As a marketer, it’s important to understand what prompts your customers to make purchases. Different emotions or feelings play a major role in the decision-making process. Understanding and addressing these emotions is crucial to generating leads and this is where emotional marketing comes into play. Simply put, an emotional marketing campaign refers to a strategy that appeals to the audience’s emotions and in turn, leads them to connect with your brand.
Studies show that injecting your campaign with emotionally-charged elements can make your social media marketing efforts twice as successful as opposed to when you use plain, dry logic. To help you bring your digital marketing campaigns to life, here’s an introduction to emotional marketing, coupled with a few ideas.
Emotional marketing promises returns
Emotional marketing campaigns tap into different emotions, such as nostalgia, in order to generate better engagement and returns for your brand. If your marketing efforts focus on building and nurturing a positive bond with the consumer, achieving a customer to brand emotional connection is easy. The bi-product then is handsome, long-lasting returns.
For example, a study by a data and measurement company indicates that an affirmative consumer to brand emotional connection means that customers are 8.4% times more likely to trust you, 7.1% more likely to buy your services or products, and 6.6% more likely to pardon a mistake you make. So, while emotional marketing may mean that you need to spend more and hire the services of an expert, the payoff is equally high!
4 human emotions to form the foundation of emotional marketing
One reason emotional marketing is so effective is that it speaks to the many different emotions that everyone experiences. As per research, this spectrum of human emotions boils down to 4 types: happiness, sadness, fear/surprise and anger/disgust.
It's interesting to note that each of these types evokes different responses from the audience. For example, sadness builds an empathetic connect and fear makes the reader want to act quickly. For instance, a CTA that reads ‘24 hours left before offer expires’ will urge customers to make quick purchases. If an increase in social media shares is your priority, try incorporating an element of happiness, as it establishes an instant connect and gets the reader excited about what you have to say.
Now that you know how to connect with customers emotionally, here are a few ways to employ emotional marketing in your digital marketing campaigns.
Harness the power of compelling storytelling
Storytelling often invokes nostalgia, which is a powerful emotional trigger. You can use a cleverly crafted storyline to spark the imagination, invoke memories and arouse a host of human emotions.
For example, if your business manufactures pencils, you can craft a story on the role of a pencil in the success of a student and market it in this manner. Stories like this help create a sense of belonging and are a powerful tool. In fact, studies show that 92% of people prefer that you employ storytelling when you’re promoting your brand.
Instil a sense of urgency through appropriate CTAs
Calls to action can also be used as emotional triggers to sell products or encourage subscriptions. A CTA with an underlying emotional trigger, be it urgency or concern, will compel your audience to act right away.
For instance, if you want to grow your email database, you could create a subscription campaign that reads, ‘Sign up for free within the next 48 hours’. Or if you are selling goods, you can add to your web pages countdowns or timers for deals/discounts. Additionally, consider personalising your CTAs as a study shows that you can improve conversions by a whopping 202% by using your consumer’s name.
Charm your audience to keep your brand image high
A psychology magazine indicates that different emotions play a bigger role than reason when customers are assimilating an impression of your brand. That’s why investing resources to make your customers happy is crucial. It ensures that you stand out among other brands and guarantees word-of-mouth marketing.
For instance, you can send customers a gift voucher for Christmas or offer a complimentary service on a milestone anniversary as part of your outbound marketing strategy.
Evoke a range of emotions with a splash of colour
Studies suggest that colour can be used to enhance your message, as each hue prompts a different response. For example, red creates a sense of urgency, blue calms and imbibes trust, while green communicates freshness.
Moreover, data shows that when making a purchase, 93% of buyers concentrate on the aesthetics of the product and 84.7% of buyers claim that colour is the main factor involved. So, when formulating your marketing campaign, be sure to use a colour scheme that invokes the emotion that you aim to trigger.
Simply learning how to connect with customers emotionally is not enough. Putting together a social media marketing campaign that incorporates different approaches, logic, and your brand’s message is an art that requires tact and skill. To improve your chances of success and grow your business on digital platforms, contact us today!
