BRANDING -- It's All About the Emotional Business Connection

Entrepreneurs don't always take the time to find out what their customers truly want, which is to simply feel good about the product or service they're purchasing. It's one thing to provide a product that's in demand or a service that gets the job done. But it's an entirely different proposition to make someone feel good about committing to make a purchase.

How Emotional Branding Works

Emotional branding is the public relations art of making your customer feel good about doing business with you. If your business is an online store, for example, do you take the extra time to send a "thank you" email to your customers? Do you make your website easy for your customers to navigate? Is your website easy to follow -- from first hit to "check out?" Take the extra time to do the little things for your customers, and they'll be more likely to feel good about what you're selling to them.

Emotional branding has been around since the beginning of sales. It's about establishing an intimate relationship with your customers where you understand what your customers want and your customers understand you.

Three Questions To Ask Yourself About Branding

To best understand your customers and to best create an intimate emotional connection with them, you should ask yourself three questions about your business.

First, what's important to the people whom you want to attract to your business?

Second, what are the main concerns of the people you want your business to attract? If you sell car tires, your customers are concerned about their quality, how long they'll last, and that you'll install them properly. If you can reassure your customers that you can do these things, you will create an emotional branding connection with them and are more likely to make the sale.

Lastly, what do you do to address the concerns of the people you want your business to attract? Do you make sure you only buy tires from reputable suppliers? Do you only offer new tires? Do you only hire certified mechanics to install the tires on customers' cars? These are all things that you can do to calm customers' fears and create an emotional branding connection with them.

Keep Change In Mind

Customer needs change over time. To maintain an emotional connection with your customers, you must change with your customers' needs. Find out what is important to them, and offer those products and services. Prove you're a company that meets your customers' needs and you will connect intimately with them. Customers will keep your brand in mind and feel confident about buying from you. They'll be there for you as long as you're there for them.

Stir Clear of GREEN-washed Messaging

Before you jump on the GREEN bandwagon, do your homework to make sure your GREEN messaging is true and accurate. If you don’t, you could easily be accused of “GreenWashing” by stretching the truth. You need to conduct detailed environmental and social-impact assessments on each GREEN-related promotion you roll out. Anything less could lead to eco-friendly claims that ring hollow falling far short of the results you were anticipating.

Make it a practice to tout third party GREEN product certifications when possible for more credibility. Avoid quoting potentially biased sources that could lead to blatant green-washed claims. Applying similar protocols can help ensure the integrity of your company’s GREEN messages.

For example, Give Something Back Business Products out of San Francisco - www.givesomethingback.com - makes sure its GREEN marketing messages adhere to a 4-point checklist. GSB’s director of sustainability, Stephanie Schlecht, says that each green promotion must

• Be as specific as possible. All claims must be made in the context of the company’s wider sustainability program.

• Be as transparent as possible. The company openly promotes its green goals and shares stories about how it does or doesn’t achieve those goals.

• Be as relevant as possible. Any claims must accurately relate to a product’s connection to specific environmental issues throughout the product’s entire life cycle.

• Be a resource. The company considers outreach and education an integral part of its value proposition, so sustainability messages must reflect that standard.

Following such guidelines will keep your company’s GREEN messaging up front and credible and far from any potentially unprofitable GreenWashed promotions.