How To Use Branding To Connect With Your Audience

Trust, excitement, happiness, and pride. Commonplace words. But they’re worth millions to brands. That’s if they can invoke the emotions behind these words, in the brains of their audience. Most can’t.

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That’s why they engage in branding that can help them harness the power of emotion in branding. But even these agencies find branding tough. Most can’t even build brands for themselves!

Ask yourself: Do you know any branding and ads agency? Perhaps you’re familiar with names like Ogilvy, but that’s the master ads tycoon. And even though you might remember the brands he made, you sure don’t have any recall for his agency itself as a brand.

Back to the problem for businesses: how do they do something that’s – presumably – so difficult?

How do you harness the power of emotion in branding?

A brand that can massage a shopper’s emotions, sits in their mind space, whether they like it or not. And what’s remembered, gets evicted, and what’s revisited gets bought.

Here are four ways to help you use emotion effectively in branding and generate brand recognition and brand loyalty. Any agency will follow these steps. Know them, before you talk to them.

Know them (Audience research)
Find your handwriting (Typography)
Find your face (Colors)
Keep on doing it (Multi-touchpoint consistency)

How to connect with an audience? 4 methods

Know your audience

Branding is about creating a strong emotional connection between your product/service and your target audience.

Ask questions about your target audience’s demographics, values, beliefs, and pain points. Whichever branding service you work with, you’ll have to articulate the answers to these questions.

Based on this you tailor your branding design to resonate with their emotions. Understand what drives their emotional responses.

For example, a security company may use images and messaging that evoke a sense of safety and protection to appeal to consumers who are looking for peace of mind. Or if the community isn’t very concerned about its safety, you might want to instill fear in them.

For this, you need to work on website design, logo design, and more.

For example, this website was designed to reflect Hubco Global’s brand. It invoked trust in the consumer and resulted in a higher customer retention rate.

You can have a branding design agency create a brand look and feel that harnesses the power of emotions.

Find the right typography

Typography is a key component of your branding that can help you emotionally connect with your audience.

Your choice of font should complement the overall appearance and feel of your business. It should also be readable and aesthetically pleasing. Using online proofing software can ensure your whole team is aligned on the appearance and readability of the font selection.

Learn from the best in the business. Here are 5 iconic brands, whose typography shouts out their name.

Coca-Cola: The iconic script lettering used in the Coca-Cola logo.
Nike: Nike’s bold, sans-serif typeface is omnipresent in all its branding.
FedEx: FedEx’s stylized “FedEx” lettering says more than just its name, with the hidden arrow symbol between the “E” and “X” representing speed and accuracy.
Apple: Apple’s sleek and simple sans-serif typeface is a hallmark of timeless typography.
McDonald’s: The bold, red, and yellow arched lettering of the McDonald’s logo – a true icon in the branding world.

Don’t be daunted. How to do this? Take a branding company’s help. They are professionals.

They will pay attention to these details and help create a powerful emotional connection between your brand and target audience.

Find the right colors

Colors shape our emotions and trigger psychological responses.

Source

Warmer shades like yellow and orange can evoke feelings of trust, and warmth. Blue is associated with trust and calmness.

Select the color based on which emotion you want to evoke. You can also onboard experts to express your brand with the right combination of colors.

Of course, you’d get simplistic advice, such as ‘white means pure’. But white also means emptiness.

The color alone amounts to nothing. It’s there as a piece of the puzzle. Worthless alone, and still indispensable for the full picture.

Here’s a table to get you started.

Color	Positive Emotions	Negative Emotions
Red	Passion, Energy, Excitement	Anger, Fear, Aggression
Orange	Warmth, Enthusiasm, Happiness	Intensity, Overwhelming
Yellow	Happiness, Optimism, Clarity	Caution, Anxiety, Cowardice
Green	Serenity, Growth, Freshness	Envy, Jealousy, Boredom
Blue	Trust, Calmness, Responsibility	Coldness, Aloofness, Sadness
Purple	Creativity, Wisdom, Spirituality	Arrogance, Extravagance, Nostalgia
Pink	Playfulness, Romance, Innocence	Immature, Frilly, Insignificant
Brown	Nature, Soothing, Comfort	Dullness, Boredom, Lack of Excitement
Black	Power, Elegance, Mystery	Darkness, Fear, Grief
White	Purity, Innocence, Cleanliness	Sterility, Coldness, Emptiness

Create a consistent emotional experience

Be consistent with the emotions that your brand evokes.

This means creating a consistent emotional experience across all touchpoints.

Consider these 5 touchpoints. This is an oversimplification, but a good start.

Advertising: Traditional mediums such as television, print, and outdoor as well as digital mediums like social media, search, and display advertising.
Product Packaging: The first interaction a consumer has with a brand.
Website and Online Presence: Primary point of information and interaction for consumers online.
In-Store Experience: The overall design, layout, and ambiance of a store.
Customer Service: The way a brand interacts with its customers.

Consistency in branding across these touchpoints means you’ll be appealing to the same emotions in your client.

This is much like how your customers know friends and family as people with unique and predictable behaviors.

Brands that can do this, cease to be businesses, they become people.

Again, it’s worth repeating the message: Find an agency that knows its stuff has served brands similar to yours, and has a portfolio you’ll be impressed with.