| How to Get Customers to Love Your Brand A
common problem for marketers is commoditization – when customers perceive no
difference between your brand and the competition. Getting customers to love your brand is
the opposite end of the spectrum. Research has shown that brands that engage people
emotionally can command prices that are 20% to 200% higher than competitors’ and sell
in far higher volumes.
Some examples:
General Mills was looking for a way to give Cheerios a boost a couple of years ago. To
ramp up the brand’s love quotient, they replaced the bowl on the package with a heart
and retooled its advertising to focus less on the product’s functional benefits and
more on its emotional ones. They changed the messages in their ads from ones focusing on
the fact that oats are good for you to a message that Cheerios is an expression of love
and doing the best for your family. Cheerios is now the top cereal brand in the country.
In the late 1990’s, Tide was at the risk of becoming a boring commodity. Instead of
focusing on cleaning power, Procter & Gamble strengthened the emotional imagery that
had once driven the brand’s popularity – mothers caring for their families
– but with a message that also showed empathy for women’s busy lifestyles. The
blend of information and intimacy goosed sales in some markets as much as 25%.
But How Can You Get Your Customers to Love Your Brand?
The first thing to do is to learn how your customers connect with your brand. We use
several techniques to do this.
- We conduct focus groups with loyal customers and ask
them to talk about their experiences with the brand.
Unlike most focus groups (where respondents are asked to be brief), in these groups, we
encourage customers to think of specific stories and anecdotes that illustrate their
relationship with the brand. We also use pictures and other visual aids to stimulate
conversation and help respondents better articulate their feelings and experiences.
- We also conduct focus groups with a mix of loyal customers and
non-customers. And we do something that is the exact opposite of regular focus
groups. Unlike typical focus groups, where we ask respondents to try not to influence one
another, here we encourage the customers to convince the
non-customers to use your product. Then we sit back and listen very carefully.
The important points are those that persuade the non-customers – the "tipping
points." The moments when they say things like "oh, I didn’t know it did
that," or "now that you’ve told me X, that’s a whole different
story."
Next, take the knowledge gained from the research, and use it to create
marketing that tells stories. Don’t just talk about benefits and
performance. Instead, show your brand as part of an experience, or an adventure, or a
dream.
Sources: Bureau West research; "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Plot the
Graph," Fast Company, July 2004
We can help you get your customers – and prospects – to love your
brand. Call Jay Zaltzman at Bureau West Research Group (tel: 1-818-752-7210) to design
research customized for your needs. |
Sincerely,
Jay Zaltzman, President
Bureau West Marketing & Research
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