Brand Communications
In a sea of meaningless noise, how do you make a lasting connection?
In any interpersonal relationship, effective communication means knowing:
- What To Say
- When To Say It
- How To Say It
Brand Communication is no different. It’s all about getting your authentic message across to customers. It’s what sets you apart from other merely transactional businesses. If you read our previous article (link to How To Build A Brand article), you’ve already solved the first part of the puzzle-- What To Say! In How To Build A Brand (link to article), we clarified intentions, analysed context, identified concrete goals, and practiced empathy toward customers. These all help distill a clear vision of your brand, and what kind of message you want to convey.
In this article, we’ll tackle the next two parts of the brand communications puzzle: When To Say It, and How To Say It. When you say the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, something quite special happens… a Moment Of Truth.
What is a Moment Of Truth?
For brands, a Moment Of Truth is the instant an emotional connection is formed with the customer. You’re no longer just a random name behind a random product-- you provided a unique and delightful experience that interrupted their otherwise mundane day.
Moments Of Truth can come in many forms. It can occur in product packaging. It can exist in clever ad copy. Or it could come from customer service that goes the extra mile. As customers, we’re left pleasantly surprised, wondering “Who thought this up, and how did they know we’d like it so much?”
How do I know when Moments Of Truth should occur?
For brand managers or internal teams, designing a Moment Of Truth can be tricky. Unless you have a marketing genius on the team, how would you know when to deploy one? For many brands, communications remain stuck in the same old tired game of social media posts, but really, there’s a world of opportunity waiting to be unlocked.
Use a Customer Journey Map (link to WTF is a Customer Journey Map) to identify where Moments of Truth can exist. The map can be as broad or narrow as you wish. You can map a single customer interaction--for example, the emotional stages of unboxing your product. Or you can cast a wider net, and map the entire customer lifecycle.
(insert infographic of a Customer Journey Map)
Each stage of the map is an opportunity to design a Moment of Truth that brings out the desired feelings in your customer. If you restrict your map to a single stage (eg: just the unboxing process) you’ll be able to expand on that process until you identify truly bespoke instances in which you can surprise and delight. Try mapping out a customer journey for your own brand!
You may have noticed by now that Moments of Truth are rarely overtly sales-oriented. After all, how many of us feel genuine joy when someone’s trying to sell us something? As brand managers or internal teams, how should we design a Moment of Truth that feels authentic, while ALSO leading to sales?
How do I design a Moment of Truth?
Designing an authentic Moment of Truth requires anticipating what the customer wants, often before they realize it themselves, and delivering it smoothly. Think of it as going the extra mile for the customer, in a way that ultimately reinforces your brand. Take into account what you know about yourself, what you know about the other person, and create an encounter that makes you both happy.
If you’ve already talked to some customers, or if you’ve explored a Customer Persona (link to WTF is a Customer persona), then you should have a pretty good idea of what your customers respond well to.
But what about getting to know yourself, as a brand? Consider the following:
- Brand Identity
- Brand Personality
- Brand Interests
- Brand Actions
These four factors describe what you know about yourself. As you’re planning this encounter, they set boundaries on what your authentic Moment of Truth should and shouldn’t look like. For example, a high-end, exclusive restaurant could offer to coordinate private transport to and from their location. It would not, on the other hand, sing birthday songs to guests celebrating birthdays.
From the copywriting on your website, to the design of your packaging, to your product line, to the timing of your events—every choice should seem to naturally relate to the others. The first element, Brand Identity, tends to be quite straightforward; most brand managers will have a cumbersome PDF that lays out the rules of logo usage and brand colours, for example. However, Brand Personality is somewhat trickier to codify.
