In today’s rapidly changing world, the staying power of any brand rests not only on its product or service but also its brand experience. As the leading digital agency in Dubai highlights, consumers today value purpose-led brands.
Brands are required to go beyond material goods and deliver highly customizable and engaging experiences that affect customers at every touch point in their journey. By inspiring action and connecting with audiences in a meaningful way, brands can deliver results.
To learn more about how to create a better brand experience, read on. But let’s first define what brand experience is all about.
What is brand experience?
Brand experience is a multidisciplinary and multisensory approach to the customer journey, delivering memorable hero moments that transform consumers into loyal customers and brand advocates. This means that brand experience is more than just a trade show booth or an exhibit.
Successful brand experiences leverage technology, data, marketing, and storytelling to design specific, valuable interactions that lead to greater brand affinity.
Just how necessary is it for brands to maximize the brand experience? Companies who deliver on compelling brand experiences and exceed customer expectations command 79% higher purchase intent and see growth four times faster.
Differentiating your brand experience from the competition, though, doesn’t happen by luck. Businesses that hope to thrive today need to strengthen their relationship with their customers.
Developing a deep emotional connection with your consumer base starts with:
Discovering your purpose
Understanding your brand personality and its purpose is an essential step to determining brand identity. This identity will be what helps you be explicit with your brand message and tell your story in a way that’s attractive to customers.
Your brand purpose entails more than just selling your product or service. Brand purpose should be solutions-focused and experience-driven to ignite the desired action from the consumer.
Look at Starbucks, for example.
Their stores aren’t merely places to grab a coffee and go. Starbucks has created a welcoming space around the sociological idea of the “third space.” This creates an environment where customers feel welcome and develop a deep connection with the brand.
Knowing your audience
Once you’ve pinpointed your brand purpose, you need to understand who your ideal customer is. Knowing your audience is central to your marketing efforts. It is also necessary to create a highly personalized brand experience that matches customer expectations.
There are several ways to get to know your audience better. Successful strategies include market research, competitor analysis, creating customer personas, conducting surveys, monitoring audience feedback and engagement.
Humanizing your brand
Now that you understand your audience, you can communicate your brand experience.
To tell your story in a way that resonates with your ideal customer, you need to humanize your brand. Doing so will drive the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and make your brand more relatable and engaging.
When these three essential branding elements are crystal clear, you can create impactful connections that enrich the customer journey and drive sustainable engagement.
Strategies for becoming an unforgettable brand
Avoid becoming another replaceable brand on the market by adopting the following tips and strategies to your brand experience.
1. Be consistent in your processes
Departmental silos is an ongoing issue for many organizations. No matter the industry or size, a silo mentality can become a destructive organizational barrier that stifles business growth and efficiency. This can result in executive dysfunction, which hampers the customer experience.
To create a cohesive brand experience, consistency is key.
Departmental teams must take a collaborative approach to managing processes. By working in cross-functional teams, siloed structures can be easily broken down, producing greater productivity, creativity, and innovation.
Stronger alignment through cross-functional collaboration leads to a more competitive edge and, by extension, a more powerful brand experience.
2. Deliver on dynamic storytelling
At the heart of any exceptional brand experience is storytelling. By using a multidisciplinary approach to storytelling, brands can design sensorial experiences that increase customer engagement.
An effective way to leverage storytelling is by tapping into rich media and interactive content.
Deploying relevant digital media during live events enables attendees to digitally and physically immerse themselves in the event experience. Harnessing user-generated content, interactive maps, and other marketing messages delivers a personalized experience that encourages further interaction.
Adding rich media like educational or company culture videos to your website can positively influence buying behavior. Similarly, taking advantage of interactive content such as quizzes or interactive webinars can provide your brand with twice as much engagement as static content.
3. Use data across all channels
Data insight is necessary for ensuring consistency across all marketing channels and customer communication tools. Whether it’s live chat, social media, instant messenger, or any other engagement tool, data unlocks the necessary information to create more personal connections.
Knowing your ideal customer’s engagement preferences is invaluable in designing a brand experience that is customized to that individual’s needs and wants. The more data you can collect about your customers and analyze, the more effective your brand becomes in solving your ideal customer’s unique challenges.
4. Empower your employees
To better connect with your audience and foster authentic relationships, your employees have to be vibrant brand evangelists. Your employees know the ins and outs of your products or services, making them the ideal people to deliver on your brand experience.
By turning employees into brand advocates, you help inspire further engagement within numerous social and professional networks outside of your target audience. As brand advocates, employees are willing to go that extra mile to share your message and convert prospective consumers into loyal customers.
One of the best ways to cultivate brand ambassadors is through team-building activities. By developing an active and engaged company culture, employees can help steer consumers towards a more impactful brand experience.
Be sure to keep a close eye on data and analytics to measure the results of your advocacy program.
5. Get involved with socials
Social networks are a great storytelling platform. Not only do they enable your business to keep open channels of interaction and communication, but a strong social following can also transform into a well-engaged online community.
And just like employee advocates, nurturing an online community can result in members of that community becoming brand evangelists.
An essential facet of effectively using social media is social listening. By monitoring brand mentions, your company can manage its online reputation and provide exemplary customer service. Resolving customer concerns before they become issues improves relationships with customers.
Sharing interactive branded content and key marketing campaigns on social media can improve brand reach and help social users feel more connected to your brand.
Conclusion
In today’s marketplace, consumers are overwhelmed with choice. Organizations that present a strong brand experience have a better chance of standing out and making an impact in their respective industry.
But more than that, a strong brand experience evokes a specific emotional response. By perfecting every touch point, from content and social media marketing to employee behavior, your brand has the potential to create deep personal connections with your target audience.
As a result of creating a compelling brand experience, you instill customer loyalty and establish long-lasting relationships, both of which are necessary for long-term success.
AUTHOR BIO
Stuart Harris is the Creative Director at Yellow, a Dubai branding agency, digital partner and advertising company working with progressive businesses to build bold, meaningful brands.
