How to Add Emotion to Your Brand

Branding

Aug 15

As a Brand Strategist, branding is my specialty, and one thing I want you to remember as we dive into this complete training on emotional branding is that your brand is the heart of your business. It is the feeling that you emote within your ideal customer.

We're going to dive into why that's important, how you can use emotional branding, and some of my top tips.

Over the years, I've really developed an expertise in emotional branding and brand storytelling.

One of the reasons that I love it, so freaking much, is that it builds a deep connection with your ideal customer, something I also talk about in this video as well.

What emotional branding ultimately does is it amplifies, it plays to the needs, desires, and aspirations of your ideal customer, which of course makes it so incredibly powerful.

I kind of stumbled into emotional branding, to be honest, within the first year of my business. I was building my business back in 2016, obviously knew I needed a brand but didn't really know what that meant.

I started focusing on my brand, my colors, my offer, all the logistics, and the aesthetics. I completely bypassed emotional branding and brand storytelling.

Then I didn't sign any clients and I realized something was missing. So I went down the rabbit hole, did a ton of research, and realized that what was missing was me, and a connection.

In order to create a connection with my ideal customer, I needed to understand who the heck I was first. So, I dove into it. I started signing clients. I saw a crazy increase in my leads and my sales. I hit six figures in a year and I was pretty much sold.

Now I have a couple of videos on this channel about emotional branding, but, the idea here is that this is a complete one-on-one training on emotional branding, updated for 2022, so you can get started today.

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL BRANDING

If you've done any research on branding, you know that branding is the heart of your business.

It's ultimately the experience that you are creating, but how does this play a role in purchase decisions?

We know, based on research, that 90% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously. In fact, Harvard University released a study years ago that talked about the impact of emotion on purchase decisions.

When we think about that, we really know that it's not about the logistics, it's not the modules or the setup of your offer. It's more about the feeling that your offer emotes and the connection that someone has to your brand.

Can they see themselves achieving whatever it is you are promising?

WHY IS EMOTIONAL BRANDING IMPORTANT?

I know we don't like to talk about it, but the reality is that your ideal customer has a lot of choices.

I mean, you feel it when you're online and you're getting all of these different ads, you're getting content that you're constantly getting suggested.

It's a lot. And our consumers are going through the exact same thing.

So what is going to differentiate you from somebody else in your industry that has a super similar offer?

Of course, it's gotta be your story, your emotional branding, the connection that they feel.

We have seen this time and time again with Brandmerry. People will submit to work with me one on one. They say that they were looking at a bunch of different brands, but ultimately felt pulled into my story and connected to my brand and made the decision to move forward.

It wasn't a blog post specifically that I wrote, it wasn't a specific YouTube video or a viral reel. It was the overall connection that they felt.

Not to mention, consumers have very short attention spans today. We're seeing the need for short content with Tik-Toks and Reels, short-form videos.

So, not only do we have shorter time, and shorter attention spans as consumers, but we're needing to capture attention so quickly. Think eight seconds on your website, almost two seconds, if you're scrolling through reels or TikTok.

So the more you can harness the power of making someone feel something really, really fast, the more likely that you are to retain that ideal customer.

Speaking of retention, which we're going to talk about in some of my tips, emotional branding also helps with overall customer retention.

EMOTIONAL BRANDING STRATEGY: Identify Your Brand Story

When it comes to emotional branding, what do you need to have in place in order to make this work for you and your brand?

The first thing I recommend my clients do, and this is not emotional branding specific, this is just brand foundation as a whole, is to identify their story.

What is your story?
What is your mission?
What are your values?
Why are you creating your business in the first place and what impact do you want to make in the world?

By doing this in the very beginning, you'll start to really connect with the outcome that you want to deliver for your ideal customer. You'll start to naturally think about the experience that you want to create for them.

So it's a great starting place when you're trying to develop your emotional brand foundation, not to mention brand storytelling. It's a great way to amplify the emotions that you choose for your brand as a whole.

