Almost every facet of how consumers experience a brand is covered by the term "brand experience." Essentially, for many, creating a unique brand experience is a significant challenge. The Annual eCommerce Study reveals that 66% of consumers expect more meaningful experiences from brands.
In this article, we will focus on the crucial interconnection between a brand's experience, identity, and voice. It is essential to understand how these key elements intertwine to achieve a successful brand experience. We will delve into this relationship in detail and also provide valuable advice for creating your own engaging brand experience.
Having said that, it's not just about attracting the audience's attention toward your overall goal; it also offers you the opportunity to stand out from the competition and foster customer loyalty and trust while increasing your revenue.
However, for small business owners with physical retail stores, branding extends beyond simply having a brand identity.
What is a Unique Brand Experience?
The best way to understand what a "brand experience" means is to realize that the word "brand" refers to the company as the rest of the world understands it. Your brand establishes your identity. On the other hand, "experience" describes how it is lived and developed.
As a result, a brand experience is a description of how customers, both potential and current, experience a brand before, during, and after each interaction throughout its existence.
The most well-known brands today place a strong emphasis on brand experience as a priority.
6 Steps to Create a Unique Brand Experience
Emphasizing experience above all is essential if you want to establish a memorable brand with loyal customers. Some of the most well-known brands today create aspirational experiences that evoke emotions in both current and potential customers.
1. Discover Your Purpose
Who are you? Being able to answer this question is crucial for your brand experience. Nike, for example, doesn't answer this question by saying, "I sell shoes." Every aspect of Nike's brand experience is demonstrated by the company's clear purpose.
Who you are will determine the tone of the kind of experience you want to create. In an oversaturated market, purpose-driven products can stand out among the crowd, as purposes often hold more value than the products themselves.
2. Focus on Narrative
Some of the best brand experiences are those that emphasize narrative. What is your brand's story? How did you become that brand? In what ways are you improving lives?
Sharing the brand's story fosters continuity, stimulates curiosity, and suggests a living and growing entity rather than a static commodity that exists solely to make money.
Through blogs and social media, brands have the ability to share their stories and genuinely inspire people involved in the process.
3. Be Consistent
The various components of your brand should speak the same language; otherwise, your brand's reputation and overall customer experience could be affected. The visual consistency of the brand is covered by its activities and pillars, which include its color palette, typography, and logo.
4. Seek Engagement Opportunities
A customer's desire to actively engage with a brand goes beyond making a purchase. Our senses are needed to participate in an experience. Does your brand give customers the opportunity to see, hear, read, and talk about your product or service?
Your accessibility, audibility, and visibility present numerous engagement opportunities. Sending surveys and contests to customers to allow them to try your products is a common practice. These opportunities can be addressed more effectively if you know your digital sales channel and understand how and where your customers are likely to interact.
5. Align Customer Experiences with Sales
The events that take place before, during, and after the sale are what a customer remembers most about their purchasing experience. This is also described as the three-stage model of service consumption: pre-purchase, interaction with the service phase, and post-service.
The customer will remember if the pre-purchase experience was smooth and pleasant and if the post-service phase also left positive impressions. For the brand experience, the positivity of these experiences is crucial. Is navigation easy? Is there a physical store?
6. Be Adaptable and Evolve
The way we shop, gather information, and seek experiences is constantly changing. Adaptability is more crucial than ever. Adaptation involves a deep understanding of culture and popular trends, incorporating customer feedback, and staying up to date.
Elements of a Successful Brand Experience
How we connect with brands has changed thanks to the Internet. Our interactions with both beloved and new brands have become considerably more intricate than before.
We are already experimenting with social media ads, receiving marketing correspondence via email, and visiting numerous online stores selling products. Most brands also have their own social media accounts and apps.
A strong brand experience requires turning every experience into another experience. Therefore, make sure to consider all the diverse components that make up your brand. Some of the most significant of these components or elements are:
• Brand design
• Brand experience voice
• User experience
• Brand perception
• Customer service
Under the brand experience, each of these components transforms into a meaningful part of the whole.