Why Brands Desperately Need Ideal Customers
By Levina Kusumadjaja
A match made in heaven.
That’s what every brand wants— to connect with customers. To build such a deep, strong, and meaningful emotional connection that the customers cannot live without the brand. This is where brand strategists come in, you come as the best matchmakers out there. Your task is to help the brand and the customers fall in love with one another. But as every beautiful love story, it isn’t a story that is forced. It is a match made in heaven.
Like every successful matchmaking, the secret to your success is how well you know the two people in the story.
In this particular story, the two people are the brand and the customer. The more you know the brand and the more you know the customer, the bigger the chance that the matchmaking will be a success. The problem is, many brands want to write their love stories with every customer out there in the world.
“I don’t want to sell to just one person, I want to sell to everybody. I want to target the whole world.”
Have you ever heard anyone say that before? The problem is, when you want to reach everyone, you won’t be able to connect to anyone because everyone is unique. When you want to solve everyone’s problems, you end up solving no one’s problem. Everyone has that one unique problem that they are eagerly wanting to solve. The brand that can tap into that unique, specific, distinct struggle and provide a solution will be the brand that wins that customer’s heart.
“When we know who we’re talking to, and imagine a person in our minds, everything becomes more human. We’re now talking to, say, Jennifer, versus a group of people, and when we know a person quite well, then we can come up with very specific, unique creative ideas versus what everyone else is doing.”
- Melinda Livsey
For example, my best friend and I both value exercising as a part of our lifestyle. My best friend advocates protein shakes and hiring personal trainers because she is obsessed about her body shape. This is totally different than what I would be recommending to people because my main goal for exercising is for health reasons. I won’t buy protein shakes and I won’t hire personal trainers because my goal is to simply stay active for at least 45 minutes a day and I can do that by watching Youtube videos.
Can you see the difference?
Brands that understand these core beliefs and know the problems that customers are trying to solve will be the ones that win these customers’ hearts. My best friend advocates for those protein shakes because they also believe in what she believes and aspire to be. The protein shake cares about what she cared about: body shape and body building. While on the other hand, I don’t feel connected to brands that sell protein shakes because I don’t feel those brands pursue the goals as I do.
When you understand the deepest struggles and desires that your customers are experiencing, then you can create something that is specific to their needs. You will know exactly what you need to say and how to say those things to emotionally connect and help them in their situation. That’s how brands win customer’s hearts. That’s how you create a match made in heaven between the brand and the customer.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!