s the next best thing to a high-volume of true customer insight.

Again, I was looking for things like:

• Private jet customer pain points 
• What’s great and not so great about other private jet companies
• Which benefits and features matter most
• Objections and beliefs around purchases

Insights into topics like these are key for conversion copy. Without it, you just have ‘creative’ copy.

Check out the final copy for this luxury services brand

So many factors go into whether a brand succeeds. It’s never just the copy.

You need to have great product-market fit, clear reasons for customers to choose you over the competition, targeted traffic and sales funnels.

But few brands have made it without investing in copywriting. Because copy is your online salesperson.

Here are the two pages I wrote for Insijets: the About page and the Jet Card page. I love how the beautiful design conveys luxury and trust.

Luxury Brand About Page Copywriting

InsiJets’ new About page copywriting

 

Services Page Luxury Travel Copywriting