You will hear us (that is, us here at ELK Marketing) talk about “a connection” or a “human connection” or an “emotional connection” frequently. What do we mean by this? To clarify, let’s look at a very brief history of business and marketing:-
Back in ancient times (i.e. before the internet) business was conducted person to person. Most items and services were traded locally. Your market was, quite literally, the people on your door step. You can clearly see the disadvantages with this: less potential customers, slower communications between you and those customers, less demand for your service or product, long working hours etc.
Then along came telephones. And mobiles. And the internet. And Mark Zuckerberg. Business was never to be the same again: now, suddenly, we can reach a world wide audience, communicate in real time with our customers without leaving our house (or indeed, our beds) and we can sell our products or services on a massive scale, even while we sleep.
Along with all this opportunity, however, comes a problem: your customers now have choice, and plenty of it. Now it’s not a case of seeking out who is local; your customers can choose from anyone in the world. Hence why branding and marketing for any kind of business is so important. But it’s not JUST about looking different. Not just about standing out from the crowd of your competitors. Just because your branding is bright pink when all your competitors use beige, doesn’t mean that your potential customers will buy from you.
Branding and marketing is far more complex than that. You see, just like ancient times, we still want to buy products and services from PEOPLE. And most importantly, we want to buy from people we feel we know and can trust. Does this mean you need to put a mug shot of yourself on all your products and website? Not necessarily. Sometimes, a personable human being is approprtiate for the brand (Aunt Bessy’s Yorkshire Puddings anyone?) but sometimes we need a company ‘front’ devoid of an individual person. In this case, the trick is to cleverly interweve a ‘human’ or ’emotional’ conection into your company and it’s branding/marketing.
This gives your business a persona all of it’s own. You can craft your business personality to fit perfectly with your customers, thus gaining their trust and ensuring brand loyalty. The most simple way of doing this is to look at what your company is selling, and find the emotional benefits, not just the functional. It is also worth noting that brands who demonstrate strong emotional benefits usually can charge a premium over those who rely only on functional benefits.
Think about Coca Cola as a brand: it’s functional benefits are about being refreshing and thirst quenching, but the brand never talks about those. Think about every coke advert you have ever seen. Coke is all about opening happiness. The brand has been carefully built to be all about celebrating life, those special occasions that create strong, powerful and emotional memories…with a coke in your hand. This is pure emotional benefit.
If you leave this article with nothing else, remember:
“People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.”
Here at ELK, we pride ourselves on our creative hearts and businees heads. Get in touch so we can help you build strong emotional ties into your branding and marketing today!
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