Ask any seasoned marketer how to capture and hold the attention of customers today and they would all probably say the same thing — sell them an experience. Customers aren’t solely buying products for their features or monetary value. They are also looking at how the product makes them feel. Thankfully, selling the cigar smoking experience isn’t such a hard sell. One could even say that cigar smoking is all about the experience.
The Value of Selling Experience
Many non-cigar smokers often ask why you choose cigars over cigarettes, e-cigs, or vapes. After all, one premium cigar is considerably more expensive than any pack of cigarettes.
It’s like asking an iPhone user why they choose Apple over Samsung or any other more affordable mobile phone brand. In both cases, the answer is the same — it’s all about the experience.
It’s about the intangible feelings customers associate with the product, rather than just the product itself. These experiences are far more powerful in holding customers’ attention than any product feature.
Perception also plays an important role in selling experiences. Aside from considering how your customers perceive your product, it’s also important to consider how other people would perceive your customers when they tell their stories about your product.
Finding an Effective Narrative for Cigar Smoking
It’s not hard to find an effective way to market and sell the cigar smoking experience.
Cigar smoking already comes with a certain level of prestige. Partly because of how expensive super-premium cigars can be, many people see cigar smoking as a classy pastime. The longer time spent smoking cigars can be seen as a rare moment of relaxation and indulgence.
Like with Apple iPhones, this perception of prestige and comfort helps direct the narrative for your cigar lounge marketing strategy. All you need to do is add on to it.
For those of us who grew up around parents or grandparents who smoked cigars, doing the same evokes memories of loved ones and stories of old times. Stories like these show us how products can make a lasting impact on people even before they use the products themselves.
All of these would help lay the foundation for creating valuable customer experiences.
You now know what feelings customers associate with cigar smoking. It’s time to think about how to convey and evoke these feelings using our cigar shop marketing strategy and brand-controlled experiences.
Tips for Selling the Cigar Smoking Experience Online
Selling the cigar smoking experience is more challenging online than in person. After all, holding and smelling the cigar even before lighting it up is part of the whole cigar smoking experience.
How do you convey that effectively online? Here are some tips you can use to effectively sell the cigar smoking experience.
Share a Lifestyle
This is where the perceived prestige and class of cigar smoking come in handy. Sharing a lifestyle is a great way to attract new customers and entice them into making a purchase. More than that, it is an effective way to establish genuine connections with customers.
Customers want to engage with a brand or product that has similar interests as them or has an identity they want to emulate. If you want to effectively share a lifestyle, you need to connect your brand to the interests, values, ideals, and identity of your target audience.
Tell Stories Through Video
Videos are an effective way to tell a story. They leave deeper impressions on people than just photos and words. They also give consumers a better sense of your product and help convey intangible feelings better.
Sharing experiences through videos is more convenient now than ever before. Thanks to various video-sharing platforms, it’s easier to create, share, and curate video content.
Here are a few video ideas to help sell the cigar smoking experience online:
- Showing the cigar making process
- Sharing an in-person event, such as a cigar tasting or cigar rolling event
- Interviewing people about their first cigar smoking experience
- Touring your cigar shop or cigar lounge
Have Brand Ambassadors
You don’t necessarily need a large audience to share an experience. Brand ambassadors allow us to have one person enjoy the cigar smoking experience then share it with their audience.
However, you can’t just get any other influencer willing to work with us. To market the cigar smoking experience, you need brand ambassadors who are also genuine customers. You need people who are genuinely excited about your products and have a connection with them.
One example of effective use of brand ambassadors online is product unboxing videos. This also ties in with our earlier tip about telling stories through video — only this time, it’s your brand ambassadors doing the storytelling for your brand.
Product unboxing videos share the experience of opening and trying new products. It also effectively shows genuine reactions and emotions of brand ambassadors as they see their orders.
Create Repetition and Consistency
Repetition and consistency make experiences more powerful. A one-off experience can be quickly written off by your audience but a consistent or oft-repeated one becomes a part of your brand identity.
If you want to work with brand ambassadors, don’t stop after just one instance or one campaign. If you want to tell stories through videos and ads, don’t just produce one and call it a day. Integrate it into your cigar shop marketing strategy to ensure repetition and consistency.
Experiences Maketh the Sale
Your cigars are no longer the most important product you sell. Today, consumers place greater value on the experiences and feelings that products provide.
If you want your company to keep up with the changing times, you need to start focusing on selling the cigar smoking experience. It’s vital to build your product and marketing around experiences that will excite, motivate, and evoke deeper emotions in your audience to convince them to purchase.
Sell Your Cigar Smoking Experience Today
If you want to learn more about how to sell the cigar smoking experience or to include it in your marketing strategy, contact us today.