In this week’s blog, we’ll discuss the importance of and ways to humanize your brand.
In today’s marketing atmosphere, it’s important to humanize your brand because it will allow your business to gain deeper engagement and connection with your clients and customers.
Gone were the days that brands were treated like one-dimensional icons, beating each other with who’s more popular or who’s got the better models.
Nowadays, people look at brands more like human beings, and if your brand doesn’t appear to be one, you’ll most likely run out of audiences fast.
You need to stop treating your brand like another emotionless business and treat it more like a real human being.
People love connecting with one another, and as such, research has shown that clients and customers will more likely connect with brands that share the same personal values as they do.
When a customer claims to like a particular brand, it really has little to do with the product or service’s claims of superiority over its competition; instead, it has more to do with how the brand’s message affects the customer personally.
You can see this today – in spite of the numerous brands for the same products or services out there, only a few are really gaining the attention and patronage of their target clients or customers.
These are the brands that you need to emulate if you want your business to succeed.
These successful businesses have realized that in order to appeal to the modern audience, their brands have to be human. And so, they invest a lot of time, money and effort in ensuring that their brands behave like living, breathing beings.
Brands today are created with a deep understanding of human behavior, and their stories are crafted so they resonate with human emotion.
By ascribing rich human qualities to their brand, they can build a true sense of commitment and loyalty among their consumers.
You should do the same. You should humanize your brand.
By making your brand display human qualities, you are able to better communicate with your target clients or customers, thus establishing a relationship with them.
Your brand’s personality helps create a unique identity and helps earmark it as different from others.
If you want to grow your brand and ultimately your business, we’ve listed the top five ways you can humanize your brand:
1. Make Your Story Unique and Relatable
Every story is different, so don’t be afraid to share yours. Let your audience know the details of how your business started, and the things that you and your team went through to get to where you are today. Include your triumphs and your defeats.
By being transparent, you showcase your authenticity and make your brand more honest and trustworthy.
There are several ways to tell your story. Share them as an article, make a video or put it up on your website. Make sure your story is authentic and ties in with your brand’s purpose and values.
2. Show Your Clients/Customers That You Care
Whether through a robust and well-managed customer care department or small and simple gestures – like thanking them on social media, sending them some promos and discounts, writing out a small note of appreciation when they make a sale.
These are small but sure ways of building that human-to-human connection that people want from your brand.
3. Feature The Human Side Of The Business
It’s not enough to just showcase how you build your products or how you develop your services; make it a point to feature the people behind the process.
Feature your team members, who they are and how they contribute to the operations of your business. Tell your audiences real stories of grit and commitment that your employees have displayed.
One good way of doing this is by utilizing your social media pages to feature these stories. This can be done through snippets, videos, or the newly released “reels” feature.
4. Don’t Shy Away From Mistakes
Many brands fail because they only want to show the good side of their business. They are solely focused on creating an identity that is flawless and superior.
The truth of the matter is – no brand is perfect just as no human being is perfect. It’s all good to admit the mistakes that you and your team have made in the process of growing your business.
When a brand is not afraid of admitting its mistakes, it endears the customers and clients more. This shows that the business is willing to change and improve.
This brings in more interest to your brand.
5. Craft Your Voice With Authenticity
It’s not just your story that needs to be relatable. Your voice needs to be human as well.
Build a voice that’s relatable and authentic. Not one that sounds ephemeral and condescending.
Instead of the formal, boring language often used to describe a brand, use a voice that garners interest and curiosity out of your target audience.
Use a relatable brand voice, much like a person speaking to a real person. Make sure to develop our brand voice from your unique set of values.
In Conclusion
There is so much value when you humanize your brand for your business.
You not only gain clients and customers, but you gain friends.
Of course, establishing relationships with your clients and customers goes beyond the story; it involves your marketing materials, both digital and physical.
This is where HoopJumper can help you.
We help independent professionals like you create, refresh and humanize your brand so you will become more relatable, look professional, and ultimately make more money.
Check out our branding services today so you can start to humanize your brand.