When it comes to marketing, there are a number of focus points that brands aim to achieve — obtaining loyal and consistent customers, maintaining a positive reputation amongst their target market, on-boarding new clientele quickly and remaining number one against competitors. So what marketing strategy helps brands achieve all these goals? Emotional branding is a powerful tool that elicits an emotional response from customers and ultimately can lead to a call to action. According to research conducted by professors at The Harvard Business School, achieving a strong emotional response — anger, fear, sadness, happiness, excitement — right away is a fast and simple way of getting your customers engaged with your brand, and keeping them interested. Now that you’re convinced emotional branding can work for your company, but you’re not too sure how to execute it, then read on as we discuss three main tips for successful emotional branding.

1. Understand Your Customer

In order to appeal to your customer’s emotions, it’s important to step into their shoes. What are they interested in? What do they value? What triggers their responses? What do they look for in products? By first having a deep understanding of what matters to your customers, you are then able to strategize messages and campaigns that cater to these particular points, delivering results more efficiently. Try taking the time to better learn about your clientele through customer surveys, feedback, social media interactions and research into what brands their purchasing into right now and why. Targeting teens and millennials, Coca-Cola noticed their audiences’ interest in social media, technology and communication, and from this deduced that it’s important for them to feel part of a community, express themselves and stay connected. From this, Coca-Cola came up with their ‘Share A Coke — Share A Feeling’ campaign that allowed customers to personalize their cans and share it with their loved ones as a way of communicating — it allowed audiences to express themselves while also promoting the Coca-Cola brand.

2. Be A Storyteller

One of the most powerful ways of eliciting emotion is by telling a storythrough your marketing efforts. Whether this means sharing a part of your brand’s history, creating stories within your campaigns or using visuals to imply a deeper meaning, it’s important for brands to build an environment that customers can feel a part of as this initiates feels of belonging, and encourages them to stay connected and gives them a great reason to come back. Cabela’s is a great example of a company that tells a story through visual storytelling. By setting up their store in a visually appealing way, they allow visitors to step into another world filled with fishing, hiking, hunting and boating. The brand therefore highlights the great outdoors, and attempts to sell a lifestyle through storytelling rather than just their products, and as a result customers understand the importance of what Cabela’s is selling.

3. Focus on Creating Interpersonal Relationships

Due to the increase in technology and the digital world, transparency between businesses and customers has become more prevalent. These days, both parties have the power to communicate directly with each other, offering advice, complaints and questions easily to have free-flowing communication. Emotional responses usually come when people feel comfortable, so why not use social media platforms, blogs or online surveys to initiate a more interpersonal relationship with your audience? By asking questions on Facebook, implementing a campaign on Instagram that requires a call to action or engaging followers through competitions, discussions and events, brands can form a more meaningful relationship with customers and therefore elicit deeper emotional responses.

Emotional branding is a powerful tool that should be a part of any marketing strategy. However, with a lot of competition and content in market today, getting the attention of your customers can be difficult so try following these quick tips to get a faster response from your audience.