EMOTIONAL BRANDING STRATEGY: Know Your Audience

The second thing you want to do is know thy customer.

Knowing your audience is absolutely key when it comes to building your brand and especially with brand storytelling.

I often say that even though the stories might be yours, they might be experiences that you've had in your life, results that your customers have had based on your product, your service, or your offer, at the end of the day, the story that you're sharing isn't for you.

It's for your ideal customer.

We're running businesses. So we want to bring in the right people. We obviously want people to invest. And so it can't just be about me, me, me, me.

Now, of course, you want to establish who you are as the center of your brand so you can build that connection. But when you're telling these stories, when you're thinking about the emotions that you're going to tie to your brand, you need to know your ideal customer.

I created an entire video on market research if you've never done market research before this can be incredibly helpful.

When you're thinking about your market research and really creating a client profile for your ideal customer, think less about the demographics and more about the psychographics.

What we really want to know goes back to the very beginning of this post, where I talked about the needs, desires, and aspirations of your ideal customer.

Once you have this information, you can move on to the third element that you want to establish, and that is going to be identifying the emotions.

EMOTIONAL BRANDING STRATEGY: Establish Your Brand Emotions

I want you to identify five emotions that you want your brand to amplify, that you want to showcase through your visuals, your copy, your messaging, your live videos, your colors, and your fonts.

Yes, knowing your brand's emotions and then choosing your colors and your fonts is a fantastic strategy. It helps simplify the process so much. Just Google color psychology and you'll see what I mean.

I want you to identify five emotions based on the market research that you've done. Think about how you want your audience to feel when they come in contact with your brand.

Now, one thing that is really important when it comes to emotional branding is to focus more on the desire and the aspirations and less on the pain.

You've probably heard in messaging and copywriting and really great marketing, that we always want to highlight what your audience is going through, the pain or the struggle, and where they ultimately want to be, the pleasure or the desire.

But we want people to feel really excited when they land on your website. So focus less on the pain when it comes to emotional branding and more on the desire and the aspiration, whatever your audience is working towards, so they can feel that connection.

A really great way to do this, if you are feeling stuck is to go to Google and type in emotion keywords. You will get a plethora of resources that tell you some of the top emotional and feeling words that you can use to spark inspiration.

So for instance, in my brand, one of the top things that I really wanted my audience to feel was warmth. To feel like they could trust me. Trust was a huge one. Adventure. Inspiration. I even went as far as saying that I wanted my audience to feel like they were sitting next to a fire in my home drinking coffee, and just talking about business and talking about life.

I wanted that aspect to carry through in all of my branding. And I've stuck with those emotional keywords now, six years into having my business.

EMOTIONAL BRANDING EXAMPLES

Okay, let us talk about how you take these three steps, understanding your story, knowing your audience, choosing your five emotional words, and actually putting that into the branding and marketing of your business.

Emotional Branding Design and Brand Aesthetics

One of the first things that you can do is you can incorporate these emotional brand words into the visuals and the aesthetics of your business.

Now, I already touched on this before, but if you don't already have your brand colors and your brand fonts, or if you're looking to revamp those, then start with your emotional brand words and discover the colors and the fonts that will amplify those at a higher level.

For instance, I was shooting for warmth. I even created a scene in my mind about a fall day by the fire. So I started looking up color psychology and warmth and started to pull in these deep, rich orange colors from fall, thinking of trees and typical fall colors as my starting point.

When you are wanting to amplify these emotional words, you don't necessarily even have to say them, but you can showcase them through the visuals and the aesthetics of your brand.

We process visuals 60,000 times faster than we do words so when we're talking about a short attention span or needing to capture attention very quickly, visuals are a fantastic way to do that.

Visuals can also play a role in your brand photography, the types of photos you choose, lifestyle photos for Instagram, social media, and different platforms. It's not just present in your colors and your fonts, also think about the photos and the elements that you incorporate into your branding.

