Customers Feel More Than They Think

The last purchase decision that you made was based on emotion, I guarantee it. Whether you bought a bottle of water from a vending machine, a pair of shoes online, or took out a mortgage, the key influencing factor on your decision was based on perception, not rationality.

A quick explanatory background: your emotions have a large part to play in how you perceive the world. If you’re in a bad mood, you’re more likely to notice the crappier things in life, and make “rational” thoughts that are processed based on the information that is coming in — which is, of course, influenced by how you’re feeling. It’s a cyclic process that is somewhat accurately represented in the Pixar movie Inside Out, so go and watch that movie again (or watch this nice analysis). Similarly, our purchase decisions are influenced by how we are perceiving the environment we’re in. Whether it’s a nice user experience, a pushy sales person, or we are just having a good or bad day, the way we perceive the world is influenced by an array of affective factors, which in turn control our rational thought processes.

Duncan Jones, the Group Manager of Melbourne Angels, agrees that even in his line of work, perception is everything, “We have adopted a comprehensive screening and vetting process that tries to ensure our investments are made for good, objective and pragmatic reasons based on sound business cases. Ultimately, however, we are investing in people: the founder and their management team.”

Angel investing is high-risk business, and I pressed Duncan on how perception plays such a large role when the risk of idea failure is so high, “We invest in startups because we believe in their founder and their idea, and that ‘belief’ is influenced by perception and emotion as much as it is driven by objective, quantifiable data.”

Sam Robertson, Co-Founder of online tutor-scheduling service Scooter Tutor, couldn’t agree more, “For us, the parent who books the tutor for their child cares more about how trustworthy we are than our specific processes, business model, or technology. Our system is fantastic in that it creates a far more efficient means of organising home tutoring services, but if our customers don’t trust us with their child’s education, then all the technology in the world won’t convince them to use Scooter Tutor.”

So what are the implications for businesses, then, if emotion and perception play just as large a role (if not more) in high-involvement purchase decisions as rational thought? Well, for a start, we can do away with assuming that product-centric promotions are going to turn your business into an overnight success story. No offence to any of my acquaintances, but many founders from sales backgrounds typically assume that pushing the features of a product is a scalable marketing strategy. This strategy may work at a small scale, but the key to scaling your business and expanding your market share is to understand the emotional needs that your brand needs to trigger in order to influence your customers’ perception of your offering.

Branding: Not Just Wankerism

Every time I bring up the term “brand”, I am cautious of the response that I might invoke. So many people have been burned by the promises of a brand agency, that a sizeable portion of the market now considers the entire term a farce. I don’t blame them, either, a bad brand design experience is costly and rarely achieves any return on investment.

The truth is, however, that the concept of a brand is simply a way of describing the emotional connection between a product/company/person and a target market. According to modern psychological theory, this emotional connection will, in turn, drive cognitive or rational thought processes.

Dr Bernardo Figueiredo, Senior Lecturer of Marketing at RMIT, agrees that the role of a brand is much more emotional than it is cognitive, “A long list of academic studies has demonstrated the power of emotional branding. In our CX Design course at the Master of Marketing at RMIT, we make sure to emphasise that brands are much more than cognitive beings. Brands have sensorial and emotional aspects and these aspects often play a much more important role than the cognitive ones. For example, if you consider politicians as a type of brand, human brands, you do not need to go far to see how emotion has become the key driver of the American election”.

I’ve gone as far as to suggest a new definition for a brand as based on the idea that emotion ultimately influences rationality:

A brand is simply a way of describing the emotional connection between a product/company/person and a target market.

This is an empowering definition; whether you own the local chicken shop or run a multinational insurance brokerage, understanding the definition of “a brand” will enable you to make your product, service, experience, and communications more effective by understanding the emotional needs as well as the functional needs that your customers have. Again, I’ll reiterate this:

A brand addresses the emotional needs of your target market in the same way that a product/service/experience addresses the functional needs.

Whatever role you are in, you don’t need a branding expert to help you with your branding strategy. As a human being, your ability to perceive emotions and communicate with other human beings are the only tools you need to create a great brand.

The customers’ perception is your reality. If you don’t understand the customer’s perceived emotional and functional requirements, then you don’t know jack.

How To Check Your Brand Strategy

Low on budget? Here’s a quick way to measure your brand’s strength amongst your target market:

1. Learn what your customers perceive as their emotional needs. “I need a mortgage” is not an emotional need, “I need to trust who I’m borrowing from” is.
2. Uncover if your customers’ perception of you matches their actual needs. “You provide low rates” is not what you want, “I have peace of mind that you are an honest mortgage broker” is.
3. If there is a mismatch, either adjust your brand to suit their perceived emotional needs or create a communications strategy that attempts to shift their perceived emotional needs. Note that shifting people’s beliefs and opinions can be incredibly hard to do and is therefore rarely a good idea.

How to Increase Your Brand Strength

It’s clear to see that a brand is more than an identity, logo, or communications style. Sometimes, the best thing you can do to strengthen your brand is to make the customer experience more valuable. It’s true that identity and representation will have an influence, but spending $50,000 on a rebrand isn’t going to result in guaranteed success.

My advice is to always start with the basics, and seek to understand what your customers’ emotional requirements are and how your product, service, or experience can align with them. 9/10 times, you’ll uncover a few little pieces of information that have the potential to transform the success of your business.

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Tom Uhlhorn runs Tiny, a Customer Experience Design Firm based out of Melbourne, Australia. Tiny specialises in the strategy and design of digital communications, branding, and new product development for startups, SMEs, and non-profits Australia-wide.