“A Brand is not a product or a promise or a feeling. It’s the sum of all the experiences you have with a company.” – Amir Kassaei.
Indeed, brands can be described as the result of a story unravelling at every touchpoint along your customer journey. It is no more just about a creative name or a fabulous logo, but it is the relationship you build between your customer and you.
Brands align your customer’s expectations with your promise.
So why is a brand so important on an emotional level?
Much like culture, brands are shared patterns of behaviours and interactions. Brands create a group identity nurtured by habitual patterns that are unique to the group.
People develop an affinity for familiarity. We are often drawn towards brands that offer products and services relevant to our needs and desires.
Some brands instil nostalgia while others share a common story with us.
(Image source: Yash Dhongade from Pexels)
Customers often tend to stay with a particular brand for years for many reasons. Needless to say, this makes it quite challenging to grab their attention towards what you have to offer.
Moreover, people today are spoilt for choices. When it comes to picking a product that really sparks their interest, the internet is flooded with countless options for them.
How might you as a brand stand out in the sea of overwhelming possibilities and competition so customers can reach out to you?
That’s where emotions take centre stage.
Emotional connection is a crucial driver why customers insist upon a particular brand over others.
In the evolution of a brand, customers first get to know a brand – they are aware of it. Then there’s brand loyalty, where customers prefer a particular brand over others.
Finally, there’s brand affinity where customers love the brand and spread the word about it within their network.
Business relations become even stronger when you invoke an affinity among your customers.
To build a strong brand affinity, you need to tap into the emotions of the customer. When companies connect with the emotions of their customers, the pay-off can be tremendous.
Identify and connect with your customers’ emotions.
As straightforward as it may sound, identifying and building emotional connections with your customers involves a lot of trial-and-error and a certain amount of seasoned, informed guesswork.
In a global market with brands flooding search results, we have to consider specific motivators that spark a connection with the customer. It could be familiarity or the sustainability of the products of the brand. Some customers may prefer local to global brands to promote local businesses; others look for fast and reliable delivery.
In such a highly competitive environment, pivoting your brand to stand out from the others can be challenging. To remedy this, it can be helpful to analyse your target customers’ ‘emotional motivators’ to maximise your brand advantage.
Identify your customers’ “emotional motivators”
Here’s a comprehensive three-step guide you can use to identify what motivates your customers emotionally when engaging with your brand.
Let’s begin by gathering customer insights through analytical data and market research. This exercise should give us a descriptive framework of what motivates our customers – sustainability, brand ethics, comfort, ease of use, fast delivery, local vs global brand, customer service, and so on.
Next, by grouping the high-valued customers, we analyse which of the identified motivators are most important and relevant and specific to them. Studying behavioural patterns and customer feedback from previous engagements with your brand can be a good place to begin. Use this analysis to get a head start toward classifying the top key motivators which resonate with your brand.
Once you’ve identified these top motivators, use them as a guide to map out the top emotions you need to focus on. These are the emotions you need to connect with. Use them as the fundamental emotional access points to build, grow and strengthen your most valuable customer segments.
Finally, bring the emotional connection into your company’s culture.
The company’s commitment to emotional branding needs to be a part of its culture to represent the brand genuinely. Authenticity has always been a critical factor in building genuine customer relationships that last.
An emotional connection delivered in a powerful story can be a surprisingly valuable lever of your brand growth. It elevates brand affinity, thereby promoting brand loyalty.
At izz.ai, we consider your brand as our own. Most of all, we know just how much its success means to you.
So, drop us a line at hello@izz.ai and let’s build up your brand together.
Coming up next: Bring your brand closer to people by building sustainable relationships
