Humanize Your Brand to Build Trust

When a company, or a brand, can create a powerful bond between themselves and their customers, many things can happen. Beyond the immense impact they can make, they can create a long-term advocacy, customer's loyalty, reliable connections, and strong foundations.

Advertisements are everywhere. From the newspapers and magazines, to billboard, television, and of course, the internet. People roughly see thousands of ads messages each day, and that is overwhelming to even the most powerful media consumers.

The average people that see thousands of marketing materials only have a split second to decide whether the material is worthy or not. The overwhelming information that prove too much is the noise in the crowded space of marketing.

By making your brand stands out beyond the crowd, over the thousands of marketing materials that those people see each day, you will have that strategic advantage to market your product successfully when others couldn't.

As a business that is trying to increase brand awareness, you have to look beyond your business plan and your ability to sell products. You need to build relationship that is nourished by emotions and professionalism. You need to listen to others, take actions on what you hear. Prioritize the information to deliver your promise.

Building an Emotional Bond

Humans are emotional creatures. No matter how strong a person claims to be, he/she can be touched by something that others don't. If you want to be friend with someone, you see the personality of the being, and see how he/she can meet your criteria. All people are different from one another, and that is why they are all unique.

As a business, you need to highlight the unique things about you. Being authentic and genuine isn't something you can fake, but your consumers are getting smarter and smarter.

People are expecting more from the brands they know. If the brands they chose is the ones that can fulfill their needs, they'll choose to support it eventually. Behind a great product must come some sort of passion. The passion is what makes the brand able to build the emotional connection with the customers.

If you have the good side of your personality you'd like to boast, this is the time to do so. And make sure to deliver it in an exciting way,

Live up to your customers' expectations. When they are using your product, the emotion will create a relationship, a deep connection will make your brand shines.

As different person represents their own uniqueness, to be a friend with someone means that you accept his/her personality. As a business, emotional connection is not limited to large things. All, even the smallest things can market your brand if you can put your best personality in them.

Since personality is your natural brand authenticity that you can show in every part of your marketing efforts, it should differ from one business to another as it's unique.

Beside being yourself in the market, your personality should also reflects your culture since this is where the emotional connection comes from. Forming this successfully will make you able to maintain a connection with your customers long-term.

Listen and Respond

People hunger for power, and that's natural. Your business may have a good sales performance, great business concept and so forth. But to maintain a good relationship, you need to share that power with your customers.

The power here means the power of thoughts. To maintain your relationship, you have to give your customers the opportunity to address their concerns and give their feedbacks. This is to show them that your brand is "human", and humans do listen when they are told.

The more you listen to your customers, the more respect they have to you. It's just another way to show your customers that you respond to a call they make. And the respond, as a professional, should also be addressed in a respectful manner.

Listening to others is not a guarantee that you'll make better sales. But listening, as well as responding to your customers' thoughts, is to show them that they're heard. Remember that customers are the people that made your business successful. To maintain the success you have achieved is to create the long lasting connection between your brand and your customers.

By responding to what they have to say, customers will love you the way you are. The more they love you, the more they'll promote your brand. Their good thoughts about your brand addressed to their friends are the most powerful marketing ever for you. You have to waste money, time and other resources to have even the least effect.

Nobody is perfect, but accepting one's weaknesses is what makes that person perfect.

Relationship First, Conversation Later

You can't have a engaging communication before having a great relationship. Relationship that is built on empathy, transparency, and honesty, are the ones that can last a lifetime. Hopes for a long-term conversation can be meaningless if done otherwise.

Conversation is just a by-product of a great relationship. What should matter most for businesses and brands is not a great sales. The important aspect in business is the relationship with the consumers, not the conversion.

By creating something valuable, people will come and see. The problem is, there are many businesses that do the same thing, making you just a spec of dust among the desert dunes. Billions of conversations are made everyday, and almost all of them are forgotten the next day. You are competing for attention among too many noises. And if you do succeed in standing out among the crowd with your powerful marketing efforts, you'll face another problem: complicating things for your customer's already cluttered lives.

To become a successful company, you need to make great sales. But to make your company a strong one that thrive in a long-term, being genuine in each and every conversation you make is crucial.

If you have something you want to say, then say it. Don't cloak it under marketing data because it will just make it unworthy.

For example, you may give something for free once in a while. When your customers think that you're selling it, you can prove them wrong. Because you are giving things for free, without any strings attached, is true, you can prove yourself to be genuine.

And because you can prove them wrong about them thinking otherwise, your effort will usually make them believe you in no time, and that's natural.

Usually, people know when you're not being genuine when you put something if front just to get something in return. If you can provide your customers with something they need, without asking anything in return, you'll build a connection that is based on trust, transparency, and honesty. And those are the main ingredient for a great relationship.

A Promise is a Debt

If your words are to be trusted, your words are promises that you must keep. Everything you say on your company's, or brand's behalf, is all a promise. And a promise is a promise.

Every sales you make, every products you're able to market, all the things that your customers are opting in to, every subscription they made with you, are all an agreement. Customers do all those things because they see you have the ability to provide value to them.

Each of these promise are interactions to can propel you to further negotiations and richer engagements. How good and fast you deliver your promise, will decide on what will happen next.

There are countless of businesses and brands out there. Billions of transactions are made each day, made by billions of customers. What is the first reason someone wants to engage with you? You have to deliver the value you promise them to attract them to better relationship.

As a business, you can't afford to take the customers for granted and forget that it's a negotiation, because your customers certainly won't. Despite they are constantly exposed to millions of brands, they will still recognize you as something that is not worth their time. Failing to keep your promise will make you spend spend more money to make it up to them, but may just drive your disappointed customers even further away.

Conclusion

Advertisements are everywhere, and people are not respecting them as they used to. Outstanding, powerful, influential and targeted ads will make you stand out for a moment. But to make you stand out higher, you don't really have to outdo what everyone else has done. You just need to think back to the basic of human beings.

Behind every businesses and brands are human beings at work. Simple things that are often overlooked, like human relationship, has the greatest power to influence.

Emotions are what create wars and peace. Someone may fund a way, and give all the supply and demand to keep it going. But without the propaganda, the war won't last long. Someone may try to keep peace by giving their people things that they need. But without knowing what their hopes, people will lose faith, and chaos can be inevitable.

Companies that can be "humans", are the ones that have a bigger purpose than just making money. They have something to care about, they have something unique that others can be fond of. So whatever your goals are, your real passion and drive beyond the word "money" are what will keep you always in your customers' hearts.