Building loyalty for high-end home brands

How do you take your coffee?

A flat white with an extra shot?

Very nice.

And you always get it from the same coffee shop?

The barista knows your order too?

Ah, so you’re a regular. Would you call yourself a loyal customer?

And how much does that flat white cost, may we ask?

£3? That’s pretty good value. No wonder you keep going back.

But your brand - a premium home and interiors brand - is anything but coffee. Your product isn’t a daily habit. There’s no such thing as ‘subscribe and save’.

In the world of home and interiors, purchases don’t happen at caffeine-level frequency. Nobody lays new carpets every week. Nobody replaces their kitchen every month and nobody signs up for fitted wardrobes like they would an Amazon grocery shop.

But loyalty in your sector does exist - just not as we typically expect it to.

Before we delve into how loyalty manifests itself, let’s look at the mindset, behaviours and spending habits of your most discerning customers.

Customers of premium brands

When someone has significant wealth, their mindset around buying is different to that of someone who has a budget. They know they can afford the best, so their shopping decisions are less likely to involve price comparison. Their focus is on quality, design, experience and expectations.

Of course, exquisite quality is the baseline; materials are the finest, the craftsmanship flawless and attention to detail, meticulous.

At this level, the service wrapped around the product matters as much as the product itself. They expect you to understand what they’re trying to achieve and that the process - from the first consultation to delivery and aftercare - is seamless.

If your brand doesn’t tick all of those boxes, then don’t expect loyalty to follow.

The look of loyalty

What does loyalty really mean, how does it manifest in the world of premium homes and interiors?

Repeat purchases

While your customers may not be renovating their kitchen every week, they're also not driven by need. Often, they’ll replace their kitchen or refresh a space because they just want to; their lifestyle has moved on, trends have shifted or they want something which feels new and exciting. It’s rarely because their cupboard doors are hanging on by a single screw.

If your brand sells more than just one product, loyalty might mean they shop in adjacent categories; someone who loved you for their wood flooring might come back later to buy their carpets from you.

In some households, brand loyalty can become part of a family’s story. When children and grandchildren grow up surrounded by a certain standard, style or brands they naturally aspire to those same names when it’s their turn to buy.

Advocacy and referrals

Make no mistake, this type of customer is highly influential. It’s why a great experience with your brand is essential for creating advocates who will recommend you to their friends, talk about you at dinner parties and inspire others in their tight-knit circle to aspire to your brand.

Emotional attachment and brand affinity

We’ve worked with enough premium brands to know this: emotional connection doesn’t end at the point of purchase. If anything, that’s when it starts to matter most.

The final outcome of an interiors project is usually as a result of months spent collaborating with designers - a labour of love. So when the final piece of furniture is positioned, the dream kitchen fitted or the soft furnishings installed, that’s when it starts to become a reflection of the customers’ lifestyle and identity. And if your brand reflects their personal values - where craftsmanship, sustainability or design are important to them - it makes that emotional connection more significant.

Community and content engagement

Not every customer is going to buy from you every year, that’s the nature of premium interiors. But if you’ve built a connection with them, they’ll follow you on Instagram, they’ll read your blog and flick through your quarterly magazine when it lands on the doormat.

Unlocking emotional connection

Authenticity and brand DNA

People don’t buy the products you sell, but the stories you tell.

Storytelling can really help your customers to connect with what you do and why it matters. It could reference the story behind your materials, your founders or the homes you help bring to life.

At Bluesoup we never start with the campaign, we start with the brand. Strip the logo off most brochures and ads and you’ll struggle to tell one from the next — same tone, same claims, similar product imagery. That’s why we push hard to get the brand architecture right first. We have our own process for digging into our client’s DNA, figure out what actually makes them different and build from there. This helps us create content and tell the stories which really capture the soul of their brand.

When we worked with John Lewis of Hungerford, visuals weren’t the problem. They were premium, polished and on-trend but what set them apart was how they delivered the experience, shaped by 50 years of heritage and craft.

That’s what we were able to bring to the surface and weave through our storytelling.

Uncovering this from the ground up means the process is built on truth - emotional storytelling only works when it’s authentic.

Media neutral strategy

Sometimes the most powerful way to spark emotion and build loyalty can’t be done through digital, especially when working in high-end, high-consideration spaces like homes and interiors.

Once we’ve nailed the brand architecture - once we know who you are, what sets you apart and what your audience actually values - we work out the best way to connect. That could be a tactile piece of direct mail which makes someone feel your craftsmanship, or a store experience which brings your brand to life in the real world. We call Bluesoup a media neutral agency - we’re not wedded to any one channel. We’re focused on what works for your customer. You can’t build loyalty from shouting louder and louder online but you can build it by understanding your audience and choosing the channels which match their mindset.

Take our work for Stannah - a brand selling stairlifts for the home to a more mature audience. Working collaboratively with our strategic partners Creative Coalition, we developed an award-winning TV Campaign. As a result of the campaign, Stannah saw a 21% lift in brand perception and a 22% rise in website searches. PPC conversions were up by 26% while costs were simultaneously down almost a third, which demonstrates the impact of making genuine, emotional connections with consumers.

Challenges

Building loyalty through emotional connection often means breaking away from deeply ingrained behaviours (both in brands and in customers). In the home and interiors space, where purchases are largely infrequent, discounting might drive short-term sales but it chips away at perceived value and undermines long-term loyalty. An over-reliance on paid media only adds to the problem.

The real barriers to connection often go deeper. Psychological biases shape how people engage with brands. First impressions anchor expectations. People gravitate towards brands which confirm what they already believe. They overvalue what they already own and shy away from anything unfamiliar. That’s why understanding your customer is the key to unlocking emotional connection.

If you're in the business of high-end homes but finding that loyalty isn’t coming as easily as it should - it might be time to rethink the connection. Drop us a line if you’d like to see how our expertise could help.