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How connecting with customers through personalization earns brand loyalty and increases sales.

A key message of this session was that a long-term, fruitful relationship with consumers is about using personalization to build a lifetime relationship. Kyle Duford, Executive Creative Director at The Brand Leader, said that human connection is vital in today’s retail world.

“A brand isn’t just a logo,” he said. Instead, he described it as a whole host of things from vision to customer service. “A brand is simply an emotional connection between a product, service or business and a customer.”

He said that consumers wanted human contact, especially during the pandemic when 50% of people wanted a human on the end of the phone. “We were craving that,” he said.

Duford highlighted a number of brands that he said managed the human connection well. These included beauty brand Glossier who he said did a great job of tailoring content to their customers’ tone of voice and in building a customer community of interested, engaged, immersed customers.

He said Patagonia was another example, since their mission is to build the best product and inspire people to not cause harm to the environment, for example launching a campaign in 2011 urging consumers not to buy their jackets.

Cycling brand Rapha wants to create products to strengthen the community of cycle lovers, he said. “Their unique selling proposition is community – a club environment,” he said. He cited the clubhouses and community ride that Rapha promotes.

“All these brands really did well during the pandemic,” said Duford. “They’ve attached themselves to their customers and what they believe in.”

He then outlined how brands can manage that connection themselves, including opening up opportunities by being where your customers are, asking open-ended questions that drive conversation and inviting variety.

“Emotions are the basis of 80% of the decisions a person makes in a day,” he said. Adding the emotional layer on top of the transactional layer through personalization is hugely effective, he said. “Personalization is absolutely, fundamentally key.”