How To Create A Swoonworthy Brand

How To Create A Swoonworthy Brand

Struggling to gain traction with your customers? Read this. 

When it comes to branding, I live for the swoon.

With dwindling attention spans and too many brands doing the same thing, you need the swagger of swoon in order for your marketing to activate shoppers. 

With an abundance of choice, shoppers don’t need to resort to options that broadly fit their needs, they can easily find brands that impress their socks off and are the perfect fit.

Customers now look to be swooned when they shop. It’s my personal belief that startups have a tough time with their marketing when they don’t inspire any swoon.

This is to the benefit of businesses, to aim to swoon — it makes customer acquisition, retention, and referrals a lot easier. It also saves a helluva lot of money and effort when your customers are magnetized to you.

Here’s what I think about when injecting swoon into a brand, and the steps I take to make it happen.

Pattern interrupt

Start by breaking the seal of what’s expected from a brand like yours. If you’re occupying the same voice, buzz words, and personality as your competitors when speaking as your brand, it’s likely that your customer is not going to bookmark you for a second look.

Customers don’t shop for products and services in a vacuum, they do their homework and compare and contrast their options amongst a lineup of competitors.

The winner is usually the brand that feels most human to the customer, is understanding of their needs, and acts as a pattern interruptor to what they’ve seen before.

You don’t need to get super innovative here, just get specific about what your customer wants and do only that. Specificity is surprising and feels refreshing.

When a customer feels like a product was made just for them? That intimacy goes a long way.

What brand umbrella does your customer fall under? 

Regardless of what your product or service is, your target customer is going to have an all-encompassing umbrella preference for the types of brands they’re attracted to.

For example, there’s a large segment of Millennial and Gen-Z consumers who prefer to only shop with brands that have a strong, demonstrated moral compass, an opinionated, transparent brand voice, and an open community to partake in. They’re fun about it too — memes are dished out regularly and engaging activations to get involved are plentiful. 

If your customer falls under this umbrella and finds this type of brand personality to be attractive, it’s likely that you can adopt this to maximize your brand’s swoon. Think of it as a cheat sheet to fast track your brand’s charisma and connection with its customers. 

What does your customer find charming? 

Do you know what kind of charm your customer can’t get enough of? 

Is it stunning design with a rich color palette? A great brand voice with lovely copy they can’t get over? A brand that makes them feel like they have a friend in their corner?​

Discover what your customer found charming about competing brands and hone in on turning up your charisma for that trait. Take this nugget of wisdom and use it. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to — there’s a lot of information out there that communicates what your customer is digging right now. Use this as a jumping off point to charm their pants off and close the sale. 

For more wisdom that turns your startup chase into a victory lap, get my Friday morning emails, (lovingly called The Crux) in your inbox.

Sophia Sunwoo