How to Make Users Value Your Small Brand

People value something they feel they own, get personal.

People tend to value something that they feel they own or they are truly a part of.

Some of your best memories from your younger years are probably of a group or clique that you belonged to and felt like you were a part of, be it your small league football club where you had a position that was yours or that now defunct friend group in high school where you were known for a very specific thing from sport to eating a lot.

Feeling like you have ownership and are part of something is what has helped create some of the best memories that you have to date.

When you join a new company and are given company “swag” or merchandise, you’ll probably take a photo and share it on social media without being asked because it feels like you are now truly a part of the team.

It is important that customers feel like they are truly a part of your brand so that they can own it and sell it without you asking them to do so.

This happens mainly by personalization at an individual level for each customer by the brand or product.

Here are some examples of how this has been done before.

Spotify Wrapped.

One phenomenon that takes over the internet once a year and is talked about so much is Spotify Wrapped. It has become so popular that other companies and products such as GitHub also give their users an end year wrapped experience on what they accomplished with the tool.

Spotify Wrapped allows users to share something that is very personal to them, their taste in music with the whole world. It allows you to feel like you truly contributed to the success of the artistes that you love and listen to and to the collective wellbeing of Spotify as a company in that year.

More than just enhancing share-ability as I had mentioned in a previous article, the campaign creates a sense of belonging.

Skinny Wimp Moving

Source Marketing Examples

Max Maher who runs the Phoenix branch of Skinny Wimp Moving, a moving and junk removal company in America decided to run an experiment to improve sales from referrals.

He got a list of 100 of their previous clients and sent them a package that included a handwritten letter, a thank you card, a lottery ticket and five business cards.

This lead to a 140% increase in sales, an additional $5,200 in revenue every month.

Why? Because of personalization at an individual level and making customers feel like they a part of the brand.

Share a Coke

Even though I never got my name on a Coke, this is one case study that I will always refer to as far as making customers feel like a part of the brand is concerned. Coca-Cola hit the ball of out of the park with this one.

Your name on a Coke soda bottle, how much more personal could it get for such a big brand, you truly felt one with them.

Starbucks Coffee.

When you order a Starbucks drink, your name is handwritten on the coffee cup. It was mainly for convenience but people started sharing photos of Starbucks coffee cups with their names on them. Even people whose names had been written wrong or “butchered” shared the photos as a joke.

This move not only increased brand awareness, it brought on a loyal following for Starbucks over the years.

Safaricom – Happy Birthday Text

Kenya’s leading mobile network operator sends me a happy birthday text every year. Some of my friends may forget but Safaricom never forgets.

It’s a similar thing to the balloons effect that X (Twitter) does for its users on their birthday. The small things that count.

Online Tools – First Impression

If you are building products online one way to help users feel like they have owned the product is to allow them to experience it before they buy or sign up. If they can feel the actual value of your product before purchase, the chances of a sale increases.

One online tool that has done this so well is mmm, a simple website builder.

Other examples include Jürgen Klopp the current Liverpool F.C Manager, writing personalized letters to fans at the end of a season and Nike having the “Nike by You” campaign an invite only workshop where creative Nike die hard fans are given the opportunity to customize and build out a custom Nike shoe in their own style.

Nike By You Campaign

You don’t have to go big, adding a user’s name to your product in a creative way, allowing them to be part of product creation, saying thank you in a humane/personal way, creating some sort of exclusivity, sharing personalized content can go a long way in boosting revenues and creating brand loyalty.