How is Your Brand Relationship?

Don’t be Afraid of Your True Brand

I’d like to talk about Brand Relationship. More and more when we talk to brand leaders, whether they’re just starting out or they have been established for awhile, their fear factor seems to increase when they actually have experienced some success. I want to demystify what branding is yet again. It’s because we are afraid to be our true brand, all right. All of us  – no matter what stage of the journey of being a brand leader, a brand ambassador, you have a way of, just kind of, pulling back your true voice.

A brand relationship is a relationship. What is a relationship built on? It’s built on an emotional connection. Key words here being emotional and connection. Emotion. Unless you’re willing to convey emotion and elicit emotional triggers in your target audience you will have no relationship with them, you have no connection. Let me give you an example. Often a small business entrepreneur is timid, timid, timid, and tries to prove so much that they, their product or their service is of value, that they lead with features and benefits. They lead with why their product is good. They lead with pricing. Better pricing, less pricing, discounts. There is nothing sexy about that and unless you have some seduction, some allure, unless you trigger compelling attraction you are flat lined and if you are flat lined you’re boring.

Convey an Emotion in Your Branding

There is nothing worse than a brand being boring. Please, if you’re too close to boring then just please quit. Get out of the game and I say that because this is hard, this game is hard. Let’s go back to brand relationship. What emotion are you going to convey, what range of emotions are you willing to convey, and what emotions are you willing to trigger and elicit from your target audience? When we work with our brand clients on developing brand identity, we get really clear on all the emotions that are triggering who we are, what we offer, what is the emotional solution, and why you, why you, why? Why do you matter because you don’t matter until you do.

The way to matter is when you actually have an interrupt in their attention where they actually are. You’ve captured their attention, you’ve captured them, you’ve seduced their attention, all right. You must decide what emotions are primary, secondary and then tertiary emotions. There is a whole range, but let’s just start with the simple ones. What is the primary emotion? What do you stand for? You need to dig deep, to get at what do you stand for emotionally. What is the emotional solution you provide? At the end of the day, what do you need to have them feel and a more advanced conversation is the resonance road map where what do you need them to feel at different points of the relationship.

You Must Be Willing to Stand For Something

So get really clear about this: Are you willing to have an emotional relationship with your clients, customers and your target audiences? Are you willing to stand for something because if you’re not you need to really look at whether or not you should be in your own business and your own brand. Go partner with somebody that you believe in what they stand for. Look at those two things and then go after what is the emotion. Now the timid factor kicks in with well, I want them to feel safe. My voice just changed. I want them to feel secure. I want them to feel. Are you willing to have an emotional relationship with your clients? #brandsthatinspire Click To Tweet

You must turn up the volume emotionally. It’s hard to get somebody’s attention, it’s hard to get somebody to connect with you, to stop long enough to invest in the connection and that’s what you need. I look forward to hearing from you. Leave comments below on how you do in the process. Get into a dialogue about this because in order to be a fierce brand warrior, you need to make a statement.

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.