Building Brand Value is Really About What Sticks.
How do you stay connected? How do you really break through the noise? The associations we have and how we make them come to us emotionally and personally through binding experiences that connect us. In this overwhelming world of social media from all corners of the universe, unwanted digital blasts and podcasts that provide insightful content, we are saturated with information, but what keeps us truly connected?
How Do Brands Create Value?
Find stories that connect with your audience because it’s what matters for them. A company’s brand focus should be on the core or essence of value for them, not on the products or services the company or organization is promoting. It’s about what builds trust, value, and meaning for the customer over time. The key question organizations need to ask over and over is, what do customers think?
When Wells Fargo made a strategic business decision to drop all consumer lines of credit, what would the customers think?
Listen to the Customer or Pay the Price.
When Wells Fargo made a strategic business decision to drop all consumer lines of credit, even if they were not in use, it struck me as extremely odd. What would the customers (including me think?). It became quite clear. Their customers went ballistic and called, emailed, complained right up to the day they were intending to implement this change. What happened instead was a polite email to thousands of customers saying “after careful consideration and feedback from our customers we have decided to rescind our plan to cancel personal lines of credit.”
And, remember you’re not the only voice out there. Prospects and customers are hearing a cacophony of voices, offers and valuable content from others. For example, during the time Wells Fargo was planning its drop of personal credit lines, several other banks saw an opportunity and offered credit lines directly poaching from Wells Fargo.
Insights into What Matters for Your Audience.
How does your organization stand out, stay relevant, and be heard? It’s all about the real value and that comes from knowing your customers and audience, and what matters to them?
Interviews, surveys, and even casual conversations with customers or other audiences you most want to influence give you massive insights into what they value. This is essential — it’s where brand connection and loyalty all begin. It’s not about your products or services. It’s about how those services are valued uniquely. This is where identifying personas, or types of customers, their motivations and their perceptions builds the foundation for your brand communications.
Building the Story.
Who are you and what do you stand for? Building this trust comes from the stories that demonstrate value and success for customers and prospects.
Consumer-based companies or global B2B firms all have one thing in common — people. All customers are real people, even if they represent a company, looking for reasons to connect and trust, and they all buy from other people . How you shape the stories that demonstrate the value of staying connected for them. Insights into value come from self-identifying with the stories shared. Whether it’s Trader Joe’s sharing at a consumer level the unique new products they have — just for you — or a global engineering firm sharing their value by highlighting complex projects completed on time and within budget, customers know they are gaining knowledge and value.
There are many ways to create awareness that makes this connection. Video, white papers, or social media posts can demonstrate a continuity of meaning and value for the audience.
Not Selling, But Offering Value By Educating
A connector is someone who demonstrates value through sharing desired knowledge and experiences. You have to understand the audience, the decision-makers, and their process. When you speak to the right decision-makers with the information, they listen. This builds trust and confidence over time. The connections stay because it’s about the audience gaining insights and knowledge they can use. Ongoing communications that target with continuing insights and value is a core strategy over time.
Keeping The Connection Alive.
Stay in touch. Radiant’s digital platform allows our clients to see what communications have relevance and to build loyalty over time throughout their customer’s journey by offering value and knowledge. We use our research and strategy to create relevant content, media, social media to keep the audience informed.
Insights. Knowledge. Value. This is what sticks. Being able to grow an audience comes from understanding what matters to them, what connects in their world.