Within any industry, there are many brands customers can choose from. The trick is convincing them to choose yours. But in an increasingly stressful and competitive world, how can you stand out from the crowd without overwhelming potential customers? There are two important ways a brand can do this: forge a connection with its audience and find ways to make their lives easier.

Ask yourself the following questions to see how your brand could connect with consumers and how you could help to make their lives better.

How Can Your Brand Provide Solutions to Your Customers?

Thinking about how your brand could offer a solution to a problem your consumers are facing can go a long way. Many people are stressed out, worried and anxious about the future. Identify problems that your services or products can solve, either present or future, and offer those solutions in your marketing. Don’t make your customers figure it out themselves; they’ve got enough on their minds already.

How Can Branding Simplify Decision-Making?

Because there are so many options for consumers to choose from, standing out above the rest now often means helping make the choice simpler. People are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices out there, so helping them to manage that choice overload can be very attractive to potential customers. Plus, if your brand is able to help reduce decision paralysis, then that may increase the likelihood of the ultimate choice being your own brand.

How Can Your Brand Connect with Consumers?

Another way you can appeal to consumers is by using your brand to forge a connection with them. People want to buy goods and services from companies that they feel align with their own values and how they want to feel. Think about how you can convey those values and how you can use your brand and associated marketing to make a connection that consumers will find meaningful. People don’t typically want to be sold to, but they are more willing to buy from companies they perceive as friendly.

Do Consumers Appreciate Nostalgia in Branding?

Capitalizing on nostalgia is an option for brands looking for ways to connect with their customer base. Look at the age range of your target audience and think about what that age group might feel nostalgic about. For example, Millennials and Gen Z are now in their twenties and thirties, with jobs and mortgages. This may be an influencing factor behind the nostalgia-based trends highlighting the ‘90s.

Highlighting a time period that your customer base feels nostalgic about is a way to connect with them over something that makes them feel good and reminds them of a simpler time in their lives. It can also promote the positive emotions that these memories bring to the surface.

How Can Brands Combine Solutions and Connection?

Offering clear solutions to consumers and building a connection with them can go hand in hand. The language of your branding and video content can point to how your brand can make consumers’ lives easier, while images, coloring, and other themes could promote a personal connection with your audience, whether it’s via nostalgia or current values, or something else.