What's Your Brand EQ?
Do you know your brand’s EQ?
You know your brand’s IQ. Do you know it’s EQ? Making a concerted effort to know and increase your brand’s EQ will produce insightful feedback about your company or service. How do people feel when they think of your product or service? Are they invested? Do they trust you? Why does it matter?
In this current socially distanced environment, it is more important than ever to connect with our patients, clients and staff on a deeper, more meaningful level.
Humans crave connection. As the days and weeks continue in solitude, we need to find ways to connect. Your most pressing question should be, “How do I support my customers right now in a meaningful, human, and relevant way?” In stressful environments, people want to be seen and heard. Tone and motive matter. What is your brand saying?
Utilizing your sales channels and social media, aim to make more of a connection with target audiences. Offer video support. Have a live chat option on your website. Host a webinar or a live online event and make it personal. Use your marketing and advertising dollar to reach out and meet people where they are. A digital ad showing a grandparent laughing with a grandchild via a video call. An author responding to an online comment or review about their book. A financial adviser reserving 90 minutes every day to call their clients and ask about their hopes and fears when it comes to their financial future. Make your clientele feel as though they are the priority, not just a sales or retention statistic.
Brand success, like all relationships, is built on a foundation of trust. How does your messaging and engagement build brand trust and security? Customers need to feel safe and secure purchasing your product or service and they need to know that you will see them through the process. Offer tech support as “life” support. If your client or customer feels as if you really understand their questions or concerns, if you make them feel that you are invested in them, you create brand loyalty which will translate to brand longevity.
George Stephen, Managing Partner at Stephan Partners - my favorite advertising, marketing and branding firm in NYC, talked about the need for a CPBO on your executive team. Your Chief Personal Branding Officer (CPBO) or as I call it, Brand Relationship Manager (BRM), may be your most important C-suiter. He says, “Your CPBO/BRM brands you and your sales team and takes you to market to engage your professional networks. They create a new branding and sales channel for your business by leveraging your professional networks with thought leadership content to grow your business in a more personal and connected way.” He continued, “How businesses brand and sell to other businesses has undergone significant change with the growth of [and reliance on] social media and digital platforms. The first meeting is now not a meeting at all but a prospect looking at a member of your company's leadership or sales team on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.” People are looking at who you are in addition to what you do.
They’re looking for a connection. Content marketing encourages added contact and are rapidly making business growth personal.
What is your brand EQ? What is your brand promise? Whether business to business or company to client, focus on the relationship. Making the human connection will increase brand loyalty and brand loyalty creates brand longevity.