Why emotions should drive your marketing strategy
How your customer feels about your brand is integral to converting a sale for a simple physiological reason: the right side of the brain buys more. This is because the right side (also known as the creative side) is where emotional decision-making happens.
If you have a brand that subtly makes customers feel a certain way, they can’t help but ‘go with their gut’ and sign up to your service or buy your product. The gut feeling that people talk about is actually caused by the amygdala, which is a primitive part of our brain that is responsible for emotions.
In comparison, if you start talking facts and numbers, you’re talking to the left side of the brain. It’s much like talking to your Aunty Ethel while she’s got her hearing aid turned off: the message just won’t get through.
But enough biology – what can you do to make sure your customer is feeling just right?
Three steps to evoking the right emotions
1. Think about how your service solves a problem that your customer is facing. You want to capitalise on how your customer feels after the problem is solved and encourage them to associate this feeling with your brand.
2. Contemplate every step of your customer’s journey from start to finish, identifying how your brand makes them feel at every point.
3. Once your customer has engaged your services, make sure you continue to consider how they are feeling. Making a lasting emotional impression can lead to re-engagement in the future or great word-of-mouth recommendations to other potential customers.
An example:
The perfect example of an industry where it can be tempting to rely on facts and statistics is financial services. While the industry is all about numbers, you’re likely to lose your customers in a few seconds if that is all you rely on.
Instead, choose an emotion you want to evoke in your customers, such as relief. Then, plan your entire strategy around this. In this example, this feeling can be created through social media content that instils confidence in your expertise and a friendly welcome when customers arrive at your office. On top of this, you always answer your phone when it rings.
In combination, these tactics elicit a feeling of relief for your customer at every step – they know that you’re there and always willing to help.
Don’t forget:
If you receive negative feedback from a customer, it usually means that you have made them feel a negative emotion – perhaps confusion, annoyance or anger. Instead of making up all the excuses in the world, go back to basics. Figure out how and why your customer is feeling that way, and then change their experience to realign their emotions in a positive direction.
To ensure that your brand is making your customer feel all the right feels, you may want to consider implementing a communications strategy. A carefully planned strategy provides a clear path for your brand to take a holistic approach to achieving its goals and building relationships with customers.