Creating a superior brand experience will result in more engaged, loyal customers that will recommend your business to others. But what exactly is brand experience and how can you make sure that your brand experience is always at the top of its game? Read on to find out.
What exactly is brand experience?
First let’s get clear on what brand experience is. It is the experience or associations that your customers and prospects have at every stage in their journey with your brand. This could range from hearing about your brand from a friend for the very first time, through to following you on social media, buying from you or hiring your services. It could be when someone needs to follow up on a faulty purchase or requires more post-purchase advice; or when you follow up with a satisfied customer to keep them engaged.
Quite simply – brand experience is anytime that anyone has anything to do with your brand.
Where does brand essence come in?
As we discussed in this article your brand essence is the heart and soul of your brand, it encapsulates what your brand is all about and is what you are promising your customers. But the best thought out brand essence is to no purpose unless you use it to influence the experiences of your customers. In fact we’d go as far as to say a brand essence without any systems in place to ensure your customers’ experience is actually a liability. You are making empty promises and your customers won’t take too kindly to that.
So how do I go about creating a great brand experience?
1. Brainstorm a list of every single touchpoint that your clients and prospects could have with your brand. Depending on the products or services that you’re offering it could go something like this:
- ♦ Hearing about your brand from a friend
- ♦ Searching you out on social media
- ♦ Researching your products or services
- ♦ Making a purchase
- ♦ Delivery of product
- ♦ Contacting your company to get some post-purchase advice
- ♦ Returning a product because unsuitable or faulty
- ♦ Receiving regular email updates from your company as a past customer
2. Ensure that your brand message and brand visuals are consistent across every single touchpoint. Clarity and consistency are reassuring for your audience meaning they are more likely to commit to a purchase from you.
3. Check out your reviews. As we discussed in our brand strategy article your brand is what your audience says about you. And while you can’t control exactly what people say or think, you can certainly try to direct the conversation. So get onto those review sites and check out what your audience is actually saying – that is your brand and you may discover which, if any, of your touchpoints are letting the brand down.
4. Make sure that every department/employee involved in each of the touchpoints is aware of their role in creating the brand experience. It’s a common misconception that branding is the sole responsibility of the marketing department but as we can see from the touchpoints list it’s really not.
Don’t let one touchpoint let you down
Let’s say you supply storage solutions and your brand essence is “making life easier”. A customer hears about you and likes what they see. They research and order from you and so far so good – it’s all been very easy. Unfortunately the storage box wasn’t quite what they were looking for so they decide to make use of the refund policy and send it back – that’s when it all starts to fall apart. It turns out to be very complicated and a lot of hassle. So in spite of all the good and “easy” experiences they’ve had with your brand it’s unlikely that they’ll order from you again. And they’re also more likely to actively recommend not buying from you.
In Summary
Brand experience is what your audience has anytime they make associations with your brand, directly or indirectly. As a business owner you need to make sure that every one of these experiences is in keeping with your brand essence. Which means your whole team, from the customer service dept to the warehouse team to the marketing department, need to clearly understand their role in creating a brilliant brand experience.
Experience is the second of our 7 Es of Brand proprietary framework that we use to help you create your own winning brand strategy.
To find out how we can help your business thrive and grow check out our Services here.
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