May 31, 2023
Your company’s marketing team wants to connect with your customers, but you haven’t figured out the best way, yet. Have you delved into creating a memorable brand experience? It’s the most important aspect of marketing, yet many companies overlook it.
What Is a Brand Experience?
When you stop and think about how many businesses – online and physical – are out there, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Imagine how a consumer feels. The company that beats the competition does more than provide great products and exceptional customer service, they’re delivering a brand experience like no other. Consumers who have a positive experience with a company are 140% more likely to keep spending money there.
A brand experience is how a consumer sees, interacts, and spends time with your company. It’s all about touchpoints and starts with the moment that a consumer enters your website. If the website is hard to navigate, why would they return? If they tried to make a purchase and couldn’t complete the transaction because of a broken link or button, you’ve lost the sale and driven them away.
What Does It Take to Create a Memorable Brand Experience?
You need to make sure every touchpoint within the funnel is positive. Consumers need to be:
- Aware of your brand
- Given reasons to consider your brand
- Convinced why they need to choose your brand
- Driven to make a purchase
- Given reasons to become a loyal customer
- Satisfied enough that they’ll advocate for your brand
If they’re not having a positive experience in all areas, they’re not going to return for more. Plus, they may tell their friends all about what you did wrong and why. Negative word-of-mouth advertising or negative reviews can destroy your business.
How do you ensure that the brand experience is positive and memorable?
- Be Consistent
Make sure the brand experience is consistent throughout. Consistency needs to cover how your brand looks on different channels and how the experience is carried out from start to finish. Much of this will come down to what your brand offers, but it has to be consistent no matter if you’re selling a new hot sauce or providing plumbing services in your area.
Suppose you chose ocean colors for your plumbing service’s website because you deal with water every day. If you turn around and use pastels on your social media platforms, it’s going to seem odd to your consumers. They may wonder if they’re on the right page or if they found a similarly named business.
Your website has an email address for questions or to schedule services. If you never check that email, don’t include it as an option. It’s frustrating for the consumer who is waiting for a response and never gets one.
By being consistent, consumers know they can trust you and they’ll feel like you care. That’s a big part of building a healthy relationship with your customers.
- Personalize the Experience
Make every experience a consumer has with your brand one that is personal. If you connect on a personal level, you’re going to create a memorable touchpoint. How do you personalize the experience? One of the best ways is to read and take time to comprehend what’s being said.
For example, your brand’s social media accounts have many comments. You could use those comments to personalize experiences for people. Someone mentions wishing they could order more often, but it’s too expensive. You could turn that into an offer where repeat customers get a 20% discount on subscription purchases.
Some of the personalization is easily taken from customer information. Use a first name or nickname if you know one. If you have a client from Ohio, you could personalize the email to include a statement about the current weather in Ohio. It shows you’ve taken the time to get to know more about your client, which shows they matter to you.
- Create a Story That Showcases Your Brand
What story are you telling that shows off your brand in the best possible light? Stories help you connect with consumers in personable, memorable ways. An emotional approach helps consumers get to know what makes your company tick, from values to interests.
Remember that you can’t please everyone with your story. What you want is to please the majority. If there are people who are against some of your values, that’s on them.
One brand that comes to mind right now is Dove with its new commercial on beauty. Dove has had some missteps in the past, but the company works hard to say that every person is beautiful in their own way. The recent ad showcases the story of a young girl who developed an eating order while trying to meet others’ ideals of what beauty is. Grab the tissues before watching that video.
When you reach consumers on an emotional level, they’re not going to forget your brand. They’re going to talk about how it made them feel and encourage their friends to check your brand out.
- Keep Surprising People
You want to keep surprising consumers but do so carefully as you don’t want to come off as insensitive or off-brand. You’ve probably heard of Bud Light’s recent marketing campaign. It was meant to be inclusive, but some of their loyal customers became offended and boycotted them. This left them in a tough situation as apologizing could exclude the new market and wasn’t a guarantee that long-time customers would be appeased either.
Most people know of the pet food and supplies retailer Chewy.com. This company has mastered surprises and does so every day. One of the many surprises was shown on their Facebook page. Someone shared a photo of their cat on a Chewy box, so Chewy had an artist turn that photo into a piece of art that was sent to the customer.
Make sure you’ve considered both sides of any surprises you think up. How will all ages and genders feel? Will the surprise be taken in the same way you intended or is there room for misunderstanding? When a surprise is done well, it will impress and gain very positive traction.
Don’t Forget to Constantly Assess and Change Your Brand Experience
Even the most successful brand experience can become stale and ineffective. Make sure you’re constantly going over your brand’s marketing plan, enacting changes when necessary, and reading the audience.
Go through social media shares and comments. What has made consumers the happiest and what was a miss? Where there are issues, take time to correct them. Send out surveys and ask for feedback to get more insight into what you’re doing well, where consumers want to see you improve, and what changes they’d love to see with your brand.
Ultimately, the goal is to create an experience that consumers find meaningful and that creates lasting memories. When you hit both of these markers, you’ve created a memorable brand experience.
Know Your Limits
What if you don’t have a strong marketing team or can’t afford a full marketing department? That doesn’t mean you have to give up on building a strong brand. Hire an experiential marketing agency that specializes in storytelling and memorable brand experiences.
Factory 360 is a one-stop marketing specialist with expertise in brand building. We specialize in all areas of content, digital, experiential, and social media marketing. Whether your brand wants to surprise consumers with a PR stunt or you want a comprehensive branding plan laid out, we can help. All it takes is a call to share your brand’s visions, goals, and current marketing plan. We’ll help you build from there.
