YOUR BRAND HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

You have a product you're proud of, back unconditionally or at the very least, think deserves to be noticed. We believe the best way to do that is to make your brand something people identify with. We're emotional beings, we want to feel the decisions we're making are positive, important and resonate with a sentiment of inclusivity. 


We've outlined our three main ingredients that form the base of our Love Potion. Three emotive 'keys' to unlock a more personal relationship with your customers. These are:

On top of those we'll include additional, more personal ingredients. The elements uniquely related to your brand. The flavours that will make sure the potion works on the right people. You can't have a Love Potion without tailoring it to those you're trying to attract, right?


That's the stuff distinctive to your brand. Let's talk more about the big ideas you can look into now.

ADMIRE

/ədˈmʌɪə/ verb 

to regard with respect or warm approval

Treat this as the 'who you are' and how you're perceived. Your brand's personality.


Admire, as you can imagine, relates to a customer's affection towards your brand. Admiration can work across many levels and building that admiration is a journey that will span many different customer touch-points. 


Your goal when positioning your brand this way is for people to feel a connection with you. The way in which you communicate, your ethics, your tone of voice, your presentation, your ideals. You want people to think 'yeah, awesome. This is the kind of positive outlook I agree with and can respect'.


Admiration is most strongly earned through multiple positive experiences with your brand. Customers need to feel like every time they connect with your brand there's something personal and relatable. This admiration will shift their perception, moving them up through the ranks of the consumer scale into brand advocacy.

WHAT CAN YOU DO, TODAY, TO CULTIVATE ADMIRATION?

take a mental audit of your brand and refine your messaging

Take a look at your brand and how you communicate with your customers or perspective customers. What is your message and is it something people would find noteworthy or relatable? When someone hears your brand name, what do they imagine and how can you go about ensuring that image is framed to be positive and inviting?

explore your personal experiences and industry knowledge for inspiration

Think about some other brands outside your industry who you might admire, personally. What are they doing that's evoking that feeling? Is it due to a connection with you, perhaps geographically or through shared passion? Is it because they're positioned as leaders in their field? Is it due to a philanthropy or their social work?


Chances are, if you've made the connection, so have many others. If you look for too much inspiration from within your own industry, you can risk being a follower, not the leader you're striving for.

reinvent your image

Take the positive examples you've identified and apply it to your own messaging through the touchpoints in which your customers interact with your brand. You new outlook should leave you proud of what you're saying and it should resonate with the people you're reaching. It'll take time, but it's worth the wait.


Think about all the touchpoints - good communication should extend right through to replying to comments on social media. Take every opportunity to foster a relationship and admiration with your potential customers.

INSPIRE

/ɪnˈspʌɪə/ verb 

to fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative 

Think of this as the 'how you communicate'. The content, ads and messaging from your brand.


People always want to be their best selves. There's an urge in everyone to be better, do better and a thirst for the guidance and motivation to do just that.


Much like admiration, inspiration is emotive. It's a message to take action. It can manifest itself in bold, uplifting headlines, or more subtle encouraging calls to action. Your product or service doesn't need to be inspirational in itself, but rather the way you convey your message should encourage viewers. The way you communicate needs to be motivational. They can do it or feel it, and they'll get that inspiration every time they interact with you.


Inspiration itself is the result, the messaging can be achieved in many different ways. Humour, for example, is a wonderful way to create connections with consumers. Pride and passion are also very effective triggers for inspiration. The objective should be to encourage people to take action. 


It's important to make the distinction between motivating people to act in their best interest vs. simply compelling them to purchase. The first leaves the customer with a lasting positive experience with the brand. The second has the potential to lead to buyer's remorse or worse, a feeling of being tricked.

RIGHT NOW, HOW DO YOU BEGIN INSPIRING PEOPLE?

look at the way you're communicating

What tone are you taking in your communication? Think about positive ways in which you can word your ads, posts - anywhere customers interact with your brand. How does your content leave viewers feeling? Will they get any kind of emotional attachment to the content at all?


As noted before, inspiration comes in many forms and this can be achieved through motivational messaging, humour, pride, passion and a wealth of other emotions. The key is to become memorable and inspire a change or action.


This communication extends beyond headlines into your imagery, colour scheme, customer journey etc. There's a wealth of opportunities to communicate more meaningfully - you need to get creative and identify them. 

modify your messaging to leave an impression

Leaving an impression on viewers, no matter how small, can help retention the next time your communication appears. The positivity will compound with every impression lending your brand that reputation.


Take, for example, selling 2 for 1 t-shits. '2 for 1', or even, 'buy one get one free' are nice deals, sure, but rewording it to 'surprise a friend with a free tee' or 'look great, twice as often'  give people that inspiration to reconnect with friends, or have that extra confidence. You can always add '2 for 1 tees' as a sub-header if your graphic doesn't help with your message.


