What is Brand Experience?
Research has shown that there are five core indicators of brand experience that can directly affect customer loyalty, as shown by the Journal of Marketing:
THINK – how well do you communicate the brand’s purpose?
FEEL – what type of emotional impact does your brand have on consumers?
SENSE – which of the 5 senses is your brand using to really engage with customers?
DO - how do you influence behaviors and provide solutions to problems for consumers?
CONNECT– to what extent does your brand create sense of belonging for customers?
Successful brands need to consider more than just the isolated customer experience through analyzing the overall brand experience, which engages customers at a deeper level thereby developing more trust and creating a better connection with customers.
Marketing efforts are often split between different agencies, where they each focus on one of these core areas, rather than pulling all elements together and creating both alignment and fluidity in the customer experience and the brand’s approach, and results in a lack of real connection with customers or a solid understanding their needs.
The role of marketing within businesses has been changing over time, becoming more of an experiential approach, rather than a disjointed collaboration with several agencies. Having a single point of contact within a business to manage this and bring all elements of the customer experience together as part of a strategy provides a far more holistic approach to understanding the changing face of customer’s needs.
The pace of today’s marketing environment is becoming increasingly faster and established brands that have been around for a while have benefitted from being able to build a history of heritage in an uncluttered environment, which new brands and products don’t get the benefit of in today’s market place. For example, really establishing themselves in the pre digital decades.
With the pace of lift today, customers are more demanding and require instant response to their needs, and are equally not prepared to pay a premium for something they now consider normal.
An integrated marketing approach enables a more spontaneous approach which partners with consumers who have a need to feel heard, seen and understood. They want to feel that their needs are being met by you, the brand.
The experiential approach then, becomes an essential part of the marketing mix, creating “moments that matter” for customers by proactively responding to all 5 core brand indicators.
This requires brands to be authentic and real, to really be able to relate to their customers and respond to their changing needs. Brands need to fit into consumers lives and not the other way around, as historically they have done. Customer centricity is key to the world we know today and for the future.
The enormous choice that consumers have at their fingertips now mean that different brands fulfill different needs at different times. Understanding the moments that matter for your brand/product is key to remaining relevant and successful. Your brand must play an organic role in your customer’s daily lives.
Key Tips in creating a brand experience :
Embrace technology driven data to get a real understanding of where those moments that matter lie for your brands and your products.
Consistency is key, particularly in a crowded market place.
Be ethical, don’t over price.
Focus on establishing trust.
Find a place in your customer’s every day repertoire of product choice.
Be likeable to customers in your marketing efforts by really connecting with them through genuine affinity and understanding.
