American consumers are set in their ways when it comes to brands. In fact, they typically buy the same 150 items, which make up about 85% of their family’s household needs. This is a major factor in why 75% of products introduced fail to make it each year.(1) The key then is to make your brand unforgettable, so that when a consumer sees it again they will recognize it and buy it. How can marketers make a brand unforgettable? “It’s not always about being top of mind, but it’s about people being triggered when you want them to be triggered,” explained Sky Cassidy, host of the podcast If You Market They Will Come.

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Amber Kemmis is the VP of Business Operations at Revenue River and an expert marketer who specializes in making brands unforgettable. She also works with SmartBug, an intelligent inbound agency and an elite HubSpot sponsor. Kemmis talks about the psychology of “Unforgettable Marketing,” sharing the techniques, tricks and psychology that make marketing a brand unforgettable in Episode 108 of the If You Market podcast “Be Unforgettable, with Amber Kemmis.”

How a brand can be unforgettable

  • Positive pairing—People have to be exposed to a brand enough times, in a positive and consistent way, so that the name or product sticks in their brains.
  • Keep is simple—What people don’t understand, they won’t remember, so keep it simple. The closer the marketing message aligns with what the company/product does, the more likely a person will remember it.
  • Differentiate yourself—Standing out is good, especially for smaller or lesser known brands. But that doesn’t mean the marketing message can be all over the place. It still needs to be consistent.
  • Tell a great story—Stories are a great way to get people to remember a brand. But it should be something that makes sense for your brand and that people can relate to. Then commit to it with a solid content strategy aligned around prospective buyers.

Kemmis has a background in psychology, and she stumbled into marketing through a college job. A data-driven person, she arrived to the marketing world just as it had pivoted to being data-driven, and her background has helped her to understand how the world and buyers are changing. “Most of my career has been focused on small and medium businesses,” she said. “They have a stronger ability to relate to their customers in a way that is going to have an unforgettable impact.”

To that end, Kemmis uses demographic data to determine if a consumer is a good fit for a brand. For instance, if the data shows that the person doesn’t respond to email, she can pivot her efforts to use social media as the main channel to target the consumer. Collecting data allows her to bring in her psychology background and use any information gathered to tailor a better experience for the consumer by understanding what motivates them.

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5 Rules for Creating an Unforgettable Brand
1. Promote your brand on multiple channels. The more in front of people a brand is, the more likely they are to remember it when they need it. Using a combination of multiple channels means a product/brand is exposed in multiple places, and being seen twice has a big impact.
2. Focus on positive associations. There is a balance that must be achieved when it comes to repetition. Brands that focus on marketing campaign ideas just to stand out could be courting a bad association. Negative associations tend to be powerful and often are harder to forget than positive ones.
3. Skip fear. Motivating people through fear is not effective in the long-term, in fact studies have shown it can do the opposite and turn people off. Today’s consumer is smarter overall—they can see a fear-based tactic coming and aren’t motivated by it.
4. Create stories around the product. Many brands have focused on their company’s origin story. What is more effective, and more likely to resonate with the consumer, is when a brand’s story is about the buyer the brand is trying to attract. Then the consumer feels like they can relate to the product more, and they are more likely to remember it.
5. Look at the data. Marketers today have numerous free data tools they can take advantage of to discover trends in human behavior. From this information, they can create a hypothesis, test it, tweak it as needed and accomplish their goal—even if they are working with a small budget.

“All you have to do is resonate with the right person,” Kemmis said. “We’re living in a time where human behavior is rapidly changing, and as people change, you’re probably going to have to change your habits and way of resonating to continue to be unforgettable to them.”

Karla Jo Helms, Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR™ Strategist for JoTo PR™ and co-host of the If You Market They Will Come podcast, agreed, ”The world of marketing is constantly changing today and to make a brand unforgettable requires an understanding of how the world and buyers are changing, while ensuring that your company stays one step ahead.”

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