The way to accelerate a purchase and purchase pathways, the path to purchase, is to connect with your audience. You know that, but you wonder how to do it, right? It’s like, “I know I should have a stronger brand. I know I should resonate with my audience, but I’m not really sure how.”

We specialize in activating emotional connection. When you know who your audience is and you can activate and sort of play the levers strategically of connection with them and delivering and satisfying the emotional motivator.  This then elicits the ability to enable the purchase, the investment funding, whatever that business transaction is. So an emotional transaction always occurs prior, what we call the bounce moment in our work, prior to the commercial transaction.

To activate emotional connection, it’s pretty lofty, right? Pretty hard to comprehend. Like you know you go out and network, and however you try to generate leads and prospects and close business, but how do you emotionally connect? It’s not your specialty. You’re an expert in what you’re an expert in, not connecting with others.

First one to activate connection is clarity of the audience. Specifically in our calibrate model, which is part of the Inspire Fire Brand strategy model, we look at the ‘Who’. You know who is your target audience and really get clear on the landscape, the industry landscape, where your category fit is, and what territory you can own. You know you really want to be number one or two in the space or else it’s not worth playing in that space.

Then once you’re clear, and clarity requires making a decision, like this is the target audience that we’re going after. If it doesn’t work you can make a pivot or course correction down the line. But once you know who that is you need to really understand them as a person, as a market segment, but as a person, not an avatar, but as a person. And really get in their head, their minds, their hearts, and what motivates them. We do a lot of work with the emotional motivator of what drives them to connect, what drives them to pick you and to be brand loyal, whether it’s a purchase of your lifestyle product or purchase of your services.

When you understand what motivates them emotionally, which is connection and belonging, and so much has been in the news recently about the importance of digital transformation and connection, and really, really just elevating the experience, the customer centric experience. So the first thing is to figure out who they are and make a decision, and get clear on their emotional motivators, and we help our clients do that.

Then how to satisfy them is actually quite simple. When you know who they are and you want to trigger and throw the switch emotionally, it really happens in the integrated brand experience that they have across all touch points with you. But you need better messaging. What we see is overall, you need to improve your creative.

Smaller brands that don’t have really giant budgets or ad agencies, their images and their messaging is subpar. I don’t mean to be judgmental about it, but what happens is you just don’t get the attention of your audience. They see it, it doesn’t land, it doesn’t land emotionally, and they’re on to the next thing. So you’ve got a missed opportunity, huge missed opportunity for growth there, right?

So better messaging needs to be messaging that resonates, messaging that ignites connection, and bold claim messaging, almost like a billboard on a highway. There’s visual messaging and verbal, and we play in that space of really dialing in and calibrating the brand voice. What you want to look at is an image that really is worth a thousand words. Well a metaphorical, emotional image that conveys the emotion that triggers your audience is worth exponentially more, so you need to get your imagery improved, right?

Creative is not created equal as you know. You really need to elevated that ASAP, and if you want some help at looking at where it’s falling short, or where the weakness or the meekness of the brand voice is, reach out to me. I’d be happy to help out. The second thing is just the the overall creative, and making sure that that creative is consistent.

So first one is clarity of the who and the emotional motivators that motivate them towards the desired action you want them to take. The second is better messaging, better brand voice verbally and visually. And with video and audio as well, cadence and everything that goes into all the aspects of voice. The third is consistency across all brand experiences. A consistent experience, and that can relate to your messaging and your visual. The brand voice across all platforms and all brand properties.

So be congruent. Be consistent. Be ubiquitous in your message and in your brand, and watch your brand grow.

Give your customers a consistent brand experience that relates to all messaging & visuals. #brandvoice Click To Tweet

Kerri Konik is a seasoned brand strategist and leading expert in igniting emotional connection and optimizing customer experience to drive business growth. She is a consultant, advisor and speaker on catalyzing the emotional bonds between customers, brands, and leaders to increase value, progress, and accelerate the speed of change, growth and desired impact. An entrepreneur at heart, Kerri has launched five businesses, and is the CEO of InspireFire, a women-owned brand strategy and marketing consultancy based in Philadelphia.