What is emotion-led marketing?
You may have heard it be said that people buy on emotion and justify with logic. This is where emotion-led marketing comes into play and how connecting with the emotions of your audience will make the sale. One of the biggest mistakes people make with their marketing is to focus on the features of the products or services. We are so keen to tell the audience why our products are so great and all the wonderful things they do, we spend the whole time talking about ourselves. The first rule of emotion-led marketing is to talk about them. How your product will help them, how your product will make them feel, how your product is the answer to their problem. Only then can you connect to them on an emotional level which gains their trust and their business.
Understanding your audience.
To be able to make that emotional connection to your audience, you first have to understand them. How well have you conducted your market research? Do you know where your customer lives? How old are they? What are they interested in? What about what makes them tick? What are they passionate about? What do they believe in? What troubles them? What problems do they have? What makes them laugh? You need to know these things about your audience to be able to speak to them on an emotional level and weave those answers into your marketing.
Creating a genuine brand.
Competition for your target audience can be fierce. You need to stand out from the crowd and be the one your customer chooses. You can do this by creating brand loyalty with emotion-led marketing. Your business and brand have their own story. There are real people behind your brand, real lives, and genuine stories. To create a loyal customer base your audience needs to feel a connection with you. This can be nurtured through all of your marketing messages. If your audience consistently sees that you are genuine, you are real, and what your offering is genuinely there to help them, you will gain their trust. Old-school manipulative advertising tactics are out the window! It’s time to nurture and bond with your audience.
Create a balance.
Emotion-led marketing doesn’t always create positive emotions. Don’t live in fear of not always keeping your audience happy. Emotions such as anger and sadness can actually benefit your content by evoking empathy. For example; a campervan hire company can spark lots of positive emotions by talking about the feelings of freedom, the fun memories you can make with family and friends, and the heart-warming stories of taking your dog on holiday. They can also factor in some hard-hitting emotions such as sadness and nostalgia, by using stories of drifted friendships, and separated families during the pandemic - the solution being you can hire a campervan to reconnect with those missed loved ones. Do you see how that works? The emotional connection doesn’t haven’t to just be fluffy and fun to convert.
How to achieve emotion-led marketing.
Now you understand emotion-led marketing and its importance, it’s time to put it into practice. Try to write down your product’s features, then ask yourself, how does it make me feel? The answer is what you then use in your marketing messaging.Here are a few examples:
- Airbags in a car > reassurance your family are safe
- Canoeing activity > happy family memories that will last a lifetime
- Self-cleaning oven > the gift of time to do something else you enjoy and relax
Try it yourself. See what emotions you can evoke from your products and services and weave these throughout your marketing and content strategy.Here at The Marketing Collection, emotion-led marketing is what we do. We teach and encourage our clients that this is how to connect and gain trust with their audience, and from this they increase sales, grow their brand, and enjoy customer loyalty.