Brand experience refers to the way a consumer feels when interacting with your brand. Here’s how you can nail it in your marketing.
As much as we like to think of ourselves as intelligent, rational beings, so much of our lives are actually dictated to by our feelings.
Everything we see, touch, hear or smell in our everyday prompts some kind of feeling, which determines how we react – even if we don’t know we’re doing it.
We might not really know why a person, store, song or smell turns us off – or makes us feel happy or excited – but in marketing, we do know feelings are key to successful brand identities and marketing campaigns.
Although, we don’t call them feelings; we talk about brand experience.
What is brand experience?
Brand experience refers to the way a consumer feels when interacting with your brand.
Seeing the logo of a particular beauty brand, for example, might make you feel beautiful or glamorous. A hardware brand might make you feel like a master home improvement dude. A tech or gaming brand might make you feel like you have your finger on the pulse of innovation.
Consumers have brand experiences every time they see brand or interact with your business.
You may never think about it, but whenever you see a brand on a label, or on social media, or on the ground of a footy match, you’re having a brand experience.
Similarly, when you chat with a salesperson in a shopping centre or see staff from the local bank planting trees on the weekend, you are also having a brand experience.
It’s important to understand that brand experience is the way a consumer feels when they see your brand.
It is not the same as:
- User experience: UX refers to the way a consumer interacts with your business and can include website, email, store visits etc.
- Brand awareness: Brand awareness refers to how familiar people are with your brand and how easily they recognise it.
- Brand positioning: Brand positioning is the strategic process of placing and positioning your company in the mind of your customer and potential customer.
Why is brand experience important in marketing?
A positive brand experience can deepen the connection between your business and customers and facilitate movement down the sales funnel – and this leads to increased sales and resales and real bottom line results.
It also promotes growth because warm and happy feelings can be built on, relationships developed, and further marketing activities strengthened.
Conversely, a bad brand experience can turn a customer off permanently.
It’s that important, and this is the reason why companies invest so much marketing time and money into creating positive brand experiences.
How to create a great brand experience
There are some marketing steps you can take right now to significantly improve your brand experience. Try some of these tactics:
1. Consider all senses
What is the customer seeing, feeling, smelling, and hearing? Make sure all senses are engaged and in a joyful way.
2. Get involved in local events
Stalls at festivals and roving characters in outdoor events are just two ways businesses seize the already positive experiences of people having fun and attach their brand to the experience.
3. Personalise your marketing
It could be an email newsletter that has been targeted to you using data about web pages you have visited, items you’ve searched for, or even your age, gender or location.
The more personalised the marketing piece, the greater the feelings of connectedness and warmth. Put simply, the consumer feels heard and understood.
4. Say thank you
Some of the most impactful brand experiences come after the sale has been made.
It could be an automated email or a hand-written thank you postcard with an order. The simple act of saying thank you can really make a consumer feel appreciated and increase the chances of a repeat sale.
Add a discount code for the next purchase and you’re doing it right.
How’s your brand experience?
Businesses really only get one chance to deliver a great brand experience – once a consumer has a bad brand experience, it’s almost impossible to claw your way back.
Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne, with the skills and experience to identify all the touch points of your brand experience and offer advice and strategic thinking that can make a huge difference to how your brand is perceived.
To find out how we can help your business, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or send us a note via the contact form below.