It’s time to do something different with your brand

What you do is not what ultimately makes you desirable to those you hope to serve.

Unfortunately, this is difficult to discern when you conduct research with your customers and prospects. I’ve seen plenty of this research. You ask a group why they like or prefer a brand. They’ll tell you about some feature or function of that brand. Because that’s the easy stuff to identify.

So companies and organizations will take that finding and say that’s what we need to talk about the most. They go about doing that and get tepid results. And, yes, it is as maddening as it sounds to be caught in this process.

So what’s the alternative?

Most brands’ features and functions aren’t compelling enough to emotionally engage prospects. That can be hard for companies to accept. After all, their offering is their baby. How couldn’t the world be as excited as they are about it?

The smarter brands turn to the benefits of their features and functions. Those can be expressed in terms like ‘it saves you time’ or ‘it makes life easier’. Now we’re getting to the feels. We’re inching away from the rational side of our brain and toward that emotional side. You know, the side where all our decision-making is done.