Differentiating a brand is great, but creating a consistent, easy-to-understand message that aligns with the product is key if sellers want shoppers to remember their company or merchandise. After all, consumers will not remember what they do not understand. Marketing messages need to be kept simple, and the more these messages align with what your brand does, the more likely a customer is to remember you when it comes time to make a purchase.
In order to truly make your brand unforgettable, it is important to understand the psychology of marketing and the techniques, tricks, and rules that go into creating your message. According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, each year more than 30,000 new consumer products are launched and 95 percent of them fail, and the problem often is that their creators are using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism.
Amber Kemmis, VP of Business Operations at Revenue River, is an expert marketer who specializes in making brands unforgettable. Here are her five rules for creating an unforgettable brand:
- Promote your brand on multiple channels. The more you put your brand in front of potential customers, the more likely they are to remember it when they need something. Using a combination of multiple channels means a product or brand is exposed in numerous different places, and being seen twice can have a big impact.
- Focus on positive associations. There is a balance that must be achieved when it comes to repetition. Brands that focus on marketing campaign ideas just to stand out could be courting a bad association, which tend to be powerful and are often harder to forget than positive ones.
- Skip fear. Motivating consumers through fear is not effective in the long-term. In fact, studies have shown it can do the complete opposite and turn shoppers off from purchasing from your brand. Today’s consumer is smarter overall — they can see a fear-based tactic coming and are not motivated by them.
- Create stories around the product. Many brands have focused on their company’s origin story, but what is more effective and likely to resonate with the consumer, is when a brand’s story is about the buyer and they are trying to make a connection. This way, the customer feels like they can relate to the product and are more likely to remember it.
“All you have to do is resonate with the right person. We are living in a time where human behavior is rapidly changing, and as people change you are probably going to have to change your habits and way of resonating to continue to be unforgettable to them,” Kemmis said.
- Look at the data. Marketers today have numerous free data tools they can take advantage of to discover trends in consumer behavior. From this information, companies can create a hypothesis, test it, tweak it as needed, and accomplish their goal — even if you are working with a small budget.
“The world of marketing is constantly changing today, and to make a brand unforgettable requires an understanding of how the world and buyers are changing, while ensuring that your company stays one step ahead,” Karla Jo Helms, CEO and Anti-PRTMStrategist for JoTo PRTM and co-host of the If You Market They Will Come Podcast, said.