Emotional branding is defined as the successful attachment of a specific emotion to a brand.

At one of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) conferences in Chicago, Jay Baer asked a room full of roughly 1,000 B2B marketers, “Are you more interesting than my wife?”

Can you think of the people you have had an emotional connection within your life? 

How did they impact your life?

 Now think about brands and see the common threads among them.

It is true for brands as it is for people: to breakthrough marketing, businesses need to be more interesting and relevant at the moment.

Brands need to connect with people in the way a close friend would—through emotion—to build, long-lasting, and quality relationships. There are enormous opportunities for companies to take advantage of emotional branding.

According to one research, smell is powerful when it comes to persuading someone to buy a product. Brick and mortar locations using certain scents in their stores have been found to have a 30% increase in sales.

A study by University of Wollongong and Murdoch University in 2012, emotional branding is becoming used globally. According to Dr Steve Bellman of Murdoch University’s Audience Labs, marketers are tapping into customer’s feelings to market their brands. Another study shows men who show love for their brand beer purchase 38% more beer than the average.

Therefore, emotional branding can lead to substantially more sales without companies having to rely on discounts and promotions. On the flip side, however, creating that emotional connection can be a difficult task.

How brands can connect emotionally

  • By telling a story that inspires an emotional connection: according to Beth Comstock, General Electric Chief Marketing Officer, you can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. Every brand has stories to tell.
  •  Allow your audience to be the real hero: imagine how emotionally connected your brand would be by showcasing how your product has changed lives. Simply give your audience a voice, a platform, and a face to be heard.
  • By being authentic: don’t be afraid to embrace your inner geek. Remain who you are and don’t try to be like who you are not. At Bizify, we try to remain true to ourselves. We try to help startups find their feet and we intend to remain true to that mission.
  • By embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight: surprising and delighting customers can be an effective marketing strategy. Use social media and mobile to spark moments of happiness in customers and you will be surprised at its effectiveness. Coca-Cola has really perfected this art.

Other Important Branding Tips

Creating an irresistible value proposition

A value proposition is a statement that explains what value you provide to your customers and how you do it uniquely. Establishing a substantive value proposition is critical if you want to stand above the crowd. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs lose out because they fail to articulate a unique value proposition.

Be clear on what your business stands for. What is your promise? How will you put out consistent and passionate messages that attract the right candidate? This will also help you to hire the right people and develop products and services that are aligned with your unique value proposition.

Be careful with launching too many brands

The big problem for many businesses is they think more brands will make them more successful, but they have neither the architecture nor the capacity to manage a multiplicity of brands well. Businesses can increase profits by deleting none-performing brands. Even though revenue may fall in the process, reducing the number of brands will be beneficial in the long run.

Multiband strategies are likely to suffer from diseconomies of scale because of the hidden costs. By letting go of weak, declining, and marginally profitable brands, you will be freeing resources to make your few remaining brands better and more attractive to customers. Thus, killing some brands in your portfolio may sometimes be the best way for your business to serve the customers.

Package your products

The packaging is an important element when it comes to marketing. How you package your products can attract or repel customers. Is your packaging visually attractive through shape, color, design, and does it communicate the right brand ideals? If not, it might be time to revamp the way you package your products.

Create a slogan

Let us consider Apple for example. As they became big, they adopted the tagline “Think Different.” This was a perfect fit for their marketing strategy because a large portion of their customers didn’t want to use PC’s like everybody else. Choose a slogan that is consistent with your brand and fits your market slogan.

Take care of your staff

You need to build your reputation to attract the right team and customers. So treat your team well because they are one of the most influential people in your business. Ex-employees are important for leads and new business. Also, reward them for not only making sales but for being great ambassadors for your business.