If you think branding is all about stylish artwork and creating mountains of content, then you’re sadly misinformed. Those things are the effect of a great brand, not the cause.

The best brands aren’t those who have the best artwork or the most stylish designs – they’re those that understand the emotions of their customers at a fundamental level and exploit them.

The Apple Moment

Understanding this concept can be a little tricky, so let’s take an example.

At the end of the 1990s, Apple was in a bit of trouble. Sales had tanked in the absence of Steve Jobs at the helm, and the company was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. Jobs returned to the organization on a mission to turn it around – and part of his strategy came down to marketing.

The company decided that it would take a radically different tack from its competitors, focusing on the things that customers wanted from their computers – not what they could do.

The result of this thought process was the birth of the “I’m a PC, and I’m a Mac” series of adverts. Here the company compared the convenience of Apple products against the problems most users encountered on the PC. Macs were, in general, way more user-friendly and reliable than their PC counterparts and just did what people wanted. There were no crashes, software compatibility problems, or anything like that.

The adverts were smart because they understood the predicament of customers. People wanted computing products that just worked, and they were sick and tired of having to use computers that crashed and corrupted every five minutes. It was very frustrating. Apple appeared to provide a solution, and immediately, the popularity of the company skyrocketed.

EQ and Branding

A lot of firms learned from Apple’s example. They realized that if you want to be a world-leading company, you need to get under the skin of your customers and communicate with them in a way that strikes home. You need to deal with their problems.

Part of having a great marketing EQ has to do with the way that you communicate with customers. Your goal shouldn’t be to create exposure for the sake of it. It should be to provide value in every interaction that you have.

An excellent example of this is providing timely marketing to people’s phones when they are likely to benefit from your services. You can use email to text to send SMS telling people about opportunities to grab a bargain. You can also provide location-specific ads to give people more options if they happen to be near to your store or outlet.

Being sensitive in how you communicate with people is just as important in your personal life as it is in your business branding, especially in a world of social media. A disgruntled customer can post a bad review of their experience of your company, and, all of a sudden, you discover that you’re hemorrhaging customers. Being able to communicate in a manner that prevents this is one of the best defenses of your firm.