* I got 99 problems, but emotional branding ain't one

A thoughtful, emotive brand gets to the heart of what customers want. So we need your brand's reputation, values and message to shout this out.

While we can personally tell stories and hook people in, we forget that our businesses should embrace this too. People will relate to a brand story. Your brand needs balanced personalities. If you take it too far one way, we are risking it being seen as inauthentic.

When you tell a story, it does five incredible things:

1. Neurons fire in the same pattern as the person telling the story, building empathy and trust.
2. If the story's emotional, your brain releases the reward hormone dopamine to boost brand recall.
3. When the idea conflicts, your brain releases cortisol, increasing your attention and memory.
4. If we relate to the story and the person recalling it, it increases our connection and builds trust.
5. When we use vivid language, it lights up our imagination. So... make sure they can smell, see, touch and taste it.

To give you some context, I will tell you a story.

Between 2012 and 2015, I worked in a marketing department for a university. A team of 20 marketing people, 7 designers, and a content team shifted the university's positioning and reputation from mediocre to one of the top universities in the UK. That is no small feat, considering the monopoly Cambridge and Oxford have on the top home and international students.

Why is this story relevant?

Well, I dedicated about 6 months of my time there, conceptualising and creating a single marketing campaign, focused on the emotional connection to a student's childhood. It connected people with nostalgia and made them linger longer. The success of the campaigns lead to a 20% increase in university applications.

This spilt into other areas, like open days, which helped generate User Generated Content (UGC) which was a relatively new thing then.

Emotional connections build consumer trust in your brand

Here's a great example of how simple it is to align your brand and connect it to emotions.

If I start writing about Coca Cola or McDonald's, you'll start instantly making judgments about my connection to them. You either love the experience or hate the stranglehold they have on fast food and diets.

When you align with a brand, even in passing, people start forming opinions about you. The emotional connection drives the brand's image. A brand image is the opinions people have of your brand, which is why emotional connection is so important.

Views are turned into reputations. One of the main goals of branding is to build and uphold a great reputation.

Coke rules the roost of the advertising world, to the point where Pepsi don't try to compete. Interestingly, in a blind tasting of Pepsi and Coke, people preferred Pepsi.

But, when people knew what they were drinking, you guessed it. People loved Coke!

This is reputation and alignment. The nostalgia takes them back to hot summer days, that iconic bottle with water dripping off it and, of course, the Christmas Holiday ads.

It's that psychological association, the emotional bond to the drink, and long-term loyal customers have positively affected the brand image.

What can small businesses learn from big brands?

We need to get into the heart and soul of customers.

‍Build a brand that tells the truth, stands for authenticity and originality. Without diminishing its values. It's the values, mission, purpose, and vision that guide your long-term goals.

To get into the heart and soul, you should really begin looking at your current brand.

Give yourself a brand audit.

If you haven't already done it, take our quiz and download the feels finder toolkit. It's step one of connecting to people's emotional needs.

The second thing to do is find the gaps in your current brand. These are areas where the message is confusing or does not highlight how you want customers to walk away feeling.

You need to look at:

1. A material audit — are your current marketing efforts, including visual identity (fonts, colours, logos and design assets) reflecting the emotions you want to connect to?
2. Verbal audits — how's your tone of voice and message adjusting to meet the user's needs? Is there a list of tone words and phrases to use?
3. Behavioural audits — how do you or staff behave? These are in the form of conscious and unconscious messages.
4. Competitor audits — with all the above info, can you outperform competitors?
5. Peer audit — is there a famous brand/company that you aspire to be like? How do they communicate emotions?
6. PR audit — where have you gone wrong in the past? What did you do right? How do we go about maximising that in the future?
7. Customer audits — how are you being perceived? How do they feel about your brand? What are the positive things people say about you? Can the negative testimonials be learnt from? If you can get in front of current customers and talk to them, even better!

Target Market Research

Leading on from customer audits and interviews, speaking to customers, as well as your team, is an invaluable resource. Ask them why they chose your products and services instead of competitors. What do they think you do well?

Think about those negative experiences people had with a competitor. How did that experience make them feel? What can you do to ensure you don't deliver that experience to your customers?

You'll be amazed to see where you fall short when you look to see how emotional connections work.