We tend to think of certain intangible business benefits as highly necessary, even if we can’t measure them. For example, business goodwill might cause someone to become a lifelong loyal user of your products or services, but it’s hard to quantify exactly how much goodwill will cause one person to act that way. As such, it’s of value to our brand, and worth curating well through going the extra mile, but that doesn’t mean we can write goodwill on a business plan, or publish it in our accounts.
But it’s not just goodwill. Brand excitement, hype, and a sense of relevance can make a massive difference. Just look at how certain video game publishing companies can cause the cultural conversation to revolve almost entirely around entertainment products. It’s not just about products, marketing, and bone-dry focus groups that matter, but how you can contribute and benefit from “a moment.” Getting your imaging right with brands like Vivid Ads is a good place to start.
In this post, we’ll discuss, to the extent that we can, how to quantify, embrace, and embrace brand excitement.
Curating community
There’s nothing quite like community to stir the emotions of those you hope will remain engaged with your brand. If sports fans can follow their favorite team despite downturns, relegations, awful score results, fumbling the last tournament trophy chance, and going through multiple ownership controversies, then it’s almost certain there’s loyalty out there to be achieved.
Thankfully, you don’t have to subject your followers to such failures to develop that kind of loyalty. Developing a sense of community can be enough. For example, GiffGaff, a mobile provider in the UK that uses the O2 network, runs user forums so that individuals with expertise to share can help onboard new users, organize community events, and develop helpful reward systems for those who help others. That kind of community can lead to some customers doing the work of customer support for basic requests, while still feeling as though they have a connection to the brand. When a company appreciates and develops that community, excitement can naturally grow.
Run or contribute to one major event each year
Events have a way of bringing people together. For example, most people know that media brands will head to events like Comic-Con each year to show new movie trailers, demonstrate new products and services they’re selling, and connect to the nerd fandom.
It’s why you’ll see videos of Tech YouTubers excited to be part of industry events for companies like Apple or Samsung, where keynotes and new demonstrations showcase advancements in tech taking place. Contributing to these kinds of events is not only a great way to gain exposure for your brand but having something to announce or a presence to show can be worthwhile.
Now, not all businesses are innovating brand new technological developments year on year. But that doesn’t mean your business isn’t welcome or appreciated in these spaces. For example, if you’re an SEO firm, you might head to events like Brighton SEO, set up a booth, and give a talk. You may be surprised just how well this comes across, and how you can excite and motivate your users as part of this approach. Perhaps you could even offer discounts to guests who come at certain times of year.
Engage the audience
It’s one thing to talk to your audience, it’s another to talk with them. The latter can be so much more effective and also prevents you from seeming like a somewhat disconnected brand. For example, let’s say you work for a museum, and release videos each week about some of your exhibits.
You could set a reminder for people to come to your video and announce when you publish it. Or, a day before you release the video, you might edit a silhouette picture of the item itself, and ask if your audience can guess what the new episode will be about, publishing that teaser to socials. All of a sudden you’re generating excitement and engagement that can be quantified in numbers. That in itself can be inspiring.
Members areas
No matter what program or business it’s for, there’s a sense of exclusivity that comes with being part of a special club. Even if we have to pay for it, that’s the case. There’s a reason why business class airline tickets often come with hidden members areas, or why banks offering credit cards will offer gradations of the type of card you can have.
Now, not every service or company needs a members area. But if you do have one, providing many benefits can be a great place to start. That might involve first-right to buy tickets or a certain run of products, freebies, newsletters, waived delivery fees, and more. Again, this feeds back into fostering the sense of community we all secretly want to be part of, even if it’s for a minor necessity.
Fun secretive Easter eggs, teasers, hidden marketing efforts
In all the (admittedly understandable) talk about companies needing to be as transparent as possible, something is lost. After all, when we know everything about everything, we rarely feel excited or enthused about learning more. If you were told the plot of a movie every time you purchased a movie ticket, would you feel more or less excited to get there and experience the plotline for yourself?
So, how can you ensure hidden information is drip-fed appropriately to curate excitement and a sense of interest? Well, look no further than Orange’s marketing approach in the mid-90s. Many billboards, magazine ads, and banners were placed around cities with just an orange square. No one knew what the orange was for, and it caused public speculation to grow and grow. When they launched a brand new mobile carrier service, they already had a great deal of attention.
Sometimes, a good mystery is better than anything else, as our natural curiosity is primed to learn more. That’s not a bad mindset to generate as an individual interested in marketing, because sometimes, inviting others to learn more is much easier than trying to prove why they should care.
Celebrate culture and community
It’s rather odd how Christmas advertisements, or commercials at the Super Bowl, tend to cause excitement in us. This is because we know those advertisements will often be well-created, exciting, engaging, and perhaps a launch of a new interesting product. Sure, some might criticize that as capitalistic excess, but really, what is happening here?
Ultimately, the products we use and the brands that sustain our lives are absolutely connected to community and culture. From the gifts we buy during festivities to the products we use to celebrate, celebrating that as a brand can be a worthwhile effort. In some cases, that might involve connecting yourself with the local community, maybe sponsoring a sports team, whose success in the league becomes directly tied to your own business.
Celebrating culture and where you come from grants your firm more authenticity, and as consumers can relate to it, excitement will build.
Engage in good
What is excitement really? Put simply, it’s the idea that the future is going to be better than now. We get excited because we know we’re about to enjoy, appreciate, or feel better because of a certain outcome. What if your brand just cut to the core of this instead of trying to foster excitement through a range of sneaky means?
For example, maybe you donate a certain amount of your profits to charities. Perhaps you’re very concerned about social causes and are trying to champion them. Maybe you want to improve sustainability in your industry. When customers can see their actual choice of using your business has a tangible affect, well, it’s hard not to generate real excitement that the future will be better than the past. It’s hard not to consider that a noble goal to chase.
Partnering with other firms
Some companies just have more clout than you, and that’s okay. However partnering with them could be a fantastic method of sharing some of this attention, and the idea that two good brands are coming together to offer something of unique value can be a great idea.
Look to how Spotify and Headsapce once ran a mutual promotional effort, so that those who subscribed to one would get free months of premium for the other. This kind of “bargain deal” brings excitement to consumers, but it also helps them learn more about the other brand, with the verified connection adding more legitimacy to the one they’re less familiar with.
It also adds less onboarding friction to try something out, which in itself is a form of fun and can foster excitement.
To conclude, excitement is an intangible resource, but it can be curated through a few reliable methods. Moreover, most of the considerations recommended in this post can be judged through how well your various campaigns do, or how much exposure you get.
While it’s hard to add excitement to your business report, it’s hard to deny that measures such as social media discourse can’t give you a semi-accurate impression of where to start.
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