what's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this
video you're going to learn how to use emotional branding effectively so you can
stop directing your messages at hard heads and start making connections through soft hearts
if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals using strategy
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look at a given download way up the odds and make a rational decision based on all of that
information but neuroscientists have proven time and again that we actually don't make most of
our decisions with our logic brain we make most of our decisions with our emotional brain and that is
connected to how we feel about something so when you are speaking with another person when you are
speaking with your audience they are analyzing a million things and they're getting a good feel
for what you're saying they're getting a good feel for the message that you're putting out there and
they're making their decisions based on that good fail so essentially what we all do is we all make
decisions with our heart and we justify with our head now this isn't just hypothesis either we've
come across lots and lots of research that highlights the fact that when the emotional part
of the brain is incapacitated when it's removed or when it's damaged then the people who survive
those incidents have trouble then making decisions they cannot make decisions they cannot make
those emotional connections and without that emotion that decision making is lost
so that further emphasizes and proves the point that we rely heavily on our emotions
to make our decisions but if you're in business or you're in branding you'll have come across this
idea before you'll have read some books or read some articles that have told you that if you want
a brand if you want to connect with your audience then you have to do that through emotion so you
know that already but how do you then go and use that how do you then go and define an emotional
branding strategy that you can use to connect with your audience so that's what i want to go through
in this video i want to give you the steps that you can use and take into your own business take
into your own processes so that you can connect with your audience you can identify the emotions
that you need to use and you need to leverage within your branding and within your messaging
so you can make those emotional connections step number one define their goals now your audience
is on a journey they're going somewhere they're coming from somewhere and they're going somewhere
else and that goal and where they're going is what you need to uncover you need to uncover
what it is that they want to achieve and why they're going there now this might be
a goal in and of itself or it might be a smaller goal part of a much larger goal but you need
to identify the goals where they're trying to get to what they want to achieve and why they
want to achieve it step number two define their challenges now on route to this goal that they
have set in place there are going to be some kind of challenges some kind of obstacles otherwise
it's not a real goal i mean you don't just set a goal and achieve like that because without those
challenges there is no sense of achievement so you need to understand of course what their goal
is but what challenges are standing in their way what obstacles are standing in their way
now one of these obstacles or maybe two three or four of these obstacles are something that
you can help them directly with and that will be related to your core offer that you put in front
of them but they will have other challenges as well they might have 10 or 20 30 even 100
other micro challenges in and around the major challenge that you solve and if you understand
all of those challenges you can really step into their shoes you can really understand
what keeps them up at night what has them thinking about this goal and what's standing in the way
of this goal and then you can really get a feel for that journey you can really start
to understand them and that's what will set the tone for your connection with them later on step
number three define their desires now this is where we're really getting down into that
emotional connection so you know that they have a goal that they want to achieve and you know they
have some challenges standing in the way of them achieving that goal but they're looking beyond
those challenges they're looking to the successful outcome and that's where their desire comes from
they really have a desire to achieve that goal and that desire makes them feel something so really
uncovering what that goal is and what desire is attached to that goal and what emotions
are connected there so really understand what really drives them what is it that's driving
them towards that goal and what does life look like on the other side of success on the other
side of achieving that goal and what will that do to them in their immediate life and what will do
would that do to them in their larger life how will it impact their overall life step number
four define their fears now along with their desires for achieving that goal there are also
fears in not achieving that goal so of course you want to look at you know the brighter picture and
what life looks like at the end of the rainbow but it doesn't always end that way and that is
the fear that lives inside the consumer that is the fear that lives inside your audience and you
know they will associate some images and some ideas with that fear and not overcoming those
challenges so you really need to understand what those fears are how is that going to impact them
living with those fears on a day-to-day basis how is that going to affect them if those fears
are realized both immediately and bigger pictures so know what those fears are now
i'm not talking about scaremongering here you know there are businesses and marketing
strategies out there that use fear-mongering to scare people into doing something i'm not
talking about about that i'm just talking about really understanding what they're going through
in trying to achieve their goals there is a fear that lives inside them along with those
desires and when you understand that fear you can use that to resonate with them step number
five connect with understanding so at this stage now you've gone through the first four steps and
those first four steps are really about getting the information that you need to understand what
your audience is going through and now at this stage in step five you have that picture you know
what they're going through you know where they're trying to get to you know what's standing in their
way you know how they feel and what that desire is to achieve that goal and you also know those
fears of not achieving that goal and what keeps them up at night and now you have
that full picture and if you're able to take that and show them that you understand show them that
you understand those goals and you understand those challenges and desires and fears then that
will really help to resonate with who they are and what they're going through so this step really is
all about showing them that understanding them and giving them that empathy and as i said before you
know this is often something that they don't ever speak to other people about you tend to keep your
emotions inside you don't let other people know what you're thinking most of the time certainly
not within your business so when they hear these messages of emotion when they hear that you
understand about their goals and about their challenges and fears and desires then that
will really strike a chord with them because often they don't get to have those conversations
and it's just reassuring to hear that somebody else understands them step number six leverage
story now story is a really really effective way to inject emotion into your messaging and
into your brand now we all love story i've done a ton of videos on story before i'll
leave a link in the description below but we do love story and we gravitate towards story because
it's in our dna it's how we've passed you know information on from generation to generation for
literally millions of years so we naturally gravitate towards story and if you're able to
use story if you're able to leverage storytelling within your messaging that is a great way to
inject that emotion that's a great way to inject that empathy and that understanding of the journey
that they're on and if you do that effectively they will gravitate towards what you have to say
and step number seven leverage vulnerability now this tends to be kept for personal brands
certainly with the experiences that i've had it's leveraged mostly within personal brands because
there is a person behind this actual brand and that person is real and that person has
vulnerabilities now this really needs authenticity behind it you cannot go out there and try to put
fake vulnerability out there it doesn't work it's you know it goes against what vulnerability
actually is but mostly with personal brands you have somebody who has overcome a challenge
and has achieved something and then they go back to help other people to go through that challenge
again and they can use the vulnerability that they had in facing those challenges and facing
those fears and it's really potent if you're able to use it with authenticity it can really connect
certainly with people who are in that moment at that time trying to overcome a specific challenge
and vulnerability if you're able to leverage that if you have a personal brand and you understand
the challenges that your audience is going through then show them that you weren't always
perfect show them that you have overcome that challenge and that you understand the pain that
they went through because you went through it too so that is a really really powerful way to connect
emotionally by using that vulnerability now most modern brands today have many many touch points
10 20 30 100 maybe more and each and every one of those touch points is an opportunity to connect
emotionally whether you're putting out a social post or you've got an email automation sequence or
you're putting out an advertisement on facebook or you're creating some web website copy every
single one of those touch points is an opportunity to connect emotionally and what you have now is
a step-by-step process that you can use to unpack the emotion that your audience
is going through if you follow these steps and you unpack those emotions then you have
a powerful tool to use when creating content for every single touch point so take these processes
into your own business take these processes into your own branding and instead of trying to connect
with the hard head connect with the soft heart but i'd love to hand it back over to you and hear
what you have gone through here your emotional journey with your messaging what have you used
within your messaging to connect emotionally with your audience or are you struggling to unpack the
emotions that your audience is going through i'd love to hear your challenges in the comments below
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do my best to answer all those until next time brian like a master and i'll see you in the next
video