Remember your audience with your message. 2 for 1 ticket inspiration to a monster truck rally might look more like 'adrenaline junkies work best in pairs' than something mentioning style or friendship.

maintain your positive tone of voice

Your tone needs to be consistent to have the greatest effect. You can't splice it in sporadically and expect people to relate to your brand if you're typically just pushing out 'buy one get one free' deals, for example. Ensure that every time someone interacts with your brand they get inspired by the same positive feelings that associate with motivation.

DESIRE

/dɪˈzʌɪə/  verb 

strongly wish for or want (something)

This is the emotional attachment to what you offer. How your product or service is perceived.


Desire in our list of ingredients explores your offering, whether it's a product or service. Your aim should be to promote something that will make a customer's life better, easier, or more fun. I'm not suggesting that you change your business, but rather that when your offering appears, you're making sure people understand the benefits associated with it and that those benefits are tailored to be near-unmissable.


You might find that this overlaps with the inspire messaging from above, and that can be incredibly beneficial. There are many opportunities to drill right down to your offering and find little niches to really set yourself apart.


Think of desire as your product side of the messaging. What the customer will get and why they'll not only want it, but appreciate it so much more than similar products or services on the market. 

HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR OFFERING MORE DESIRABLE?

view your offering from the perspective of improving someone's quality of life

With so many options available to consumers, just having something cheaper isn't enough any more. You might make more sales but you need to consider if you're ultimately just undercutting yourself. Another option is to refine what your offering means to the consumer and ensure that the appeal is driven, at least in part, emotionally.


In ever-increasingly stressful, busy lives, people are more inclined to spend money on products and services that will make those lives easier, better or 'perceived' to be better. People will pay a premium for a brand name despite their products being equal to or even of lower quality than the competition. You can think of several off the top of your head.


These qualities can be either direct or indirect. Direct quality of life (QoL) benefits are ones that customers can immediately appreciate and recommend. Indirect benefits might include aspects of the product that they won't see themselves, but might improve their quality of life through their community or personal wellbeing. An example might be a Sales as a Service online management system. Direct QoL benefits might include an easier to use user interface than the competitors, or more language options. An indirect benefit could include the site's use of local, solar-powered servers, providing a cleaner environment and a healthier economy for the customer to work within.


We're only scratching the surface here, so take a minute to consider all aspects of your offering, regardless of how small, and compare them to your competition. Where do you excel? Where can you improve? Most importantly, how can you use your discoveries to add desire?

make sure you redefine your communication to suit these benefits

When you refine your product or service messaging (product advertising vs brand advertising), be sure to think about the wider implications of your benefits. Desire is a very raw emotion, seemingly uncontrollable, and your customers will often share some of the same sentiments or values so ensure you're tailoring the messaging to the correct audience. How does your product provide better or additional benefits to those of your competitors, while going a step further and really appealing to their overall quality of life?


Imagine the messaging for a lawnmowing company with the initial promotion of '$20 lawn mowing'. Inspirational messaging may refine their offering to 'make your lawns the envy of the street' (to energise their pride). Desirable messaging would then appeal to their quality of life and this might lead with the headline 'take back your weekend'. 


Of course, these messages would benefit from the initial $20 promotion if it's a good deal, and there would need to be calls to action such as contact details or links to your website. Consider how they can all be integrated to provide a united message.

keep the feeling of ease through all your interactions with customers

Desire for an offering begins before the purchase but doesn't end until things long after it's in a person's hands. Supporting people through a service for example, will only help to cement their desire to reuse or recommend it. Having the product made from reliable, sustainable materials so that it lasts is great, but on the off chance that it breaks, having the processes in place to assist the consumer will double up on their admiration of your brand.


An offering will be much more desirable if the path to receiving, using and replacing that offering are quick and painless. A towel is a towel, but if your towel is easy to purchase, shipped and tracked promptly and is followed up by a passionate thank you email. Then there's far more of an emotional connection to your towel.

WHAT ABOUT THE EXTRA 'PERSONAL' INGREDIENTS?

These are the little bits of magic that makes every brand unique. 


Every brand has their own vision, identity, values, and methods of expressing themselves. These amazing defining factors will help shape the way in which you're perceived and interacted with.


If you're starting out, or looking for a branding refresh to jump-start your presence in the marketplace, get in touch! We'll work with you to help you pinpoint just what you'd like your story to say, feel & appear and work out how we can reach your ideal audience with a splash of your Love Potion. If you're already content with your brand, then Baron Samedi will take all the hard work you've already done and together we'll tweak your offering to capture the most attention.


If you're happy looking for some ideas on where to go next, we're putting our articles, tips and case studies into a monthly newsletter that you can sign up to below. No spam, we promise.


If you'd like to get started, contact us!

LET'S PUT THIS INTO PRACTISE AND TAKE
YOUR MESSAGE TO THE WORLD!

We're only a message away