How to sell the "why" of your brand
Why Your “Why” is Your Brand’s Best Asset
In 2009, Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” lit a fire in leaders as he helped them understand the importance of knowing the “why” of their brand and how to clearly communicate it. Since then, there has been a stronger awareness around why it’s so important for you to understand your brand’s mission, vision, and purpose long before you begin developing messaging, content, or any other marketing activity.
However, so many companies still struggle with this crucial piece. The trouble often lies in a lack of clarity of these core things, and that will magnify and multiply in all of a company’s communication with consumers. Knowing your “why” will (and should!) dictate how you sell your brand to your audience.
The Power of Emotion in the Marketplace
Fact: Humans are emotional beings. People make decisions based on how a product or service is likely going to make them feel. As the saying goes, people buy the destination, not the plane that takes them there. In other words, most people will make a decision on emotional benefits first and then justify their purchase with functional benefits later on. That’s why great brands succeed by creating emotional, intimate connections to their customers.
Your “why” is the emotional piece of your brand; they are the values that make what you’re offering different than the competition and what connects your customers to your brand. And let’s face it - in today’s challenging social media climate, it’s even more of a challenge to stand out among all the noise. That’s why it’s crucial now more than ever to communicate your “why” to establish your authenticity in what you stand for as a brand. This is going to allow you to prioritize long-term customer relationships instead of short-term sales that were achieved through discounts and gimmicks. Successful brands develop relationships with customers who are emotionally connected to the very foundation of the brand.
That’s why no matter how big or successful the company, one of the first things I do when I’m meeting with a new client is take a look at their brand platform. The first steps or components of a brand platform is what I call the “Value Systems” and “Brand Anchor” of the company. These two components are the foundation from which all future sales and marketing efforts are built.
For example, take a look at Nike. Not one company is as disciplined at linking their why to their product than Nike. Nike’s competitors try to beat them on the basis of innovation and style, but innovation and style isn’t the anchor of Nike’s brand. What connects Nike to the consumer is how they influence their relationship by creating innovative brand experiences that inspire everybody to feel like they could be a professional athlete. Any type of advancement in technology or brand communication from Nike is always tied back to aspiration, achievement and focus. Nike tells us more about innovation, style, story and experience through the emotional connection of being an athlete than it ever does telling us how to perform better in athletics.
How to Make That Connection
Building a brand that connects to the consumer emotionally requires developing a personal dialogue with customers on the issues that are most meaningful to them. Ignore the surface, temporary issues that you think might get likes and shares. Those issues will also only get your short-term attention. The days of going viral and thinking that will somehow increase sales are behind us!
Instead, brands need to form strong customer bonds to develop a lasting heart connection, and only content that resonates with your audience on an emotional level is going to do that. And where does this content spring from? You guessed it: Your brand’s “why.”
There are simple things you can do to make sure you are creating that emotional connection with your customers:
1. Clarify Your Why
If it’s been awhile since you revisited the why of your brand, or if you never intentionally created one in the first place, now is the perfect time to get started! Whether you’re a small company just getting started or you’re an established enterprise, simply writing down who you help and how you help them can be a powerful exercise in transforming your content into messaging that connects.
2. Think Marathon, Not Sprint
Resist the temptation to get sucked into transactional sales that make you feel successful in that moment. Your main objective should be to maximize the return on each individual transaction. Focus your energy on the lifetime value of your brand and be willing to be patient in attracting and engaging your customer for the right reasons. Staying focused on the long term relationship will be particularly important as we may be approaching a recessionary climate or slow business cycle.
3. Take it One at a Time
Be willing to develop relationships one at a time even in a business where you may have thousands of customers a month. Be willing to invest in team members who can provide immediate connection as your company’s front line. During challenging times, great brands tend to win out over competitors because they’re always engaged in relationship-building. These companies are more likely to reward existing customers and less likely to engage in transaction-oriented introductory rates for new customers. They are also more likely to provide value-added services not in the hopes of raising revenue direction from the service, but because they know it will form a more valuable relationship for the future.
In Conclusion
Great brands are brands that are always engaged in building relationships with their customers. Brands that seek long term loyalty, retention, and satisfaction will generate a continuing revenue stream from existing customers. When we start with our brand’s “why” and communicate it effectively to our audience, we can develop emotional brand building that will accomplish all of this while encouraging connection and intimacy with our customers. Customers become loyal customers when they feel emotionally connected to the brand and are invested in the emotional costs involved in trying to switch to a competitor. When a customer identifies with a brand’s product or service, they are much more likely to encourage other people to switch to the brand they love, becoming your best brand ambassador ever.
