Why Being More Human is Your Brand’s Biggest Asset In 2024 (and Beyond)
In business, it’s no longer about just selling great products. For sustained business success and (more importantly) sustained consumer trust (not to mention employee retention), brands need to act and sound more human. It’s amazing how many brands continue to get this wrong, despite all that we’ve experienced together the past years and the incredible amount of research showing the criticality that maintaining a meaningful human connection has to a strong, resilient brand.
Research from Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman states that 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind, with emotion a bigger factor than price or logic. Additionally, The UK Customer Service Institute reports that customer satisfaction levels are at their lowest since 2015, and regardless of the industry you’re in, that should be VERY concerning.
But it doesn’t take science, or innovative tech, for your brand to be more human. It can be as simple as using your brand channels to highlight the people who really make a difference in what you sell - the people who aren’t famous but who work hard and deserve to be seen. Check this post below from Outlander Magazine highlighting some recent campaigns of this nature:
Here are three simple ways your brand can be more human:
Highlight Your Rockstars (Employees & Customers) - Yes, the term rockstar is cringe, but every brand has them - the people who quietly make a difference in meaningful ways. When I worked at Hilton, we used to talk about how we were “a business of people serving people,” and that often came to life best through the front desk agents, the housekeepers, the bartenders and the bellmen. They became the central characters in our stories. It’s great to have a beautiful product to sell (a comfortable bed is critical in hotels), but it’s those people who will make an experience memorable for a customer, and make them return. Another way to look at this is to highlight customer stories. The folks at TD Bank do a great job, for instance, highlighting their community impact through businesses they’ve supported - just check this story out on twin brothers Damian and Jermaine Johnson, who built the first black-owned barbership franchise in the U.S. An added bonus in all of these stories: they’re amazing internal communications tactics to keep employees engaged.
Nurture Your Community: Just as economic capital can lead to additional opportunities for a business, social capital drives long-term, meaningful connections with customers. Social capital is simply the equity created through quality interactions between a brand and its customers. When a brand has earned social capital (and continues to engage their most loyal customers), those same community members are some of your best advocates. Word of mouth marketing is great for any business, and moreover, if your brand happens to experience a crisis, that community can help to act on a brand’s behalf. Think about it as building up a bank of loyalty to help promote brand awareness and values, which leads to….
Live Your Brand Values and Purpose: To put it simply, customers want to do business with brands that share similar values and beliefs to their own. This is why marketing products cannot be your singular focus - you need to focus (and spend money on) marketing campaigns that highlight what your company stands for - aka your brand.. When I was at The Home Depot, our campaigns around disaster response and a focus on filling the skilled trades gap were two of the most meaningful the team created.. And while there were products scattered in those campaigns, that wasn’t the singular focus or intent. And they drove massive brand loyalty and credibility. Whatever your brand stands for, make it a point to make that a central storytelling narrative for your business.
Want to learn more about humanizing your brand? Let’s chat…
