FOUR ESSENTIAL PILLARS FOR BRAND EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Your brand experience can make or break your business. 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for products and services for a great experience. These are customers that want to feel like their favourite brand is treating them right, from offering a great in-store experience to allowing multiple payment options for e-commerce customers.

Any wise business owner knows how essential it is to create the right customer experience. This includes ensuring every brand touchpoint conveys a consistent message while offering similar values. In turn, your business gets to enjoy more than just high sales numbers. Great experiences can improve customer retention rates and increase brand engagement. Here is what you should know about what brand experience design is and how to go about it.

WHAT IS BRAND EXPERIENCE DESIGN?

Brand experience is the sensations, cognitions, feelings, and behavioural responses a brand evokes in its customers through specific stimuli, such as product design, communication, packaging, brand identity, and in-store environments. Brand experience design explores the possible ways a brand can create favourable reactions from customers by optimizing specific touchpoints.

For instance, customers tend to interact with your brand through your e-commerce site, your physical store, your exhibit design and even your customer service representatives. By creating happy and fulfilling interactions with customers at these points, you improve the experience they have working with your brand.

WHY YOU SHOULD OPTIMIZE YOUR BRAND EXPERIENCE

Creating the best retail and relationship experience for your customers could yield some great results. For instance, you can enjoy:

BENEFIT №. 1

INCREASED BRAND LOYALTY NUMBERS

Loyal customers provide you with a ready market. You have a 5-20% chance of selling to new customers and a 60-70% chance of selling to existing customers. Why not optimize the experience of your existing customers? If you can give current customers something memorable, they are most likely to purchase from your brand in the future.

At the same time, you are creating brand advocates out of them. One company that thrives at creating advocates out of its customers is Apple. The tech giant offers a smooth customer experience at every touchpoint, from ensuring their venues are kept in pristine and attractive conditions to keeping the experience of using their products riveting through their ecosystem.

BENEFIT №. 2

IMPROVED PRODUCT AND BRAND VALUE

Can your target audience live without your product? Some of the best companies in the world have made their products and brand experiences so great that customers would never think of switching to the competition. They are also always coming up with innovations that further create positive feelings and associations with their brand. Focusing on the kind of experience your brand is building will help you define your value proposition to a point where customers see you as the best option for their needs.

BENEFIT №. 3

BRAND ACTIVATION AND AWARENESS

95% of consumers will tell people about bad brand experiences, while 87% will talk about positive experiences. Considering how strong word-of-mouth marketing is when it comes to brand activation, you should care about what customers say about you. Focusing on brand experience ensures that you can stay in charge of this.

Lego is a great example of a company that has created great physical brand experiences. Their target – kids – can walk into most stores and feel the urge to create something thanks to their in-store experience. Kids and entire families can enjoy interactive Lego designs that increase their connection to the brand..

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CREATE POSITIVE PHYSICAL BRAND EXPERIENCES?

Your brand experiences need to target different senses, whether you are offering these experiences online or in-store. You can focus on what the end customer sees, hears, smells, and feels (if possible) when interacting with your brand. For instance, if you run a cologne shop, giving your store a specific and neutral scent will keep customers engaged.

While such a small choice might seem trivial, it contributes to the overall brand association customers get. We came up with a proprietary framework – The FOUR Dimensions Framework™ design process - that showcases the essential pillars your brand should focus on for brand experience design. These include:

METRIC №. 1

FOCUSED IDENTITY

You should define your brand identity to strengthen your marketing strategy. Having a clear and thought-out brand identity helps you be consistent throughout various customer touchpoints (much like your custom packaging design). For instance, your sales team needs to use the same trigger terms when speaking to all customers to convey a consistent message.

Your identity will also inform your packaging design as well. For instance, if you want to define your brand as luxurious, you should offer customers a great unboxing experience. A focused identity standardizes brand experience – customers won't be getting mixed signals about your brand identity.

METRIC №. 2

OBSERVABLE TOUCHPOINTS

These are the parts of your brand experience that are tangible, from the music you play in your store to your store layout. Ensuring that these touchpoints align with your brand identity ensures consistency in customer communication. Be sure to use evergreen brand touchpoints instead of relying on fads and trends that can go out of style.

METRIC №. 3

USER ENGAGEMENT

Once you have identified your observable brand touchpoints, you should focus on user engagement next. Great packaging design will get customers to look at your product, but your engagement levels will keep them focused on your brand. Look for ways to improve customer engagement.

For instance, user-generated content could be essential in creating the right engagement levels. Customers trust online reviews and are always interested in learning about the experiences other customers had. You can also use other means to build engagement, such as designing interactive physical spaces and working with influencers for brand promotion.

METRIC №. 4

REALIZED VALUE

How valuable is your brand to your customers? Defining and living by your value proposition keeps customers interested in your brand. For instance, if your business' USPs include having a welcoming customer support staff, you should live by this. Brand value doesn't need to remain constant. You can keep shifting your brand's value with regard to customer demand and market shifts.

IT'S ALL ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER

Designing physical brand experiences is all about your customers. Your first step should be to first survey customers. What do they want from their favourite brands? How realistic is it to create these experiences? Just to recap everything, your physical brand experience should include these four necessary pillars:

• Focused identity – a firm and consistently applied definition of your brand.

• Observable touchpoints – establish multiple touchpoints that can help you communicate your brand identity and improve customer experiences.

• User engagement – look for ways to keep people interested in your brand.

• Realized value – define the value you wish to offer customers and work towards giving them nothing less.

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ABOUT ARC & CO. DESIGN COLLECTIVE

Arc & Co. Design Collective transforms your brand messages into engaging physical brand experiences that increase your brand's perceived value and loyalty with your customers. By utilizing our proprietary FOUR Dimensions Framework™, we strategize, conceptualize, innovate and design experiential packaging and brand activation spaces that will complement your business and keep you ahead of the competition.

Get in touch with us to discover how we can assist in integrating a physical brand experience into your marketing strategy.