When we think of a brand image, we often think of a logo, color, catchphrase, and other elements that we see in print and online media. However, these design and content elements are just surface-level representations of a business.
Your true brand image is what your customer thinks about your brand.
This means that when you want to build your brand image, you need to go beyond graphics and content – although they do play a pivotal role. The way to shape your brand image is by creating positive customer experiences
Customer experience grows from the interactions that customers have with your brand. These interactions take place several times throughout your business’s relationship with your audience. Customer experience starts when they first become aware of your brand and ends when they stop buying from you.
The key is to build a relationship with your customers and then to create the best interactions you can across different touchpoints. By creating positive interactions, you influence customer experience and shape your brand image.
Let’s look at some helpful ways to use influence customer experiences and boost your brand image.
Identify all Customer Touchpoints
To begin, you need to identify the touchpoints where customers interact with your brand. Different points of interactions include:
- Online advertisements on websites and on social media
- Your landing page
- Articles, white papers, and blog posts
- Interactions with customer support and your sales team
- Social media posts
- Direct messages on social media and more
These are just a few examples of places where a customer may build an impression of your brand that adds up to form your final brand image. When you know what your brand touchpoints are, you can make experiences better.
Personalize Your Content
Personalizing your content when you interact with customers increases your chances of engagement. Creating personalized emails makes people feel like they are getting individual attention. It also humanizes your brand and helps customers feel connected to your business. They’ll perceive you as being more than a faceless business entity.
You can create greater personalization by using CRM tools and building a rounded view of your customers.
Greater personalization is also done by using email marketing services and by email list segmentation.
Segment Your Email List
Segmenting your email list will help drive greater content personalization. It is a crucial action that you should implement when building your email list.
When you segment your email list based on demographics, purchase history, and other factors, you can customize your content.
Customers who receive email communication that’s relevant to them will feel positive about the business sending it. You’ll improve customer experience, boost open rates, and improve conversions.
Engage Using Social Media
Your audience is active and engaged in social media and use it as an important platform for information. Working with social media will allow you to truly engage with your audience at a deeper level and build a strong brand image. There are several opportunities to create compelling customer experiences.
Create Informative Pages
People explore pictures, reviews, and other content on a business’s social media page. Build a profile with relevant information, including business timings, images, and helpful posts.
Respond to Messages
It’s very common for people to make non-essential queries through social media messages. Use auto-respond features to deliver a helpful response instantly.
Use Tools
Social media monitoring tools will help you to ‘listen’ online and track brand mentions. You can follow specific hashtags and understand how people feel about your brand and what their needs are. This allows you to find new leads and to identify problems early on.
Taking a few extra steps and communicating with your audience on a personal level will make them feel heard. They’ll develop trust sooner and associate your brand with positive emotions.
Collect Feedback
Understanding whether your customer experience management efforts are working depends on feedback.
It’s essential to embed feedback collection mechanisms into all key touchpoints. Doing this will allow you to get feedback right after an interaction. Businesses often get feedback on customer satisfaction by creating a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey.
By launching an NPS survey right after a customer purchase or some other key interaction, you’ll be able to track the impact of your interactions.
Use the Right Tools
Technology drives customer experience. You need to have all the right tools in place for different processes to deliver on customers’ expectations. Here are a few helpful tools that you need to have to support personalization, process automation, and more.
- CRM platforms to build a 360-degree view of your customer
- Analytics tool for your website to gauge traffic and user interactions with your content
- Specialized customer experience management platforms focused solely on boosting customer interactions
- Social media listening tools and sentiment analysis
- Live chat software or chatbot technology to provide timely and real-time responses to customer queries
These are some of the tools available that can have a dramatic effect on boosting customer experience. You can also set up a membership site as a way to build a closer connection to your audience.
A membership platform will create a feeling of exclusivity and importance. You can offer special members-only discounts, build forums, and access to restricted content. In this way, the right tools and content will build brand loyalty and boost customer experience.
Shape Your Brand Image With Better Customer Experiences
Branding and advertising activities on their own are ineffectual when it comes to shaping your brand image. Ultimately, your brand image depends on how your audience perceives you. Their final impression of your business rests on multiple interactions.
To shape your brand image, you need to incorporate customer experience management as a part of your branding efforts.
Boosting customer experience will help you build a long term relationship with your customers. This has benefits such as a higher customer lifetime value, increased frequency of purchases, lower attrition, and more.
We’ve covered a few ways that you can use to improve customer experience. Follow these tips and focus on creating better experiences to manage your brand image.
branding design – DepositPhotos
