Business today generally spend a lot of time and money in the brand building which in a true sense is a huge cost and according to me is not completely justified. In today’s world, it is the emotions which sell a product or service, not ads. If the business doesn’t connect with the prospective customer at an emotional level, then the probability of sales reduces drastically.
According to research published in the Harward Business Review:
“Brands put billions into boosting awareness, satisfaction, and loyalty, but they often overlook the most powerful driver of customer value: emotional connection.
Our research involving hundreds of brands across dozens of categories shows that consumers who are emotionally connected with a brand are anywhere from 25% to 100% more valuable in terms of revenue and profitability than those who are “merely” highly satisfied with it…”
We generally measure customer satisfaction or net promoter score and focus our efforts on increasing these numbers which in my opinion is a waste of time and effort. Rather, we should focus on emotional connections with customers making them feel that we are always there for them. We should learn from our past for better customer experience.
How do you emotionally connect with customers?
Only you can have the answer to this question for your business. Find that one thing which will help you make that connect and then focus on it to build an emotional bond.
A study by UK Nielson states that referrals are the most cost effective way to get business and it is quite evident what we should focus on. If you serve your existing customers better and make sure they are emotionally connected, then you are surely going to get long term benefits from it.
Some of the things which help create emotional connect are
STORIES, your brand should have a story and it surely sells
Storytelling is something which helps you connect with people much faster and has a long lasting impact. If you go back to history to a certain time all the education was passed from one generation to another in the form of stories and everyone used to remember it. There were no books and that still, holds true if you sell a story you don’t need anything else.
What people like to hear is our stories, it doesn’t matter whether it is a success or failure, but the impact that it can have on one’s life is great.
I will share a small story, I was diagnosed with diabetes and then I started working out lost30 Kg’s in 6 months and the continued my routine and achieved a transformation in my life and got myself cured and if I say that I will start marketing a cycling brand with this story will it work? Think.
People don’t trust the branded content all they want are real stories. A branded content doesn’t offer anything valuable and exciting.
Currently, people who do content marketing write a lot about “GYAN” thinking that it is what people want to listen, but we make a mistake at a point when we just start repeating what others are saying and do not engage customers. Storytelling helps you quickly connect with prospects and hence drive your business.
Be an exciting brand
People in today’s time always look for something interesting, adventure and that’s what we should offer. We should have an element of surprise and should be lively in everything we do.
If I ask you about the brand Wildcraft how will you describe them and will you buy from them?
People generally don’t connect with a brand that is dull. Let’s take an example If you go to a website of a brand and find it dull how do you feel? In general, people will not explore much and switch to any other website which is more interactive and hence will end up making a purchase.
There is always a face behind a brand and that face should be interesting. Let’s take the example of the apple. Now Steve Jobs was an interesting personality and hence he created an interesting brand that now is one of the best in the world. They are not boring and they always do a lot of interesting stuff.
Just be curious.
Do something interesting that your competitors are not doing, some ideas will sound silly but its ok to go out there and try it.
We used to drop visiting cards at places, stick cartoon stickers about my brand at places where we used to visit in order to create that curiosity among people. We also started video blogging instead of content as in today’s time everyone is doing that.
The videos were interesting solutions to a lot of the problem people phase in a day to day life and hence it garnered a lot of views and even became viral.
We ran a testimonial video as ads on the Facebook brand page and immediately got 3 customer leads within 20 min of posting it.
We also started using Quora which was not used by my competitors and hence garner awareness for the business.
There are other platforms like snap chat, Instagram, Buzzfeed, medium, etc., which have an audience of their own and can be leveraged to create an emotional connect with the brand.
Use a lot of Images
“A picture speaks a thousand words”
Those images make their content super-cool. And their articles are far from boring because of this.
Ask yourself what do you majorly see and understand when you read a long post on a topic. The answer has to be imaged, infographics etc.
Human touch to a brand and hence every brand needs a Face people can associate with
Imagine your request to see a house do multiple hops and then you are conveyed that people will get back to you versus A person taking your call and immediately accompanying you to the house. Which one is better.
I think it’s the latter. Isn’t it?
It becomes annoying if we don’t get a person to talk to before trying the product or service. It can differ from companies to companies, but it holds true for the majority.
Today, it’s all about Engagement with customers and does a consultative selling which solves all the problems of the customers.
To go shopping with people you need to become their friends and once you are, your opinion matters and influences the purchase.
People should have a sense that they have a person sitting somewhere who can help him out if he is stuck anywhere while using the product and that helps a lot. Here people need immediate gratification and this what helps them to make a decision.
I am not saying that founders should be the face of the company, it can even be a level 1 employee.
We started putting photos on live chat on our website to make sure that people on the other side know who they are talking to and this greatly increased out engagement and the satisfaction scores spiked up immediately.
As long as people can trust you, you’ll have a better chance of connecting with them.
Deepak Kanakraju is a well-known digital marketer and has developed a brand for himself on digitaldeepak.com.
Now there is a face behind the brand and people trust and follow him and his opinion. People know that whatever he says will hold value and hence this trust can help a great way in building your business. That’s the power of putting a face behind your brand. It makes it easier to connect with prospects emotionally. By emotional connecting with prospects and customers, sales will increase.
Hence we should always try and create that bond with our customers to reap great benefits and create a great business and brand.
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