Emotions in marketing and business
At a crowded party where you are meeting many people, are you going to remember the ones who introduced themselves formally and in a regular fashion or someone who made you laugh with an interesting comment? You have only once chance to make the first impression which can be crucial.
When we meet someone, we don’t remember what they said but how they made us feel.
People buy emotions
Research shows that emotional response to a commercial can influence a buyer a lot more than just pure content of the ad.
That’s why brands are trying to be different, attract attention and produce emotion. That’s how we have a brand that is not selling a drink but asking us to taste the feeling, we have a bank that believes in us and a card that can buy priceless moments.
It was not enough to have just a “like” button on social media. Now we can choose many different reactions: love, applause, sad, angry, funny etc.
We like to think that we are rational beings and that we make all decisions based on logic. That would be nice, and probably smart, but it isn’t the case.
A good commercial will know how to get to the heart of their target group. It is a true mastery to know how to do that.
Our product or service is not important
It hurts to realize that our product or service is not important. Consumers are important and what they feel when they see and use our product/service. What’s important is how the brand communicates, what emotions it builds with the customers and which problem it solves.
Even modern marketing research has turned to analyze emotions. Neuromarketing is using different tools to analyze brain activity and body reactions while we are watching a commercial, choosing between different products and packages. Based on that we can more accurately see what reactions and emotions our marketing activities are producing.
Despite all of that, in real (I mean business) world, even my colleagues, marketing and communication professionals, too often look at excel sheets and follow ROI, CPC, CPL, CR, and all other abbreviations. We are focused on all the results we can measure, which is great and, we all agree, a must. However, all of that is an effect that we would not have if we didn’t focus on building emotions.
Is there a metric for emotion?
Which metrics do we use to measure emotions that we are creating and building between our brand/service/product and our customers?
Harvard Business Review says that people who are emotionally connected with a brand are two times more valuable to the brand than customers who are just satisfied. Emotional connection leads to higher trust and represents the secret formula of great marketing.
Listen to your heart
Many think that there is no space for emotions in business. On the other hand, there are many books that talk about love as the strongest energy and force in life. When we do something with love, it will be noticed. Love is one of the strongest, but other emotions can be equally powerful. As long as someone or something can make us sad, angry, happy, it means that we have feelings towards that person. When we are indifferent, there is no room for any negotiation.
That’s how we choose our job, client or project. We are listening to what our stomach is saying. We pick the option that brings us a feeling of excitement. If we don’t feel anything or have negative feelings, we would rather skip it.
When we are searching for new employees, are we looking for someone who can do the job perfectly or for someone who is highly motivated, willing to learn, have that spark in their eyes, energy, and smile?
Our intuition is a very powerful tool in both business and private life. There are different ways and techniques on how to “awaken, find and strengthen” our intuition. It is based precisely on the feeling that something is good or bad for us and it can guide us to what we need to do. Steve Jobs said in his memorable commencement speech: “Follow your heart and intuition because they already know where you want to go.”
Are emotions the most important ingredient of marketing only or business in general? Do we measure emotions or do we stick just to excel sheets?
Check out my post about Innovation tools from award-winning commercials
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