Millennials, Gen Z, and even the rest of us are all looking for more than just a product. We want a brand we can connect with on an emotional level that speaks to who we are as individuals. This is especially challenging in today’s digital world, where nearly every brand is fighting for our attention.

How do consumers feel about your brand? We have plenty of brands to choose from, and they’re all competing for the same piece of the pie. This means that in order to sustain loyalty, you need to separate your brand from the others quickly or risk being forgotten forever. To help you get started on this process, here are some tips to keep you ahead of your competitors when it comes to your brand identity:

Create an emotional connection

Creating an emotional connection with your brand is the first step to building strong brand loyalty. This doesn’t happen overnight, but it does begin with a well-thought-out brand strategy. Your logo and color scheme are important components of your branding. However, they don’t have the emotional impact that words do.

This is where you’ll want to spend a lot of time researching and brainstorming the best possible way to position your brand. You want to associate your brand with feelings like reliability, excellence, or social impact. This way your consumers can see themselves being loyal to your brand for years to come. UpMetrics explains the in-and-out of social impact really well if you want to learn more.

Keep in mind that what works for one brand won’t necessarily work for another. For example, while some may connect McDonald’s with love and happiness as a child, others may be reminded of a less-than-healthy eating experience.

It’s important to know your audience and how they are likely to respond to your brand so that you can adjust if needed. If you’re experiencing difficulty finding the right emotional connection for your brand, consider hiring a brand strategist to help out.

Know your audience

Branding is all about making connections, but before you do that, you need to know who you’re connecting with. Millennials, Gen Z, and even the rest of us are all looking for more than just a product. We want a brand we can connect with on an emotional level that speaks to who we are as individuals.

The problem is that many brands don’t know who their target audience is or how to create content that resonates with them. This is partly because brands have traditionally focused on their products first and their customers second. Now, it’s time to flip the script.

If you don’t know who your target audience is, you can’t create content that resonates with them. When you have a better understanding of who you’re marketing to and how they think, it becomes much easier to create content that connects with them on an emotional level. This can come in the form of blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, or even newsletters.

Incorporate real-time marketing

Real-time marketing is a concept that marketers have been using for years to take advantage of events that are happening in real-time. Examples of this include responding to questions or concerns on social media, creating content around trending topics, or even live-streaming your content creation process.

By incorporating real-time marketing into your brand strategy, you establish yourself as a reliable source of information and create a sense of urgency around your content. This is especially important if you’re targeting millennials and Gen Z who tend to be very impulsive when making purchasing decisions.

If you don’t have the resources to incorporate real-time marketing into your strategy, you can still benefit from it. You can do this by incorporating real-time content into your strategy and don’t forget to take advantage of notifications, which your customers can see immediately.

This can come in the form of incorporating trending topics into your content, responding to questions or concerns on social media, or even live-streaming your content creation process. Just remember that if you’re incorporating real-time content into your strategy, it’s important to stick to your brand message.

Provide exceptional customer service

Regardless of how great your product is, you’re likely to lose customers who don’t feel like they’re being taken care of. This is especially true when it comes to millennials and Gen Z, who are known to be very savvy when it comes to customer service. If your product is faulty or breaks, you need to be quick to respond to any complaints or concerns your customers may have.

If your product isn’t fitting the bill, you need to be quick to respond and offer a solution. This might seem like common sense, but many brands don’t follow through when it comes to customer service. Whether you’re a multi-billion dollar company or a small startup, it’s important to respond to customer concerns in a timely manner.

This includes responding to negative comments on social media, emails, or phone calls. In fact, about 90% of customer complaints are left unanswered. When your customers feel like they’re being heard, they’re more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

Keep the hype going

One of the biggest myths about branding is that the process ends after you’ve created your logo and published your first blog post. The truth is, that branding is an ongoing process. The challenge is how to stay consistent with your brand message when you have limited resources. One way to keep the hype going is to create rituals around your brand. Rituals have been shown to increase customer loyalty.

They also give your team a set of rules to follow when creating new content. That way they don’t get too creative and stray too far from your brand message. There are plenty of rituals you can implement to help keep the hype going.

Including creating a morning meeting ritual, keeping a consistent blogging schedule, or even creating a brand mantra. No matter which rituals you choose to incorporate into your branding process, they need to be followed consistently in order to be effective.

Bottom line

Branding is all about making connections with your customers. It begins with knowing who you’re marketing to, where they live and what they like to do. Once you know who you’re marketing to, you need to make sure you provide them with what they want. If you can do all of these things, you can be sure that there will be a lot of satisfied customers who will be eager to become lifelong brand loyalists.

Jane