By Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill

Do you want your brand to evoke an emotion when people hear its name? When people connect with your brand, they may not only buy it, they might also advocate for it! Here are some great tips on making your brand seem more human.

Bring some humor to your brand

Not every product is appropriate for a humorous attitude, but there are some products you might now have thought you could bring humor to that have blossomed because of what a good laugh did for the brand. A great example is a Heinz social campaign for a product launch. For the launch of the new Five Beanz variety, Heinz created a Facebook quiz that users could play to find out what kind of bean they had grown up to become in response to personality questions. Five winners were picked every hour and sent a personalized bean and if a user invited 10 people to take the quiz they were given a goodie bag. Was this humorous campaign successful? Success ultimately depends on the company’s goals, but the campaign did reach 10.8m people on Facebook  and more than 10,000 users shared the app. Additionally the Heinz Facebook community grew by 30,000 extra fans.

Show concern for community

Giving is already such a great feeling, but as it turns out, you can also get back from giving! How? Because people who believe in the cause you are supporting will likely support you back. Perhaps your motives are in fact altruistic, but if you want your brand to benefit from the good work you are doing, you have to maximize your exposure. You can do this a number of ways:

1. Involve your causes’ name all over your business. Try placing pamphlets in your retail outlets, encouraging employees to wear promotional gear publicizing your charity or including the charity’s logo on your products packaging.
2. Publicize your philanthropy not only through the local or national media, but via your own marketing avenues such as your Facebook or Google+ page, newsletters, signs, advertisements, commercials, etc.
3. As strange as it might feel, be sure to ask your charity to recognize your support in their publicity efforts.

Give your brand feelings

Humans have feelings, and we relate best to other humans who have similar feelings. If you want your human customers to relate to your brand, it stands to reason that giving your brand feelings (that your target audience can relate to) will help your brand! Example? Say you sell wine, and research shows that your audience is sophisticated but likes a bit of edge; your logical deduction would be to run an edgy, sophisticated campaign for that brand of wine.

Find common ground with your audience

Step one in finding common ground is always an analysis. What does your audience relate to? Once you figure that out, try to relate to it wherever appropriate in your marketing efforts. An example might be a local furniture store. After extensive research, this retailer found that their product only appeals to lower income families. To send a message that they relate, the retailer could use the message that they understand that the economy is tough, and as such, are slashing prices.

The finished product

It takes dedication to communicate to your audience on a personal level. You should be doing constant analysis, attending to your social networks and always evolving with the times. But despite how hard it is to keep up with it all, it can also be fun to have a brand with a personality! Take a look at our “personality” on our social networks! Find us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

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• Gamification at its Finest
• Using Your Brand to Court Your Consumer
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