The Little-Known Secret To Power Up Your Marketing: Emotional Marketing
Did you know that we make emotional purchases 95% of the time? (Chierotti)
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “That’s not true! I’m the logical one who always does extensive research and compares features and reviews before I buy.” Think again.
When we’re looking at the technical details of a product or service and assessing the different criteria, most of the time we already have the idea of buying it. We’re validating our emotional desire to buy something and our purchase decision by checking off the boxes and researching, gathering, and comparing all the technical details.
Because humans are driven by feelings, as marketers and business owners, you must incorporate emotions into your brand and marketing strategy. Great marketers know this and apply this all the time. This is also the reason why, if you pay close attention to the marketing campaigns you remember, what’s being sold to you isn’t the features of a product or the details of a service, it’s the emotions, the feelings, and the lifestyle that can be achieved when using the products or services.
brand direction & styling by us for Butter& | photo by Andriya Rances
People buy with emotions first and only justify their purchases with logic afterward.
So, sell and market emotions first. Save the detailed explanation of your product features, tools, and service approaches for later.
How do you incorporate emotions into your brand and marketing strategy? Here are 10 ways you can apply emotional marketing in your business:
1. Know your target audience and customers inside out
Figure out what emotional needs and desires your target customers are looking for and want in their lives, and that can be directly or indirectly delivered through using what you sell. Some examples include connection, status, safety, belonging, empowerment, and freedom of expression.
To start, here are 7 questions every modern entrepreneur should ask to narrow down their target audience further. And if you need some more help and feedback from your target audience, use this simple method to get inside their heads and give them what they truly want!
2. Unite your target audience
Create a “we” identity among your target audience and customers and rally them through shared values and beliefs. Identify your personal calling, mission, and brand values, and share them through your content.
Read this post to uncover the 5 secrets to connecting with your audience, boosting engagement, and increasing warm leads.
3. Use colors to trigger emotions
Choose the colors that make people feel the emotions you want them to associate with your brand, products, and services. These emotions should align with your target audience’s emotional desires. (see Below.)
Cojo, UX Design Colour Psychology, Theory & Accessibility, 2020
4. Use a brand voice that triggers emotions
Use the right voice and tone that aligns with your target audience’s emotional desires. For example, if they are looking for help and guidance on training their baby to sleep overnight, they probably need someone who sounds supportive and encouraging. And if they are looking for cute and creative office supplies to refreshen up their workspace, they might enjoy a fun and quirky friendly voice from the brand they buy from.
5. Engage with your audience, human to human
Interact with your audience in a human way. Because most of our communication is now done online through emails, social media, and messaging apps, businesses tend to respond to inquiries in a very templatized and formal way, lacking a personal touch.
If this is applicable to your business, reply to emails and messages as if you’re writing to a friend. This doesn’t mean you have to write every single reply from scratch. Simply use a more human, natural, and colloquial tone in your replies. Make people feel seen and heard, which often makes them feel more connected to your brand.
To make them feel more connected to your brand, use their specific language and avoid formal and complex words, which typically make people feel distant and cold, like a robot.
Want to know how to write better marketing content? Check out these 3 most common copywriting mistakes & how to fix them with these foolproof tricks.
brand direction & styling by us for Boheme Fragrances | photo by Aimi Photo
6. Focus on your target audience’s desired lifestyle & emotional desires
What will your customers feel after having used your products or services? What lifestyle or emotions do your products or services help them achieve? What does that transformation look like?
To apply emotional marketing, before diving into all the features and details of what you sell, focus on describing or showing how their life, work, or relationships will change after having used what you sell.
7. Address your target audience’s biggest pain points
If applicable to your business and brand, speak directly to your target audience and customers’ struggles and headaches. These are negative emotions triggered by specific challenges and problems that your products or services can help remove and fix.
8. Use storytelling in your marketing
People are all drawn to stories, especially the ones they can relate to. Use storytelling in your marketing copy and social media content to engage your audience. Also, describe sensory details like touch, sight, taste, sound, and smell in your marketing copy and content to make people feel immersed in your stories, which helps make your message more relatable and effective.
brand direction & styling by us for Carolina Barton | photo by Comeplum
9. Show up to connect with your audience
People connect with people, not with businesses. It doesn’t matter if you have a partner or a team, people like knowing who they are working with and who are creating the things they are using. And they tend to like and trust people they feel that they know.
So, show your face on social media and on your About page on your website, and share snippets of “behind the scenes” of your business. Help them put a face to who they are buying from. This helps increase the likeability of your brand and make your audience and customers feel more connected to your business.
10. Stay directly connected with your target audience
If you’re relying only on social media to do your marketing, it’s time to adjust your game plan. At this time, the concept of social media still revolves around communicating to the masses, it lacks the exclusivity and personalization that are crucial for emotional marketing.
Tools like emails and direct messaging apps, on the other hand, allow you to send direct communication to each of your audience. With these tools, you can send direct and personalized emails and messages to your audience, just like from one friend to another, which helps you build closeness and relationships with them.
If you want to know more about how to set up your content and marketing funnel effectively, and attract your next 100 target audience online (without doing more on social media) - click here and join our free masterclass!
And if you want to get started on email marketing but are not sure where to start, get this simple 3-email welcome sequence to engage your subscribers and make people feel excited about getting your emails!
You can use any of these or a combination of any of them to apply emotional marketing. It’s time to call out people’s emotional needs and take your marketing to the next level!
Check out this post to get the 7 pro tips to make your business stand out & create an impressive brand － even if you're starting out!
Want to learn how to stand out from a sea of competition? Uncover the 3 biggest myths about finding your differentiation & how to identify it for your business.
And if you want to use emotional marketing during your launch, here's how to create pre-launch content (backed by sales psychology) that converts!
Works Cited
Chierotti, Logan. “Harvard Professor Says 95% of Purchasing Decisions Are Subconscious.” Inc.com, Inc., 26 Mar. 2018, www.inc.com/logan-chierotti/harvard-professor-says-95-of-purchasing-decisions-are-subconscious.html. Accessed 1 Jan. 2023
Cojo. “UX Design Colour Psychology, Theory & Accessibility.” Medium, UX Planet, 29 June 2020, uxplanet.org/ux-design-colour-psychology-theory-accessibility-40c095cc1077. Accessed 1 Jan. 2023.