“Humans are driven by feelings. So if you want the consumer to remember your product or brand, they must be engaged and impassioned by the interaction with your company.”
– Logan Chierotti, Inc.
People buy emotions, not products/services: up to 80% of consumers’ decisions are fueled by emotion, not logic (1), so to compete, marketers must appeal to consumers’ feelings.
Following are insights into why and how businesses should use emotions to optimize their marketing strategies.
Research Reveals that Emotions Influence Consumer Decision Making:
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Consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences), rather than information (brand attributes, features, and facts), when evaluating brands (2).
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Consumers’ emotional response to an ad has a greater influence on their intent to make a purchase than does the ad’s content.
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Likeability is the measure most predictive of whether an ad will increase sales (3).
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Positive emotions have a greater impact on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments, which are based
on a brand’s attributes.
Important Components of a Brand have Emotional Dimensions:
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Rich and powerful representations of a brand include its personality.
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Brand personality is communicated through packaging, visual imagery, and specific words used to describe products/services.
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A brand’s emotions are found in its narrative – the story that communicates who it is, what it means to the consumer, and why the consumer should care – and is the basis for brand advertising and promotion.
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Most importantly, emotions push consumers toward action.
Use Data to Prioritize the Emotional Needs of Consumers:
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Lean on data to learn what customers search for and to understand their emotional needs.
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Dig into common emotional motivators, which are the feelings that drive customers’ behavior (4).
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Emotional motivators provide a better gauge of a customer’s future value to a business than any other metric, including brand awareness and customer satisfaction.
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In your search efforts, maintain the brand voice and feeling that you channel in your advertising, so that customers have a consistent experience with you, producing a consistent emotion.
Reopening and adjusting to the “new normal” will involve researching, communicating and executing plans to pivoting strategically. Following are steps small businesses can take:
