Brandtrack helps you create emotional connections with your audience.

November 13, 2018

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By
jpvillani

Brandtrack helps you create emotional connections with your audience.

The stronger the connections your customers have with your company, the more loyal they will be to your brand. Interactions become more than a transactional exchange of a product or service. A relationship is built on a series of encounters that are not only physical but also interactive with your products, website, service, point of sale, and much more. Nowadays we live connected, we want to share, we want to belong. The sense of belonging goes through many places, including music. That's where empathy comes in. If brands don't invest in doing the hard work of empathizing with their customers, they risk becoming irrelevant. The strength of the bonds is determined by the brand's understanding of their consumers' values and tastes.

Empathy — the ability to understand another's feelings, alien to us — is what makes us human. It's what makes us care. And it's one of the most powerful tools for a business. Empathy allows brands to understand who they are addressing and from there, seek to improve those people's day, convey what they want to see, feel or hear. By trying to understand their customers, brands can create a space that allows them to build a bond, establish a trust relationship and from there, achieve transactions. When business is at stake, it's easy to jump straight into tactics. But both in business and in personal life, real emotional connections are not created by tactics; they are created with empathy. For brands, empathy is based on understanding their customers and putting themselves in their shoes. Empathy is the key to each of the bonds between people and also between people and a company, it is what generates a deep relationship. We are in an increasingly hypersegmented market.

Hypersegmentation brings product diversification. Not only are there more products, but there is also brand diversification. Interest is more selective. Sometimes when the brand is less massive, it's better. It speaks to one person within the market. The sales proposal is personalized to the maximum.

Car dealerships are having the same problem as clothing retailers: creating emotional connections with the people who are responsible for keeping them in the market. What starts as brand confusion or apathy can quickly turn into a fatal disconnection. Consumers who have no emotional engagement with a particular brand operate outside of preference. Affinity changes when for example: proximity, a cheaper service, or a differential value proposition are offered. This means that if brands don't invest in doing the hard work of generating empathy with their customers to cultivate authentic emotional connections, they are at risk of becoming irrelevant. So, how can a business really show empathy?

Understanding What Customers Hear

Music is one of the most powerful ways to provoke an emotional reaction in a person immediately. But it has to be the right kind of music. And to know what the "right" kind of music is, that's where empathy becomes key. Music is powerful because it recalls and visualizes existing memories and provokes us to create new ones. As soon as you hear a piece of music — whether listening to something you've heard before or listening to something new — it will take you back to a moment or place, allowing you to develop an emotional connection with the song that is playing. That's precisely what brands are looking for. Nothing works as effectively. No other marketing strategy or formats connect or evoke emotions like music does. Music connects listeners directly to the brand's identity, creating a powerful experience that deepens the listener's connection. And that listener is your customer.

Making Music a Part of Your Brand Strategy

Music, like colors, logos, graphic elements, images, and typography, should be part of your brand strategy, as it provides the same amount of information about the brand as any of the aforementioned elements. In addition, it can be used as an element of promotional campaigns, product launches, events, store environments, and much more. Does your brand have a strategy that includes music? If the answer is no, we can help you. Every moment matters.

Take a minute to think about the music that has been important at some point in your life, it can be a memory from a long time ago or it can be one from the present, that conveys certain emotions through what the lyrics are telling. What was the first CD you bought? The first concert you attended? What album do you associate with your high school years? What song played when you walked into your wedding? Music seeps not only into our minds but also into memories that accompany us forever.

When someone walks into a store and the music is right, it's a magical moment. Music has the power to change people's mood. At that precise moment, that's where connections are made. For example, through a perfectly calm ambient type of music, people feel relaxed and feel more at home. Brands that align with this type of music have the opportunity to build a connection through ambient music to enhance communication and interaction with their customers.

Emotionally engaging audiences build a good relationship between the brand and the customer. Every time a company moves beyond a transaction, a customer feels at home, feels understood by the brand. It's not just commerce; it's a connection built shoulder to shoulder. It's not just transactional; it's personal. And every time a brand moves beyond tactics tied with sales strategies, it can inspire these emotional connections.