Branding is not just about creating a logo or using the same colors on your marketing materials; branding also includes the experience that your clients and the public have with your brand. Create a total brand experience inside and out. Keep in mind that you are not just marketing a product or service, but also the experience of using the product and doing business with you. From the way that you decorate your store or office to how you present your products and services, creating a brand experience that appeals and tickles the senses can have a powerful impact on your clients and it can be a determining factor in whether they choose to buy from or do business with you.
A total brand experience is increasingly important to developing an emotional connection with your ideal audience. The ways in which you connect emotionally to your audience is by relating the benefits of your business to the ‘quality of life’ concepts important to people. Stress relief and convenience are two good ones that come to mind though there can be many others of benefit to your specific audience. A total brand experience is one that engages all five senses; this can greatly affect your clients’ overall acceptance of your products and services as well as get them talking about it.
People tend to remember things better when more of their senses are engaged when experiencing something. When creating a new product or decorating your office or store, set a goal to create a user experience that will engage your visitors in new and creative ways. You can use words, visuals, sounds and smells to stimulate the client’s overall experiences and imagination. When a potential client is not able to experience your products first-hand—let’s say when you are selling a product on your website—you must be able to use words to stimulate the viewers senses and allow them to imagine the experience of using your products and in what ways that they can benefit from using your products. Words can be powerful tools when advertising and marketing your business. Finding the ‘right’ words can allow the client to subconsciously taste, smell, touch, see, and hear a product just the way you want them to, as if they were actually experiencing that product first-hand.
A total brand experience begins with taking action! So, here are three steps to take to begin creating a total brand experience:
1. Step One: Take out a piece of paper and write down these categories: smell, taste, touch, sound, and sight.
2. Step Two: Choose a product or service that you want to advertise.
3. Step Three: For each one of the categories, write down what the user experience might be like when using your product or doing business with you. Take one sense at a time. Tip: Be creative! Just because your service may be cleaning bathrooms, doesn’t mean that you can’t provide a more creative ‘sensory experience’ in describing your services. After you have cleaned someone’s bathroom, what is the result? For example, “After Mary’s Cleaning Service is finished with the job, you’ll feel like you’re frolicking through fields of daffodils each time you flush the toilet.” Immediately upon hearing this description, I picture a huge field of flowers. I can imagine smelling the freshness of the flowers and imagine how they might feel against my legs as I frolicked through them. I may even imagine hearing them rustle as I make my way through the field. This is a much more pleasant and rich experience than just talking about the features of Mary’s Cleaning Service services. Good luck and have fun.
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