Emotional Marketing – How to Use Emotions to Connect With Your Customers

Marketing that taps into customer emotions can increase customer retention, sales growth and brand recognition while creating deeper connections with your audience.

Purely emotional content outperforms fact-based material by two times, so it is crucial that marketing strategies incorporate some emotional triggers.

1. Make them laugh.

Customers today want to feel connected with the brands they buy from, which can lead to greater email and social media follower counts, brand loyalty and ultimately increased revenues over time.

Marketing that stirs emotional responses such as joy and excitement can leave customers with lasting memories that bring smiles. Plus, such positive associations could prompt sharing that extends the reach of your marketing effort!

Fostering inspiration through your product or service advertising can create ads that motivate customers by showing what’s possible; an advertisement featuring someone climbing a mountain may prompt viewers to try climbing their own mountains!

Note that not all marketing campaigns must evoke strong emotions such as fear or sadness. Purely emotional content performs on average 31% better than traditional ads; however, it’s crucial to know your target audience and what might provoke a negative response.

2. Make them cry.

Companies can leverage positive emotions like happiness and hope to encourage customers to interact with their products, as well as negative ones like fear or sadness to evoke an emotional response in their target audience.

Cadbury’s #LikeAGirl campaign of 2014, designed to eliminate the insulting phrase “like a girl” and empower young women, garnered international praise while simultaneously building brand loyalty for the company.

Businesses that focus on making customers feel special can establish strong and long-lasting relationships with them, which is particularly vital during critical moments such as when natural disasters strike. Brands can demonstrate their humanity by using social media to share messages of hope or by offering assistance during cleanup efforts after such catastrophes occur.

Before embarking on any kind of emotional marketing, businesses should conduct in-depth market research. An effective market research strategy will paint an accurate portrait of its target customer and reveal which emotions will resonate most powerfully.

3. Make them feel special.

As a brand, it is imperative that you understand the emotional needs and motivations of your target audience in order to communicate on a level appropriate to them. A stylish fashion blog reader might be inspired by their desire to remain current; an executive reading up on AI innovations could be motivated by wanting to feel smart while making the correct business decisions.

Every customer should feel special and valued – according to Harvard Business Review, an exceptionally satisfied customer is twice as valuable than one who just joined.

Attaining this goal means moving away from marketing jargon and treating your customers like people rather than leads. Start by using their name when communicating and personalizing their experience whenever possible. Make them feel valued by acknowledging feedback or offering loyalty programs with special rewards; many customers also value having a sense of community which you can foster by showing support during key events.

4. Make them feel connected.

From Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Self Determination Theory, nearly all models of human motivation emphasize that people desire emotional connections. Many brands are finding that emotional bonds between customers and employees are as vital to product satisfaction than product itself – even helping create brand loyalty and forgiving mistakes by the company itself.

An example would be when a company creates an online community for its customers, it allows them to connect with others who share similar emotions – which can help make them feel supported and cared for – which can serve as an excellent emotional motivator.

Businesses often forget that emotions play a powerful role in B2B decision-making, even among B2B decision-makers. While they might focus more on data than on trends, they still want to feel smart and assured they’re making an appropriate choice; additionally, they wish for their work to make a difference within their community.