It’s 2017: Position Your Brand With Emotional Equity

Today, Cheryl Hosmer gets emotional about your brand. Read on …

Update your brand by investing in its emotional equity. You’ve got tons of equity prebuilt into it already. Sweat equity. Financial equity. Social equity. Level up. It’s a brave new world out there and The Mad House has got the strategies and design know-how to help you explore it, conquer the monsters and keep your brand integrated and a consistent voice in the marketplace.

Position yourself deeply.

You’ve got your logo, your tagline, your go-to standards and your customer promises. But so does your competition. You don’t set yourself up to compete. You position your brand so it doesn’t have to compete. It’s the Karate Kid method–learn to fight so you don’t have to fight. Attach yourself emotionally to your customers by getting them in the place they care: what your brand adds to their lives. Get them to think about you. Think community service, memorable graphics and consumer lifestyle.

Who are you to your customers?

When they need your brand, can they smell it, taste it, feel it, desire it? It all builds emotional equity. It’s like attachment parenting. Keep your customers close and socially accessible so they will always look for you first.

Keep it simple.

Emotions are complex. Keep your message on point, clear, without ambiguity. Remember human nature. When you want something you figure out the easiest road to get it. We do that work for you so you can concentrate on getting your message, your brand, embedded into the hearts and minds of your customers.

Don’t keep your instincts in check. Let us help you explore your brand’s emotional equity. Level up. Dare to be provocative, mindful and excited about your brand’s future.

3 Essential Branding Tips For Your Business

Neal Litherland has 3 quick tips for branding your business. Read on…

Building a brand is hard, especially in a marketplace where everyone is trying to get noticed. With that kind of fierce competition, it’s important to avoid even the smallest of missteps when it comes to your branding decisions. If you’re looking for some stepping-stones to get you across the river, and into your audience’s face, though, here are three you should consider.

3 Essential Branding Tips For Your Business

Tip #1: Craft The Impression You Want Your Customers To Have

The most important part of branding is deciding how you want to be viewed by your customers. Ask what qualities you want to be associated with you. Do you want to be seen as adventurous? Reliable? Inexpensive? Pick what you want to be associated with, and then come up with a strategy to craft that image.

Tip #2: Bring Your Online and Offline Personas Into Harmony

Every business is online these days. We have websites, blogs, video channels, and dozens of social media pages. The important thing we have to remember is that who we are offline, and who we are online, need to be the same person in a branding sense. Customers who discover you online like the consistency of your in-person business feeling the same. The same is true of customers who find you in-person, and then interact with your company online.

Tip #3: Assume That Everything You Say, Or Do, Will Be On The Record

We live in the digital age, and that means everything we say or do is recorded somewhere. Every social media post, every video, and every email is on the record. So you need to treat your business the same way professional wrestlers used to act; if there’s an audience, you’re in persona. Keep your game face on all the time, and your brand will never suffer.

For more solid branding advice, all you have to do is contact us today!

 

 

Image: Vilmos Heim

Emotional Branding: What It Is and Why Your Business Needs It

MAD Contibutor-Freak Martina writes in this week reminding us of the value of emotional branding.

Every business obviously loves a loyal customer because that person will regularly buy their products, tell their friends and family about the brand, and keep up with new releases. You’ve probably seen on the news stories of people camping outside stores in order to be one of the first to get their hands on a new product. They are passionate about the brand and its products. This is a sign of emotional branding.

When a customer begins to feel a deeper connection to your brand rather than buying your products just because it’s the cheapest option, then emotional branding has occurred. If you learn about emotional branding and intentionally implement emotional branding strategies, then you will find more people becoming loyal fans of your brand.

More than Branding

Emotional branding goes a step further than branding. It goes beyond the designs, logos, and missions to trigger a certain emotional response in the customer. There are 16 emotional “hot buttons” you can aim to trigger in your consumerbase:

• Family values
• Better than you
• Self-achievement
• Desire for control
• Excitement of discovery
• Desire to belong
• Fun
• Revaluing
• Not enough time
• Desire to have the best
• Sex, love, romance
• Intelligence
• Reinventing oneself
• Nurturing response
• Wish-fulfillment
• Power, dominance, and influence

Speak to that emotional trigger in all of your content and communication with customers. It will reinforce the emotional need, encouraging customers to feel connected to your brand. They will feel like you understand them and are the best company to fulfill their needs.

Why Emotional Branding Is Important

Why should you care about emotional branding? Many consumers identify themselves with the brands they use. As pointed out by the marketing manager of Smirnoff Vodka, Nyimpini Mabunda, “Customers define themselves through brands they use. The branded clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the drinks they consume, university they attended, favorite spots to hang out, and so on.”

If you want to be the brand they choose, you’re gonna have to give them a good reason to. Why would your target audience choose you over competitors? What emotional needs do they have? Think about which of the 16 emotional hot buttons will work best on your customers and then use it in your branding and marketing campaigns. Remember that it must speak to a core need of theirs or it won’t work.

An emotional bond created with a brand is similar to a bond between humans. Once a customer has an emotional bond with a company, it will be very difficult to break that bond. It would not be easy for that customer to switch brands.

Conclusion

Emotional branding involves creating an emotional connection with customers based on a core need of theirs. The goal is to create a certain feeling in your customers and earn their loyalty to your brand. Once a customer becomes passionate about your brand, he’ll be a customer for life.

If you care about building lasting bonds with your customers, contact us for help with your branding. We are committed to helping businesses build brands that people love.