Humanizing your brand for business growth
Humans
connect to, relate to, and trust other humans. If someone doesn't trust
you, would they be likely to do business with you? Of course not. This
is why providing faces and names to make the brand emotionally connected
is so critical.
Some businesses excel at tying their brand back to the people behind
it, making it relatable and memorable to the audience. But others
restrict themselves to a faceless, cold, and corporate environment where
one monotone branded voice is utilized across all types of customers.
Take a second to think about your favourite brands. Which ones are
closer to your heart and why? Brands are made by humans, so why do we
sometimes feel that the marketing messages being delivered are very
technical and robotic?
If you want success in business you should be able to create a
relevant and humanized brand to spark a connection and build a bond with
your target audience in a meaningful way.
Trend
As marketeers, you try to gain traffic, generate qualified leads,
nurture those leads into customers, retain those customers, and grow
revenue, but take yourself out of that money-making mindset for a
moment.

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Did you ever pause to think that your brand could be 10 times more
successful if you stopped pushing solely sales-heavy content and started
promoting your brand to customers so that they can relate to it?
The conviction you got to have is that humanizing your brand is
crucial for long-term business growth. To truly humanize your brand, you
need to ensure that every touchpoint you have with a lead or customer is
personalized.
Humanizing your brand is a big trend in marketing right now because
there is so much information out there. We are all so overwhelmed with
websites, email, tweets and other content that it's becoming difficult
to focus and impossible to choose.
Your visitors and users are looking for something more than a high
volume of content that's focused on pushing a product. But your
customers want value, they want answers and they want conversation and
look for trust. By humanizing your company and brands in the eyes of
customers, you can provide that spark that gets them engaged.
By going with the same old corporate 'look at me' approach, you are
giving them a great reason to ignore you and move on. Humanizing your
brand isn't something you can achieve overnight, but it does begin with
one simple premise; trust.
Customer engagement
We live in a world that's interconnected on many fronts. This has led
to the proliferation of content as well as data giving customers
accessibility to more products and services. You would think that all
this interconnectivity and information would lead them straight to
product or service sales.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy and it all starts with customer
engagement. Customer engagement is about encouraging your customers to
interact and share in the experiences you create for them as a business
and brand.
When executed well, a strong customer engagement strategy will foster
brand growth and loyalty. Businesses that focus on customer engagement
are focused on value creation, not revenue extraction - of course value
creation in the eyes of your customers will naturally extract revenue.
At the heart of everything, it's important to understand that every
customer wants to feel you understand their needs and that they can
relate to your brand. For fun consumer brands such as Coke, this may
seem an easier task than it is for brands with more conservative
attributes or those in the B2B realm.
But even these businesses can be humanized without trying to squeeze
themselves into a contrived persona that won't resonate with their
audience. Today, the goal is not grabbing attention, but earning and
holding attention on your brand for sustained sales performance.
Naturally, you want your target audience to take action in favour of
your brand. But it's the rare brand that understands how content and
story must interact to add real value versus merely sell a product or
service.
In a B2B situation, you need to recruit people who are masters in
public relations - who can connect with and forge strong bonds with
clients fast enough and keep strengthening it.
Some people have it naturally but some don't - don't you have people
falling into both categories? Have you ever thought about it seriously?
Have you quantified the lost business opportunity for not having the
right people in your service organization?
Align your business model
Think about your business model and how you can best service
customers. When do customers need you? What hours do you need to be
available to them?
The customer experience you provide is key because it gives
marketeers and business owners a way to increase satisfaction, loyalty
and advocacy. Social media is no longer a trend or a phenomenon - we've
all acknowledged it's a part of our everyday lives now. To that end, any
good marketeer should see this as an opportunity to engage his audience
and build a community.
However, it's not enough to simply post status updates and photos on
social media.
To keep your audience connected, it's about valuable content and
creating a shared experience that keeps them interacting with you.
Regardless of the long-term customer engagement model you build,
starting small can go a long way. Ultimately, whatever customer
experience strategies you employ, be consistent - think about the brand
messaging you employ, your customers' end-to-end experience from their
very first interaction and the various departments these customers will
move through. Give them a consistent and exceptional experience and
you'll be rewarded with their trust and loyalty. |