The Empathy Advantage: How Brand Values Create Customer Connections
Discover how your company’s moral compass can elevate its identity, forge bonds with potential and existing customers, and leave a lasting legacy in a fiercely competitive market.
In this post, we explore the core of brand values and discover how they shape the very essence of beloved brands. Read on as we unravel the secrets behind this important element to create an unwavering brand identity that builds trust and captivates the hearts and minds of your customers.
Let’s start with the basics — what are Brand Values, anyway?
Think of brand values as your company’s moral compass. They are the set of ideas and attitudes that help define your company's personality and how it conducts itself.
Your Brand Values are not just buzzwords — they are the core beliefs that drive your company's actions and shape its reputation. When your company consistently aligns its behavior with its brand values, it builds trust and loyalty with its customers and stakeholders. It helps customers understand what the company stands for and why they should choose its products or services over competitors.
Brand values also help establish an emotional connection and build trust with customers, employees, and other stakeholders, which is incredibly important to your brand’s success.
Let’s review some important points regarding brand values:
Purpose Driven: Brand values often stem from a brand’s purpose or mission statement. They reflect the reason why your company exists and what it hopes to achieve beyond financial success. For example, a brand might value sustainability, social responsibility, or innovation.
Consistency Across Touchpoints: Brand values must be consistently demonstrated across all aspects of a brand’s operations. This includes its products or services, marketing and communication strategies, customer service, employee behavior, and partnerships. Consistency helps establish credibility and trust with consumers.
Differentiation from Competitors: Brand values are a way for your company to distinguish itself from competitors. By highlighting unique values and beliefs, a brand can carve out a distinct identity and attract like-minded customers who resonate with those values.
Customer-driven: Brand values should align with the target audience's needs, desires, and aspirations. By understanding their customers’ values, a brand can better connect and engage with them, creating a sense of loyalty and long-term relationships.
Authenticity Matters: Brand values should be genuine and deeply rooted in the brand’s identity. Consumers are increasingly drawn to brands that demonstrate authenticity and transparency in their values and actions. Brands that merely pay lip service to values without actually living them may face skepticism or backlash.
Overall, brand values are essential to build a strong and meaningful brand.
They provide a framework for decision-making.
Brand Values help shape your brand’s culture.
They contribute to your company’s long-term success by informing a consistent and compelling brand experience.
How brand values play an important role in creating deep and meaningful connections with your customers:
In essence, brand values are a bridge between your company's identity and the customer's beliefs, creating a strong connection that goes beyond transactions and fosters lasting loyalty.
Here’s how they achieve this:
Shared Beliefs: When customers resonate with your brand’s values, it fosters a sense of alignment and shared beliefs. This connection is akin to forming a bond with someone who shares your core values and principles.
Think of it as meeting someone new and finding out you have something in common that you really care about, which leads to a long conversation or a new friendship.
Authenticity: Brand values are a reflection of your company's authentic identity and purpose. When customers perceive a brand as genuine and true to its values, it builds trust and establishes an emotional connection.
If that new person you met is going on and on about something and you know they are being fake — you probably don’t want to keep talking to them. Your customers want to hear from your authentic self.
Emotional Appeal: Values evoke emotions. When your brand's values resonate with customers' personal beliefs or aspirations, it triggers positive feelings and a sense of belonging, leading to a stronger emotional connection.
That new friend just made — this is that elated feeling of finding a person that cares about something you care about too.
Consistency: Consistently demonstrating and adhering to brand values over time reinforces your brands character. This consistency builds trust and loyalty as customers recognize your brand's commitment to its principles.
The more you walk the talk, the more believable you are.
Differentiation: Brand values set a company apart from its competitors. When customers see a brand standing for something beyond just products or services, they are more likely to choose it for the values it represents.
Think about a time where you might have bought from one company vs another because you knew they supported small businesses, or donated to the environment.
Storytelling: Sharing stories that illustrate how brand values positively impact customers or society engages and resonates with the audience. This storytelling fosters a connection by showcasing the brand’s positive impact.
Community Building : When customers identify with your brand’s values, it creates a sense of community. This shared identity encourages customers to engage with each other and the brand, forming a supportive network.
Long-Term Relationships: Customers who connect with your brand’s values are more likely to become loyal, repeat purchasers. These long-term relationships are built on a foundation of shared principles and trust.
65% of the average company's revenue comes from existing customers. This is because existing customers are 60-70% more likely to make a purchase than new customers are since they
already know about the company and aren't wondering if they're making a good purchase.
Positive Perception: Aligning with certain values can enhance your brand’s image, making it more attractive to customers who appreciate and prioritize those values.
Social Impact: Brands that stand for values beyond profit, such as environmental sustainability or social responsibility, appeal to customers who want to support meaningful causes.
Define the Soul of Your Brand with Brand Values
This is an exercise we do in our Premier Brand Building Accelerator to help you define your Brand Values.
Grab a pen and a few sheets of paper, or download our Brand Values Workbook.
Step 1
Start by writing down the values that are important to you. Include as many that come to mind, and do not worry about getting the exact word right — that will come later. If you need help, here is a reference sheet of common values, and feel free to dig out the old thesaurus.
Step 2
Now go through and edit — circle the ones you think are the most important whittling down to three to five words.
Step 3
Grab a sheet of paper and divide it in half longways. Write each of those final 3-5 words on the left and their definition in the corresponding box on the right.
Step 4
Reflect on the words you have chosen and answer these questions.
Does each of these words feel right?
Can you act on all of them?
Would you use these as guiding principles that help you make business decisions?
Do you feel connected to them?
Do they work together as a combined set?
If you answered ‘No’ to any of these, now is the time to put on your wordsmith hat and refine them until the words and their definition feel just right.
Get messy if you need to. Cross some words out. Write new ones.
Keep working until you have a set of values you’re connected to and can act on.
If you only have four that resonate, that’s ok. Only three, that’s ok too.
Keep what feels right to you!
Step 5
Grab another sheet of paper and divide it in half longways. On the left side, write the title “values,” and on the right side, write “How this will apply to our decisions and actions.”
Take your refined values and write them in the boxes on the left.
Then, in the corresponding box on the right — write down how this value applies to your business and how you will act on it.
How do these values feel to you as a set? Pretty Good / Great / Perfection
Are these the values you want your business to embody? Yes! / No, I need help!
If, in the end, you are not satisfied with your values, go back through the exercise again, refining further.
If you have a new business, you will want to revisit these every few months to ensure they still fit the business you are building.
Remember, Brand Values are the principles your company lives by, guiding its actions and influencing how others perceive it. They are essential for building a strong, authentic, and trusted brand identity. And if you can successfully infuse them into your business, you’re on your way to building a successful brand.