Brand Storytelling and Core Brand Stories

The second way you can amplify these emotions is through brand storytelling.

I just love brand storytelling. I have so many resources here on the YouTube channel, so be sure to check that out. I even have a full brand storytelling guide over at Brandmerry.com.

When we're talking about this first phase, I want you to think about your core brand stories.

When I say core brand stories, I'm talking about your brand story, how your business was formed, think about your mission, and why you have that mission for your brand.

Think about your brand values and why your brand believes in those values and holds those values true.

These core brand stories are things that you would find on your website on your about me page, and maybe in an email funnel that you create, where you share your brand.

They're the types of stories that you're not changing very often, but you want to make sure that every new person that comes into your world understands the story behind your brand.

When you're writing these stories, when you're sharing your core stories, think about incorporating those emotional words.

Think about painting a picture for your audience that amplifies those words.

Thinking about their aspirations and their desires and tying that in to build that connection.

Now, if you are sitting there thinking, “Well, I don't have a connection with my ideal customer”, don't worry you definitely do and we're going to talk about that in the next option.

Micro Stories in Your Brand Marketing

One of my favorite things to teach here at Brandmerry are micro stories, which are the types of stories that you find in your marketing.

Overall, your core stories are part of the branding process. They're really a foundation for your brand moving forward. You're not changing your brand story around all of the time. It's pretty much there. It's why you created your business and why you have your brand and that doesn't really change.

But your micro stories are those small bits of storytelling that you can incorporate into your marketing. Think stories that you would post on social media, share behind the scenes on Insta stories, or maybe a live video that you would incorporate a sentence or two into your blog post or share via email.

These types of micro stories are great ways to form connections with your audience, even if you don't have the same lived experiences.

Think about your audience's desires, what are they really working towards?

Can you somehow connect that to the journey that you have gone through and things that you have wanted to work towards in your own life?

What about the struggles that your ideal customer is going through?

Brand Storytelling Example

Obviously, all of us experience fear in some capacity. While you might not be experiencing the same type of fear, you can definitely share your personal experiences of going through a moment of fear and what you did. That can connect to your ideal customer.

When it comes to storytelling, it's not about having the exact same experience. It's about having gone through something similar.

So one of the stories I share with my brand is the birth of my son.

Not every single one of my audience members and my customers has given birth to a child. But they understand going through a transformational experience, something that was really unexpected, maybe something that they thought they had prepared for and were completely blindsided.

That's the part of the story that I amplify because that's the piece that builds connection and these micro stories are so important.

Not only can they build that connection with your audience and amplify your emotional brand words, but they also create more memorable content.

We know that content that incorporates storytelling is 22 times more likely to be remembered.

So it's a fantastic marketing strategy to use to magnetize your ideal customer and keep them engaged.

CONCLUSION

As I mentioned, I have a ton of resources on brand storytelling, and ideal customer, so definitely check those out so you can dive further into this topic.

Now, the last thing I'm gonna leave you with today is that emotionally connected customers are 52% more valuable to brands.

That means that once you have built a connection with someone, the likelihood of them continuously coming and turning to you for your products and your services, referring their friends, and becoming the voice of your brand is incredibly high.

When you can build this connection, in the beginning, you can take care of your customers via customer experience. You can show up for them. You can be authentic, you can be relatable, and they will stick around.

This is one of the best strategies I have used in my business.

And it just kind of happened. I fell in love with emotional branding. I fell in love with brand storytelling, and I started incorporating that into the marketing of my business.

We started to see as a result that many of my clients continuously work with me for years to come, move up to different programs, and are the best advocates for my brand as a whole.

I want that for you as well. So I hope that this video and post, all about emotional branding were helpful in getting you started.

Remember, it really comes down to understanding your brand story, knowing your audience, and of course, identifying those five words and tying that into your marketing via your visuals, your core brand stories, your copy, and of course your micro stories that you will share through your content creation.

P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class