By: Marcela Arango
Abril 28, 2020
A few days ago, I read an article that stated if 77% of brands that exist today disappeared, nobody would really care (Meaningful Brands Study by Havas Group). Impacted by this bold assertion, I was led to ask myself: what does a brand have to do to be remembered?
While pondering this question, a word immediately clicked in my head: Purpose. We have all heard that the most important quality of a brand is not only the product or service that they offer, but the purpose behind it. In other words, are you a fan of a brand only because of the products and services that they offer, or because of the way that they create emotional connections through their communication and the content they share? Personally, I have bought products that I didn’t even need just because I felt an emotional connection to the brand. So that’s the key: To connect emotionally with customers through authentic communication guided by your purpose.
However, it is not possible to have a real connection with someone you do not know, right? That is why you must also pay attention and take the time to understand your audience, defining who you want to target as a brand. There are multiple tools for this investigation process, but the most important one is to get a comprehensive understanding of your audience by knowing their exact interests, needs, and dreams.
Now, once you have understood your audience, start thinking about how you are going to communicate and deliver value through your content. Let’s look at 6 characteristics your content should have with some examples of how we do it at imasD. Understanding these concepts will help you segment and balance the information you share.
A brand that shares meaningful content should:
Inspire
That is, with your purpose, specialty, and audience’s interests and needs in mind, think about how your knowledge can inspire others, whether through the story of your brand and who is behind it, or your experience, company culture, failures and successes, etc.
For example, at imasD we have ‘The Coolbook’ which is an inspirational tool that explains various trends that guide the future of brands. Through a number of case studies, people can get inspired by new ideas that are applicable to their own businesses.
Entertain
Today more than ever, trends show us that consumers are looking for ways to balance their professional and personal lives. Consumers seek out brands that offer them leisurely experiences and ways to enhance their well-being. Create content that allows you to be present in the life of your consumer, not only for productive purposes, but also for entertainment.
At imasD, we are building a new platform of podcasts where creativity and design are the main focuses. Through conversations with experts, friends, and interesting people, you will be entertained and inspired by their stories.
Educate
By sharing knowledge of what you are an expert in, you not only positively impact your audience, but you also promote and support your sector by providing information that makes them grow. The stronger the sector you work in is, the more reasons you have to innovate and push yourself to find ways to be different.
For example, we recently launched our Cool Camp, a set of virtual conferences and courses where you can learn about different topics such as branding, research, creativity and design, by sharing our experiences and methods to take your brands and projects to the next level.
Inform
Tell your audience about yourself and your brand, what you have to offer, and what you have accomplished. It is important that they get to know you, but be sure to balance this content with engaging activities so that your customers don’t lose interest. People like to know about the products they’re purchasing, but who doesn’t get bored with a brand that only talks about themselves?
That’s why at imasD we focus part of our social media content and webpage to share our projects, results, and services, but also balance it with other useful content like blogs, and trend reports.
Help
Consumers are connecting more with those brands that show a real interest in generating a positive impact on society. There are many strategies that you can create through alliances and collaboration with other brands and people. Through transparency and honesty, keep your audience aware of all these processes.
For a couple of years we have had a space that we call “Un Café con imasD” which consists of free advisory for local entrepreneurs or people that are in an early stage of a project. We guide them and give them tools to cope with their biggest challenges.
Reward
Create strategies to reward the loyalty of your audience. Not necessarily only with discounts, but you can host creative contests with special awards in order to motivate customers to interact with you, and make them feel special.
Through our social media pages, we have rewarded our followers by giving away tickets to thought-provoking conferences where we participate, or sharing discount codes on our products such as The CoolBook.
Taking these characteristics into account, it’s necessary to remember the importance of constantly monitoring your results and statistics, analyze the data and begin to identify patterns that allow you to confirm your hypothesis about your audience and increase interaction with them.
Finally, don’t forget that when the rules of the game change, when our environment transforms and “forces” us to do things in a different way, the key is to return to the purpose that connect us with why we started in the first place, thus keeping us in the minds of those we have impacted.