The Power of Emotions in Marketing

Emotions are, in general, a very powerful thing. No matter how rational one might think they are, in our most crucial decision-making moments and within every intense memory, there is strong emotion. Emotions are what drive us through life.

For marketers, that power of emotions is something that can be harnessed and used to great benefit. By using the emotions of potential customers, brands can influence them towards the steps they want them to take.

All it may take to get that customer is the right approach to emotional marketing.

The Benefits of Taking Advantage of Emotional Marketing

Emotional marketing is the way for any company to turn the power of emotions to their advantage, and it comes with plenty of benefits. With this strategy, you don’t just build a marketing campaign. You build a strong relationship with the audience that will carry you through. You manage to achieve marketing success.

Achieve an Emotional Connection with the Audience

Marketing campaigns that rely on facts and figures to logically sway prospects towards a decision with your brand may provide the results that you need to see, but emotional marketing can dive in even deeper. By tapping into the emotions of your audience, you can actually form a real connection.

The emotions of your audience are simply your ticket to their conversion and even their loyalty. Create a connection with emotional marketing and you will have them for the long term instead of just for the sale.

Of course, by tapping into the right emotion with your audience, you will likely also win that sale. As far as facts and figures can take you, for most of humanity, it really does all pretty much come down to the emotional.

Humans as Emotional Decision-Makers

Human beings are simply not rational creatures. We are influenced by our emotions for every small, insignificant moment and for every major life-changing decision.

Even in those situations where you’d really hope logic and rational thought were taking the driver’s seat, people often remain emotional decision-makers. A good example of this can be found in all the research, studies, and experiments proving that judges in court continue to make their serious, life-changing decisions under the influence of their emotions. This just showcases what is true for all of us in each of our everyday lives: emotions play a role in every individual decision, whether we realize it or not.

From what we want to have for lunch to the person that we decide to marry, emotions have an impact on our decisions. And of course, humans being emotional decision-makers can make for great news for marketers who might want to make your lunchtime decision easier for you or benefit from a wedding industry sale when you have finally found “the one”.

Once you know that humans make decisions based heavily on our emotions, your job taking care of marketing actually gets a whole lot easier. With just that shift in strategy towards emotional marketing, you can see much more of the results you’re after.

People make decisions using emotion, so if you work at marketing fueled by emotion, you can get potential customers to make the decision that’s to your benefit. The fact is, emotional marketing works.

Emotional Marketing Works

Advertisers have long known the power of using emotions to get the sale. Flip on the TV, open up a magazine, or scroll around on the internet, and you’ll see it: all the advertisements that key into an emotion in order to make their convincing point. And these ads work!

The ad that relies on emotion might convince you with the fear of what your life might become without the service being sold, pull at the heartstrings with a tearjerker story that ends on a heartwarming note with the product available for purchase, or just make you smile in an effort to get the brand associated with happiness. However the advertising specifically rolls out, this emotional marketing can make for a very effective strategy.

If nothing else, it can get the audience to pay attention. Getting their emotions involved is one secure way to get the audience to notice your brand. And if the marketing is effective, having that emotional connection will help to cement the bond with your brand.

Almost always, the ad that speaks to emotion is the more effective one. After all, emotion is playing a role in the decision whether you purposefully elicit it or not.

You might as well get the emotions of potential customers to go your way with the power of emotional marketing.

Harnessing the Power of Emotion

Your brand can take advantage of the power of emotions by carefully and strategically implementing an emotional marketing campaign. No matter what sort of business you’re looking to promote, from local shop to B2B wholesaler, this technique can work for you. If you can get emotional marketing right, you will see the results that the power of emotions brings in.

Strive for Authentic Emotion

To start, you will need to lock down on an emotion to emphasize in the marketing materials.

You don’t want to force it. Seeing your product likely doesn’t make anyone break out into tears of joy, so including this in your advertising will not come off well. Using emotion in marketing works best when this emotion feels authentic.

Avoid falling into cheesy territory with your emotional marketing by using your target audience research and tapping into the real, honest emotions that you can find there. With authentic emotion in the marketing, the connection formed with the audience can also be authentic.

Craft a Campaign with Emotion That Resonates

Once you know which emotion fits your brand best, you can begin integrating this into a carefully crafted marketing campaign.

One way to do this is by telling a story. This is a technique that has been working for marketers for quite a long time. Just as humans are emotional beings, we also all love a good story and this can certainly be used to your benefit as a marketer. Weave together a story that packs an emotional punch and that makes your brand an integral element. With a story-based emotional marketing campaign, you can successfully get that emotional response out of the audience.

Of course, there are other ways to make emotion a central component of the marketing campaign, but you have to be careful with it. Get the emotional message in in whichever way works best for your brand and, importantly, for your target audience.

Knowing your target audience is exactly how you will know how to get the emotional response needed from them to see the marketing results you’re looking for.

Earn the Marketing Results You’re After

If you can successfully elicit strong emotional responses from those that you target with your marketing, you can find definitive success with your marketing.

Emotions prompt people to act and if you’re the one bringing out their emotions, you can prompt them to do as benefits you. But to unlock the right action from them, you need to target the right emotion with your marketing. There is a particular way to tackle this as a strategy.

You have a few different emotions you can choose from, and each can bring you a different outcome. Make people happy and they’ll sing your praises or at least share the brand’s social media post. Tap into the more negative emotions though and you can really drive people to act. When we’re scared, angry, or sad, we want to act quickly to fight against these negative emotions. When your customers feel scared, angry, or sad, they may turn to your brand for the solution.

Targeting the right emotion at the right time will give you the right results for your marketing campaign.

Read more: Emotional Appeal in Advertising: What’s on the Rise?