And How They can Help You Build a Stronger Brand
Habits can be bad or they can be good.
If you’re thinking, “What do my habits have to do with branding and marketing?” then let me clue you in.
Your habits affect your business. They affect the decisions you make. They affect your marketing. They affect how your brand is perceived.
And we all know that perception is more than half the battle these days.
Social media is like a jungle. You’re having to worry about multiple fronts, whether it’s not stepping on snakes (mean comments on your posts) or not running into a spider web (a post that’s in poor taste).
So what are your habits saying about your brand?
And what kind of habits build a stronger brand?
Today we wanted to dig into how habits can drive your brand forward and increase your overall performance.
What are Keystone Habits?
Keystone habits are a concept from Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. They are basically “bedrock habits that cause other habits to flourish.” These bedrock habits make up close to half of what we do every day. They may feel like a decision but they are really a habit which can lead to other behaviors.
What Makes Keystone Habits Powerful?
What makes keystone habits so powerful is their ability to encourage other related behavior changes. Combined, these two aspects create a more complete productive performance. For example, eating healthier and seeing good results from that can lead to other changes such as exercising weekly.
On the business side, these keystone habits are seen as values, which trigger emotional feelings in your audience. Any good marketer knows that emotion is what drives decision making. Emotion leads people to take action, while reason leads to conclusions. This is why marketers use emotional appeals to create a call to action that gets people to put that item in their shopping cart.
Keystone habits are what convince customers, and even your employees, that your value promises are indeed being delivered in a way that helps to overcome the feelings of distrust and cynicism that often flourish online in social media platforms.
Performance-Driven Example
A great example of a keystone habit used in business is back when David Neeleman founded and ran JetBlue. He was known for joining a flight and once the plane was airborne, would stand up and thank everyone for flying JetBlue. Then he would also go down the aisle to personally ask passengers how the company could improve its service. This made a huge impact on customers (who often shared this online), but employees as well. This keystone habit came from the top but encouraged employees to create and practice a more customer-driven brand. This small act had the power to create a more credible and widespread performance-driven culture for JetBlue.
Customer Service + Marketing Practices
What these habits highlight is the need to take a holistic approach, taking into account both customer service and marketing. When these two parts are separated into their own boxes, it’s like you’re running two separate companies. But when you take a holistic approach and practice positive keystone habits, you’ll see a sea change in your business from the employees to the customers.
Help with a Holistic Approach
Attuned Marketing is different from other firms because we take a holistic approach to marketing. From product development to customer service to sales, we understand that every part of your business is intertwined. Learn how we can help you develop great keystone habits and a better marketing strategy that will help you build a stronger brand that consumers trust.