Trends come and go just like the pantone color of the year (Goodbye ultra violet, hello living coral).Trends are great and are fun to incorporate into your branding project, but things can get a little dicey if we root our brand in the latest and greatest design or idea.

However, there is a seemingly newish philosophy around branding that might not be a trend, but a lifelong way of approaching your businesses, which is creating a brand experience for your customers. This more recently talked about approach is most likely here to stay and will only continue to add value to the lives of those around you if done with the right intentions and motivation.

Brand experience is any way that someone interacts with your brand. It’s as small as your little teeny tiny instagram post and it is as big as the actual product you offer. Developing a great experience for those you seek to serve is no easy task and requires a few different ingredients if we want to truly do it well.

1. Our brand experiences should be birthed out of who we truly are. We talk about this all of the time and probably sound like a broken record, but great brand experiences are the ones that align with the values and purpose of the business. This creates consistency across all brand platforms and consistency leads to a trusting relationship between you and your customer.
2. Experiences are for the benefit of the person you are serving. Adding value to our customers’ lives can look like an array of different things, but doing so helps build in that little special something that is noticed and loved.
3. Building brand experiences is a journey. It will never end. Your brand experience can always be built bigger, better, or with more intention. It is something that will need to be continually nurtured to thrive. Look at it as a lifelong process and just start!

There are so many resources out there about building great experiences, but when it is all said and done, the best experiences come from a place of wanting others to succeed more than yourself and wanting to truly better the lives of those you see in need of your service.

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words by hailey – brand strategist