A brand experience is the culmination of your customer’s thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, as they relate to your business. It’s the ultimate combination of your business’ brand strategy, customer experience, and user experience. When a strong brand experience is implemented, you’re helping your small business stand out from the competition. This is increasingly important as today’s consumers are busy and have a wide variety of choices when it comes to where they spend their money. 

Consumers are considering your business’ cost, quality, experience, and consistency when choosing to do business with you. On top of all those factors, it takes on average, 5 to 7 impressions for someone to even remember your brand when they spot your logo or some form of content online.  

This is all the more reason why your brand experience should be seamless, memorable, and encourage customers to come back for more.

“Brand experience describes the tangible and emotional experience consumers have while interacting with your brand. Think of it as a holistic approach that combines elements of user experience, customer experience, and brand identity all in one.” 

– Hubspot 

If your company currently has a repurposed or unremarkable brand experience, it’s not only hurting your own business but also your customer’s experience.  

Now, we all love a good Canva template or email marketing swipe files…but what happens when dozens of small businesses start to use these templates in the same way?   

You enter the sea of sameness – and this is NOT how you stand out from your competition. 

In this article, we will explore how you can avoid being absorbed by the sea of sameness.

Why Having A Generic Brand Experience Is Hurting Your Business

It’s no secret that Canva has become to go-to resource for small business owners DIY-ing their marketing efforts. This remarkable platform allows thousands of people to achieve results on their own that they would have normally had to outsource. 

The only problem with the accessibility to design is that many (if not most) people utilizing Canva never learned the fundamentals of design or branding. Which results in the world being left with hundreds of what I like to call, carbon copy brands. 

When so many businesses use the same templates, brands start to become unrecognizable. It’s important to stay original and creative with your content.

Think about it: How many times have you popped onto Instagram and started to scroll your feed just to feel like you’ve already seen half of what was appearing?

That’s because people are using the same design templates across all different industries. With little to no customization, these templates have polluted the online space. 

There’s nothing to differentiate Sally Jo’s Beauty Bar from Samantha’s Brow Boutique anymore and that’s where the problem lies. 

We’re so inundated with these templates that subconsciously when we see these appear in our news feed, we feel as if we’ve already seen the post and don’t want to devote any more mental energy to look at it – even though it’s completely different content for an entirely different company.

Meanwhile, a well-thought-out brand experience can help your company grow exponentially.  

How a Strong Brand Experience Affects Consumer Behavior

Let’s dive into consumer behavior and how your marketing efforts are vital to how consumers perceive your brand. 

It’s not just about the final product for your customer – it’s also the service, the platforms, and the quality of the digital experience.  When all these things come together, it creates an emotional connection for your customers.

This emotional connection begins with perception. When a specific sense is activated through your marketing efforts, you’re beginning to merge the feelings of the consumer to your brand.  Think of this activation like when you’re walking down aisle three of the grocery store, you smell something, and then BAM you’re back at your first sleepover or your middle school cafeteria. Your mind instantly transports you to a different time period as that sensory experience is linked. 

Alongside emotional responses, we want our customers to feel that they can interact with our brand. Providing the opportunity to “choose the next flavor” or “vote on their favorite cut of steak” activates a sense of participation or belonging. Through participation, this consumer becomes more than just someone on the outside looking in. They’ve integrated themselves into your brand and now have a higher probability of brand loyalty.

In order to activate these emotional triggers through digital marketing, your content creation game needs to be on point.

How To Create Content That Stands Out From Your Competition

Your content is the backbone of your marketing strategy and plays a strong part in your brand experience. As small business owners, it’s our goal to create content that stands out from the competition, stays true to our values, and provides a memorable experience for our customers.

If your business is lacking any kind of content direction, the solution is not to copy what someone else is doing.  What works for one business, will never work in the same way for another.  Content is the lifeblood of your marketing and directly impacts your business’ bottom line. As such, it’s not something to fiddle around with by jerry-rigging it together!

The content you publish should be relevant, engaging, and informative to your target audience.  Always start by outlining your content plan. This plan should include the goals and objectives for the company’s content marketing efforts, as well as an outline of what types of content will be created and how it will be distributed. 

The three types of content I recommend for all small businesses to incorporate into their marketing plan are blogs, social media content, and email marketing. 

Blogging is a powerful way to build trust, authority, and visibility in your niche. It’s also a great way to gain exposure and increase traffic to your website when optimized for SEO. 

Social media content helps you build relationships with your customers by giving them a chance to communicate and voice any concerns in the comments section.

Email marketing can be used as a way to keep your customers informed as well as help them feel valued and appreciated by providing new content each week. 

Want Support With Your Content Marketing?

If content development has you overwhelmed or you’re not even sure where to begin, Pané Marketing can help. We specialize in content strategy and content development for small businesses. Click here to learn more about our services.

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