Brand vs. Business | What’s the Difference?
I'll make it simple: A business sells a product or service. A brand is something that people belong to because of how it makes them feel. People buy products, but they belong to brands.
Here's the ultimate question to assess whether you have a brand or a business:
Do we strategically prioritize how we make our audience feel about us by what we say, how we say it, and what we stand for?
If you're not sure, look at how Salesforce is strategically doing this with its audience.
It's no secret that Salesforce is one of the most beloved enterprise technology platforms in the world.
The reason they’ve generated a cult-like following is simple:
They use a human-centered brand strategy to prioritize and guide how their audience will feel about them emotionally.
You don't need to have a Salesforce-sized budget to become a human-centered tech brand. It just takes some intentionality and a little research.
👇🏽
Here are three tactics Salesforce uses to build trust and connect emotionally with its audience.
"Explain to me like a seven-year-old." I love this because they understand that humanizing something complex is as simple as explaining it in a way that a child can understand it. One thing that you can do as a firm is to ask your stakeholders to describe what you do like they are describing it to a seven-year-old. This creates emotion because it uses humor. It creates trust because it attempts to help clarify what your firm does in an honest way. That’s a human-centered brand strategy in action. See the brilliant video below.
2. "The Data Gold Rush" campaign is genius, not just because they have a legendary actor in a super short clip. But because it shows that Salesforce is listening to their market. They know what people are afraid of, and they know that data is really important to those who buy from them. So, how do you convince people that you won't do shady things with their data? Simple, you use empathy, humor, and a little bit of creativity to show that you value the same things they do.
3. “The Story of Sales” is a legit documentary that Salesforce created to humanize the salespeople of the world. This is brilliant because it's not only an entertaining documentary where you and I can learn a ton about selling and what it means to sell, but it also SHOWS real empathy! This communicates to sellers of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds that Salesforce understands the pains of being a salesperson. When you show in an empathetic way that you know someone (instead of just saying that you know them), HUGE amounts of trust are created, and brand memorability gets stronger.
If you learn anything from Salesforce about how to create a brand identity, learn these three things:
Use humor and simplicity to make it easy to understand your products. Can you talk about your solutions like you're explaining them to a seven-year-old? If not, you're failing to connect at the human level.
Take the time to understand your customers and KNOW what they actually care about. Do you know what your customers are afraid of? What keeps them up at night? If you don't, you're failing at connecting with them on a human level.
Show empathy creatively in your marketing and advertising. Salesforce doesn’t just say, "We know sales." They show it. Are you showing that you’ve been in your customers’ shoes? If not, they won't trust you. Remember, empathy creates trust.
You can do it.
A brand is just a business with a heartbeat. It's not as hard as you may think to humanize a technology business. It just takes intention, some good old-fashioned care, and some strategic decision-making about how you want to show up to your market. Salesforce is one of the best brands to learn from when it comes to doing this.
