Do you know your sweet spot? Are you using technologies to your advantage?  What technologies are available?  Whether a product driven company or an idea and intellectual properties driven organization, you have to be able to think outside your office walls.   For example, as a product based company you may want to understand what your consumers think of you. Forget the granular level of thinking and float to the top to better understand how they view your products. What makes your product better?  What emotion does it evoke? You may respond by telling us that your product doesn’t need to evoke emotion but rather it serves a very practical use and therefore people will want it.  Lets go with that for a minute.  It is practical.  It is functional.  It eventually wears out, breaks, or ceases to exist.  Are your consumers tied to the brand or the functionality?  If the functionality, they will seek out another functional piece, most often selected based on lowest price.  While this model is okay, do you really want your base to be tied to the lowest common denominator?  If so, someone will always beat you out in product or brand placement.   If you are content to play this game, then no need to read on further. If you want something different, read on.

Why does your brand or cause need to evoke emotion?  On BrandingStrategyInsider.com, they hit the nail on the head with several statements:

To achieve brand insistence the consumer must trust your brand and feel an emotional connection to it. People become emotionally connected to a brand for a number of reasons:

1. The brand stands for something important to them.
2. The brand is intense and vibrant.  It connects with people on multiple levels across several senses.
3. The brand is unique.
4. The brand is admirable.
5. The brand consistently interacts with them.  It never disappoints them.
6. The brand makes them feel good.

They go on to say the following:

“good service is all about creating positive feelings, treating people well and solving people’s problems.

Ultimately, emotional connection will come from positive shared experiences with the brand over time.  While this trust is built over time, offering an unconditional guarantee is a quick way to reduce the risk of a new unknown brand and to generate some minimum level of trust immediately.”

Chew on this and take a look at your brand.  Do you use emotion to activate your core base?  Do you use emotion to drive their perception of your brand?   NOT YOUR NAME.  YOUR BRAND. Big difference here.   In our business we create touch points for our clients in the form of events.  We are often on the forefront of audiences impression of our clients and what they have to offer.  We connect on emotion.  In the 3^rd part of the three part series, we will outline methodologies that Synergy uses to help our clients uncover their sweet spot, activate, and expand their core base.  Happy Thursday.