Effective communication for brands
Once upon a time it was rocks, birds, and then letters. But the common factor is that since the beginning of time man has always sought to express himself. With time, these means of communication have gone from just being plain messages to methods taking congnisance of how best to communicate, how best to say it; show it and do it.
It is with this that the ancient merchants were able to have leverage above every other random person– they could sell since selling depended on how well one can communicate effectively. You could say well not only salesmen communicate effectively and you’ll be correct.
The great composer Beethoven even while deaf, still made some of the best melodies and his music never featured singing! The ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics (pictorial writing) to tell stories and pass messages and still communicated rather effectively.
The state of things
As man evolved and human interaction became a vital part of one’s everyday life, you would think communication got easier, but it is actually the contrary. This is because the increase in media for communication came with newer challenges on how best to say what you want to say, when to say it and why you want to say it.
For people, this posed no much problem because from various means of communication have always existed – from letters to telephones and then the internet and now we have tens of social media apps that can help even the verbally inept individuals to communicate effectively.
But what about business? Did this increase in communication media count as a plus for brands? Well, Yes and no.
Yes, because it allowed them to reach hundreds and if not hundreds of thousands of eyes at one go.
No, because many times, they were saying what they wanted to say and not what their customers wanted to hear. The ones who did, were the businesses that won the market through the hearts and minds of the people.
Does this mean communication is emotional?
How can brands communicate effectively
For businesses, most of the time the way to communicate is from an emotional POV, especially as a business, keeping the key interests of your stakeholders or target market at the core of your message. To illustrate, let’s use an example: say you have a soda product that is vodka flavoured and you want to launch it into the market ASAP, how will you communicate effectively to your target market?
Through a benefit ladder. A benefit ladder allows you to map out the selfish interests and satisfactions of your brand/product/business that your target market will be looking out for.
It usually goes like this:
- Emotional benefit (how do you want them to feel / how do they feel)
- Functional benefit (what does it give them or do for them / what will it give them or do for them )
- Product benefit (what purpose will it serve / how or when can they use it)
These three pillars allow you to map out a couple of standpoints your brand has, what you can use to your advantage and the right things you should say when advertising, pitching or even when your employees are being asked on the street about you or your products.
At Digiengage, this is one of our most important steps to take when crafting purpose-driven marketing strategies. We want to ensure that our message is one and the same across boards and that at the end of the day, the target audience can tie one emotion, function or feature back to the brand or the campaign. We believe in consistency of a message and effective communication, one that allows you room to do more and say less.