Want to Connect With Your Prospects? Get Emotional!

 We’ve all seen THOSE ads.  The ones that bring a tear to your eye, tug at your heart strings and make you want to take action.  Think the SPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan crooning in the background.  Very impactful, very emotional.  Great marketing tactic.

What organizations like the SPCA are utilizing is emotional marketing – taking an extra step to connect with your target market’s emotions in order to persuade them to choose your brand or to raise awareness. This marketing strategy uses generalized emotions that can trigger people to create a connection that achieves a more promising brand loyalty than any other marketing means.

Millions of brands and organizations use emotional marketing to win their potential and target market’s hearts by siding with their brand.  This marketing tactic can and should be a part of your promotional plan for a variety of reasons.  But, before incorporating the emotional message, let’s take a look at what emotional marketing is and how it can help your business better connect with your target audience.

What Is Emotional Marketing?

Emotional marketing is a marketing strategy where brands use human emotions as a connection to persuade customers into choosing their brand. It shows that they are empathetic, relatable and in tune to the current tone and emotions of the world.  The emotional messages reveal happiness, sadness or anger - as these are general views that could be shared by millions of people on a relevant topic. (Nobody likes to see starving, abused and neglected animals outside in cages, right?)

Many companies respond to current affairs or relevant trends that are globally popular to choose a side with customers.  COVID and the ensuing pandemic is a prime example of how many companies changed their messaging – taking a stand for or against masking and vaxxing. While the “We’re all in this together” mantra was way overused, the impact of the switch to emotional marketing kept those companies relevant.

Using emotional marketing as a bridge between a brand and customers forms a deeper connection than any other form of marketing. The brand loyalty lasts longer and the response to purchasing or investing in the brand is higher than other marketing tactics. 

Is Emotional Marketing Right for Your Business?

Emotional marketing, if executed the right way, can produce fascinating and profitable results for companies. This is why many of the biggest global brands, such as Coca Cola or Apple, use emotional marketing on a regular basis.

If your business follows the same model or shares the same customer base, chances are emotional marketing may work for you as well.

• Triggering Memory and Nostalgia

The emotion of memory or nostalgia can recreate the happiest of moments. As a person’s memory subconsciously plays an important part in their daily life, many brands run advertisement campaigns that use aspects to trigger memory or nostalgia.

This is done for brands that have a rather older customer base where triggering happy memories in them can make people feel comfortable with the brand and may influence them to buy more of it.

Think McDonald’s and the McRib.  The ‘limited time’ offer(s) brings a hype and a trigger to where and when the consumer bought their first McRib.

• Impulse Buying and Helping the Customer Decide

The most influential way of marketing except for advertisements is emotional packaging.

Most brands have an active competitor they fight against. Like Pepsi for Cola, Burger King for McDonald’s, and Adidas for Nike.

If you offer a retail product, a good way to convince customers to choose your brand from the shelf rather than the competitor’s sitting beside it is by adding emotions in the packaging itself.

When the price and quality are the same, a customer decides solely on the visual impression a brand expresses. Use emotional colors or nostalgic designs that could appeal to the customers better and make them listen to their hearts.

• Moving People and Inspiring a Call to Action

If the brand chooses to side with a popular opinion on a global affair and convinces people, even if they’re not specifically their target market, to side with their cause using an emotional ad campaign or packaging, the brand can enjoy additional marketing done by the customers themselves through social media shares, comments, and promotions.

Once you understand what drives your customers, reference the above to create a broad marketing strategy based on making emotional connections. This strategy should include every link in the chain, from product launches and sales to marketing and service. Storytelling can be an indispensable tool here. Stories can be compelling and easy to share. They can help trigger the emotions you may need to get your desired outcome.

As Dale Carnegie said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion."

Emotional connections in the marketing field are not a secret strategy anymore — but they can be a real advantage. To be successful, find out how your customers feel and what they need and be able to identify what motivates them. This customer-oriented attitude and strategy can help you inspire customers' devotion.

If you are struggling to connect with your target audience,
SKConsulting can help create the story and message that best fits your brand.