Social Media and Emotional Marketing: The ability to open customers’ wallets
The Ultimate Strategic Content Creation: Emotional Marketing
“I want my products and services to sell; let everyone know that we have a new product on the market which is, by far, the best amongst our competitors. Let’s show our customers that we are the best brand in the sector!” Such words are commonly expressed by CEOs, company directors and brand managers to their respective marketing and design team in order to create strategic content to be used for the sales campaign. However, the vast majority of these brands or companies are so focused on a fast selling process that they forget about the make or break factor to a successful marketing campaign — strategy. In fact, content creation is not about the amount of images, videos and social media posts produced, but about how unique, exciting and moving is the content produced for your audience.
Nowadays, we are bombard with content on the internet and social media. There are thousands of photos, videos, blog posts and infographics shared everyday across the web. Everyone wants to be heard. But, at the end of your day, how much of such content are you able to remember? Maybe 1 or 2. Are you even able to recall the last tweet or post you saw in your feed? Probably not. This is due to the fact that digital imagery and text are harder to remember than paper. “Social media is crowded, fast, and loud. There is an overabundance of content that moves by too quickly to make a meaningful impression on anyone’s short-term memory” (Gibson, 2015). Therefore, as a result to such a constant overload of content, professional designers, content creators and marketers face an extremely difficult challenge to develop appealing marketing material to produce leads. Subsequently, Kyle S. Gibson adds that nowadays, “memory is the biggest challenge and opportunity in social media”.
Following such issues and challenges, which web and social media content bear fruit and produces successful leads? How can you stand out? According to digital marketing strategist, Ross Simmons, “content that sparks emotion is the single biggest difference between content that gets shared and content that doesn’t”. Following on Simmons’ thought, have you ever noticed that social media posts regarding weddings, graduations or pet adoptions drive more traffic and engagement compared to content created to advertise and sell a product or service? In fact, as published by Cydney Hatch (2019), out of 1,400 successful marketing campaigns, emotional content performed about twice as well (31% vs. 16%) as those with only rational content. Hence, this evidences that not all content is equal, and consequently, emotional marketing (advertising that uses emotional stimulation) is a crucial factor in strategic content creation which designers, content creators and marketers must implement for a successful social media and marketing campaign. Eventually, this increases the chances for more social shares, interactions and purchases of the advertised product or service. When emotions jump, intelligence drops.
One may define emotional marketing as an advertising tool which primarily uses feelings and emotions to make one’s “audience to notice, remember, share, and buy” (Decker, 2018). Emotional marketing revolves around four basic human responses: happiness, sadness, anger or fear. Alina Decker (2018) deeply elaborates that, according on the nature of your product, industry, and audience, you can’t always target one’s happiness. Upon your marketing plans and goals, you must define precisely which feeling you’re trying to elicit; all your copywriting, images, videos and graphics should to evoke the same emotion. For instance, sadness instils a sense of empathy and altruism. Thus, if your marketing campaign’s goal is to ask for donations, featuring sad images and videos will inspire and motivate the viewer to act and help, leading to successful monetary donations. It’s time to inspire people and provoke the norm. Storytelling is an excellent way to connect with your audience. Whether through happiness, anger, sadness or excitement, stories are easily relatable and shareable. Storytelling is the bridge between your ideas and your audience.
People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it, once said author and public speaker Simon Sinek. One of the most effective ways to express this why you do it, is through vivid storytelling. People feel. Leading brands such as Nike, Apple and Coca Cola uses emotional marketing and storytelling as their main advertising tool. Such companies’ advertisers try their utmost to develop inspiring stories, backed by dramatic music and visuals in their commercials. Often, these stories have nothing to do with product they are selling. During one of his speeches, world’s mastermind in marketing, Steve Jobs, confesses that Nike are the best in their marketing strategies. Jobs states that, even though Nike sells commodity — shoes — you perceive and feel the brand as being something different than a shoe company. He continues that in their commercials, Nike never talk about the products, Nike never compare their air soles with Reebok or Adidas ones. Nike honour great athlete and great athletics.
This blog is a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta.
References:
Decker, A. (2018, August 20). The Ultimate Guide to Emotional Marketing. Retrieved from: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotion-marketing
Gibson, K. S. (2015, July 6). Social Recall: A Study On Memory In Social Media Advertising. Retrieved from: https://www.americaninno.com/boston/social-media-memory-recall/
Haden, J. (2018, January 10). How to Create Great Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Content Marketing That Delivers Real Results. Retrieved from: https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-create-great-content-a-step-by-step-guide-to-content-marketing-that-delivers-real-results.html
Hatch, C. (2019, February 22). Go For the Gut! How to Use Emotional Marketing with Facebook Ads. Retrieved from: https://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/social-media/emotional-marketing/
Simmons, R. (n.d.) Why Content Marketing Needs To Be In Your Marketing Mix. Retrieved from: https://rosssimmonds.com/content-marketing-marketing-mix/