Building a brand is all about creating a brand image and continually serving customers in a way that creates a positive perception of a business, its products and services.
Effective branding means staying relevant in the minds of people via associating positive, action motivating, and emotionally engaging feelings in the hearts and minds of the customer.
A brand is defined as a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” – American Marketing Association (AMA).
The Aditit Litehouse user interaction design team share their feelings on creating a brand that customers love and their approach to making sure they remain relevant in the eyes of their customers.
1. Associate positive feelings with brand interaction
When we think of famous brands like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, what comes to mind is our feelings associated with the brand. So, it is very important to make sure that customers have positive feelings associated with a brand at any stage, be it during product research or purchase or post sales.
Thanks to the evolution of the internet and online information on the product and its reviews, customers are no longer fooled by television commercials. So, companies need to work towards having good brand reviews of products and services on the web.
Compared to ways organizations interacted with its customers in the past, today’s generation of customers consider it a matter of privilege to be associated with a great brand, and expect the ability to connect and interact with brands online.
2. Give customers something worthwhile to keep coming back
Another factor that is important in building a brand and retaining customers is introducing loyalty programs/discounts/prizes to keep the loyal customer continually engaged a brand.
The next iteration of this level of experience interaction is through gamification and the psychological encouragement of consumer behavior by creating reward systems for customers who perform desired actions.
The more a company invests in connecting with customers at this level, the more successful it will be in retaining customers, and expanding the lifetime value of its customers.
Employee branding and a good work culture also contribute to the brand reputation. So, it’s safe to say that internal employee satisfaction is a reflection of external customer satisfaction. Ultimately, every feedback and every comment matters if a brand wants to achieve the top spot in the mind of the customer.
Brands today have to focus on more than just making a sale, and provide a great post purchase service experience to its customer. Leaving a customer stranded after they’ve opened their wallets pretty much hands the next customer transaction to a competitor.
Consistent Brand Interaction
Social Media channels like Twitter are good means of staying in touch with customers, giving happy customers a channel for word of mouth promotion, and helps identify detractors to sorting out service issues. This ongoing customer relationship development can’t be done just periodically and can’t be a campaign approach. To effectively build customer relationships, customer interaction needs to remain consistent.
Overall, a brand must think about its customers at each level of the interaction and in every aspect of the customer lifecycle in order to build a sustainable brand over time.
