A brand study by the Sydney Digital agency COG Digital. Introduction Many brands have understood the power of emotion and take full advantage of it. Do you want to be one of them? The truth is, not many businesses understand that ‘brand’ is a key component to the success of their business. Your business can […]
Introduction
Many brands have understood the power of emotion and take full advantage of it.
Do you want to be one of them?
The truth is, not many businesses understand that ‘brand’ is a key component to the success of their business.
Your business can develop emotional branding that results in memorable experiences that help in forming the very fabric of your corporate identity.
The information your business has captured to date about your customers can assist in unlocking their emotions and continue in delivering powerful outcomes.
So to grab a quick snapshot, the idea is to connect your brand to your business so your customers remain loyal. Why loyalty is important shouldn’t have to be explained, though simply it ensures return visitation to the business requiring little or no dollar investment.
Wouldn’t that be nice – once a customer always a customer.
That’s the key to growth we know, but how do we make it work? Well, relationships with an emotional dimension are more likely to resist the temptation to be persuaded to change preference to another option that has been presented using price or convenience as a point of difference.
Losing customers to a cheaper offer or a more convenient one doesn’t mean you should change the business positioning, it simply means that more focus is needed on the brand, its values and how well it communicates this.
Customers define themselves through brands they use, so knowing this should make it simple to have business build in similar values to its brand based on the customers it wants to align with, right?
Well, you’d be surprised how may businesses don’t do this.
Many brands COG Digital have worked on, with, or along side aren’t even aware that their business has a brand, and why it should be intimately connected to their business… I know right?!
COG Digital is a Sydney branding agency that know there are clear distinguishable emotional characteristics that are clear in brands, though it’s not so clear for small to medium sized businesses. Though it should be, and here’s why.
Welcome to Harnessing Emotion to Deliver Powerful Business Outcomes via emotional branding.
How Do You Connect Brand To Business
So, how do you connect brand to business, and more so how do you Harness Emotion To Deliver Powerful Business Outcomes?
There needs to be a clear line to showing that your business is putting customers first. To demonstrate that you’re putting your customers ahead of all other considerations is best done via the brand and how it communicates to said customers.
First up you need to decide which emotion you want to target in your audience (We highlighted this in the chapter above). This should be dictated by a couple of key things. Primarily it should be your products and services and how they are served to your customers, and secondarily it should be the culture of the business and what is the natural fit for the position it takes in the market. Understanding and defining your target audience’s core emotional need is the most important aspect of emotional branding.
It is vital to communicate this insight through all your internal and external communications. It’s what should underpin the brand voice and resonate though all brand touchpoints.
There needs to be a company mandate to follow through multiple business cycles in the pursuit of encouraging customers to reach the desired emotionally bonded state. That is;
“I pledge allegiance to this brand and will choose their product over any others”.
At the core of this company mandate is the undeniably important task of considering your customers’ needs – what they want, need and aspire to. Once a business creates consistent communications centred on customers’ emotional needs the conversation between brand and consumer flow – thus the human to brand relationship is born.
Every point of contact should reflect and reinforce the message that the brand is responding to its customers’ emotional needs.
When people form an emotional attachment to a brand the strength of that bond is not dissimilar to an attachment to another person. It becomes hard for that person to separate themselves from one brand and begin a new relationship with another.
Emotional branding can only be achieved by putting what customers deem most important ahead of everything else.
If your brand can refine the skill of establishing a relationship with your customers on this emotional level, then you can build them into the forecasted future success of the business.
COG Digital understand that actually achieving this task is complex, and it’s why we’re in business. We can’t ever pretend that a white paper such as this will supply all the specific tasks in connecting brand to business via emotion branding.
Though we can inspire you to take action and attempt to influence your company into becoming a more sophisticated and aware entity that performs better than your competitors.
Basic Steps In Harnessing The Power Of Emotional Branding
To Harness Emotion And Deliver Powerful Business Outcomes via emotional branding a business can follow these steps.
STEP 1
Capture attention Nurture interest in your brand and your target audience.
STEP 2
Encourage purchases Engage with your audience and encourage them to consider your business and its value set. Understand their emotions to assist in driving their everyday decisions.
STEP 3
Develop Relationships Reassure your customers that by choosing you they made the best decision on the day.
STEP 4
Develop customer loyalty Turning a one-off purchase into a regular purchase helps build brand loyalty and increases the lifetime value of that customer to your business. This stage is about adding customer incentives or loyalty offers, and up-selling/cross-selling your products to existing customers.
STEP 5
Integrate Your brand Into Your Customers Life Develop a more meaningful long term relationship with your customers.
STEP 6
Harness Word of Mouth Referrals Celebrate loyal customers who provide free leads and new audiences. Invest in this and this loyalty, it’s a primary powerful business outcomes. Loyal customers have positive memories of your brand experiences, and want to share them with their friends and family.
This is hard fought and won.
Conclusion
Emotional connections happen because we’re human, and we’re built for these connections, wired for them, and rely on them to live a rich, meaningful life.
Despite our significant advances in science and technology, human emotion (mainly our subconscious) will always be core to our DNA. Brands that craft an experience that sets them apart from their competition are awesome to watch.
When you are part of celebrating the success of a brand that has its customers drive an extra 10 why for the coffee, pay a premium for the jacket or stand in line for an hour for the ticket – it’s a thrill.
Marketing by appealing to raw and genuine human emotion is essential, smart, and pays off.
If you believe in the passion you have for branding is a beautiful thing and desperately want your business to have the ability to created a force of attraction, an energy that influences people and their daily actions – then COG Digital wants to work with you.
Claim Your Free 30-Minute Briefing Session!
Getting the stuff in this report right is the only way to start Harnessing Emotion to Deliver Powerful Business Outcomes.
If you’re serious about dominating your market and maximizing — down to the last dollar — your branding ROI, you must address the elements within report.
We’ve given you what you need to get started. But if you have any questions, or would like our help on implementing any of the theory within, get in touch today. Even better, for a limited time we’re offering you a 30-minute strategy session where we’ll discuss your business goals and challenges.
Please note this is not a sales call. You will be speaking with one of our highly experienced brand experts, not a salesman.
But if you are ready to connect your brand to your business and push your company performance call now. (02) 9523 6007
By the way we recommend you book quickly. COG Digital Strategists only have a limited number of slots available for free sessions each month and they’re filling up fast.
Our Sydney Branding Agency has two primary functions. The first is to provide a dynamic consulting service to Australian small businesses, which includes the transfer of knowledge, advice and strategic processes that are purposefully built to make them more profitable, sustainable and enjoyable.
The COG Branding structure ensures we are providing brand, marketing and technology solutions for Australian small businesses that are underpinned by true value. Our approach is in large part due to the robust structure of our broader business model. It’s COG Branding’s assignment to continually reinforce and assist Australian small businesses in becoming more innovative, competitive and affluent.
Our purpose is to create more time for business owners, and to nurture opportunities through to success. Over time it’s become increasingly clear that our skill is in being able to provide value when others are not able – and this continues to remain a core part of the COG Branding purpose.
COG Branding leads as a technology and small business consultancy and operates as a brand and marketing agency. Our team has a high digital literacy ensuring the solutions and services we supply small businesses and brands are the most appropriate for the business, the most innovative and commercially viable.
COG Branding is human first. Great technology and software requires smart humans to steer and manage how they are implemented. Our delivery of digital solutions have smart people at the centre, orchestrating customised strategies that use a variety of applications to obtain efficiency and operate successfully for Australian small businesses. We offer both packaged products and customised services – because not all of our clients’ businesses are the same.
