As branders, we tend to worry about people understanding our brands. Do they know everything we can do? Have they heard about all of our features?

While these are things that we need to impart, none of them is the most important thing to those we hope to serve. To get to that, we have to put ourselves in their shoes and understand what is most important to them. If we go through this process, we start to divine the most important thing – what our brand means to them.

An emotional connection

What our brand means to our prospects is defined by the emotional connection we create with them. It’s more than what you offer or what you do. 

A post from Inc. does a nice job of exploring this: “We love to believe that decisions are made on the basis of facts backed by data, that the decision-making process is both rational and logical. But what happens is radically different.”

Making that emotional connection means serving an aspiration they have. Or, put another way, helping them work toward their idealized self. 

Why is this important? Because before someone will engage with you, they have to know and like you. And they have to trust you. Those things only happen when you focus on the emotional connection you create.

But what about all the details?

So when is the ideal time for you to start talking about those functions and features of your brand? Quite simply, it’s after your prospect has decided to take the next step with you. In other words, it's after you have created that emotional connection. At this point, your prospects want to know more about your offering.

The mistake brands make is that they experience this and start to slide back into believing that everyone wants to know about their functions and features all the time. Prospect engagement falls off. And they have to relearn the lesson that your brand has to create that emotional connection first.

There is research that backs the idea of emphasizing emotion as a post from QuickFrame details: “A study out of The University of Southern California found that 31% of ad campaigns performed well when it featured strong emotional content, with only 16% of ad campaigns performing well when it featured more rational content.”

The best thing you can do with your brand is to figure out the emotional connection it can make with those you hope to serve. It’s the first thing your prospects want from you. Moreover, it’s the thing that will stay with them long after your features and functions fade from their memory.