Emotional marketing makes excellent first impressions. First impressions form in seconds, and they will create an impact only if they can be processed through the emotional rather than the rational brain. We often buy because we feel before we think. Buyers are more likely to choose a product if successful marketing has stirred some form of emotions in them instead of just presenting information relating to the product. We rarely see advertisements that talk about products; they are not only bland and boring but will most likely fail to persuade potential buyers. Instead, ads are frequently targeted at pulling some of your emotional strings, making you cry or laugh, either way, pushing you closer towards spending your money. In case you are not yet convinced about the power of emotion, here is a list of 12 pros in using them in your content.
Pros of Using Emotional Content
1. Emotional marketing helps people decide with their hearts
Humans feel before they think and buy before they can rationalize. As inherently emotional beings, we often decide and take actions based on emotions. Our emotional reactions are quick and intuitive, ignoring reason and giving little time to rationalize the potential merits of rival products.
2. Emotional marketing makes your products memorable
Nothing sticks better in your mind than content, which makes you feel. Products that are advertised via emotional content are more than likely to be remembered. People will likely forget what you tell them, but they will always remember how what you say makes them feel.
3. Emotional marketing makes YOU memorable
Buyers need to be heard. There is no better feeling than knowing that your biggest fears, challenges, anxieties, worries, and hopes are understood and that you are somehow offered solutions to your biggest problems. Emotional marketing makes you the person that understands them and, by extension, makes you memorable.
4. Emotional marketing makes your content shareable
We are more likely to share content that makes us feel. We share jokes that make us giggle, photos that make us smile, memes that make us hope, horror stories that make us cringe, life paradigms that make us sad, news stories that make us fume with anger. The bottom line is this; regardless of the emotion it stirs, content that makes us feel gets shared.
5. Emotional marketing inspires action
Emotions incite action. They stir us to share, to comment, to double-tap, to donate, to buy. Emotional marketing makes us more empathetic to others. It makes us more likely to show empathy in a fiscal manner.
6. Emotional marketing promotes brand loyalty
In any relationship, loyalty stems from the emotional aspects of that said relationship. The same holds for the relationship between a buyer and a brand. You are more loyal to a brand that is always there for you, makes you feel good about yourself, never lets you down. Emotional marketing ensures that the buyer is still put first and is valued as necessary. When people feel valued, they tend to stick around; truth be told, keeping a loyal buyer costs less than acquiring a new one.
7. Emotional marketing can be fulfilling
Marketers who have mastered the art of emotional marketing have a sense of fulfillment. They take pride in their work because it not only promotes a product but makes an impact on other people’s lives. Success is to know that people feel good about themselves because of you. The ripple effect of positive energy comes back to you. There is nothing more fulfilling than that.
8. Emotional marketing forces you to get to know your audience
You cannot use emotional marketing unless you know your audience. This requires you to devote time, energy, and resources into getting to know your buyer personas. What are their hopes? What are their dreams? What are their worries? What makes them happy? Scared? Afraid? Whereas creating accurate buyer personas is frequently neglected, with detrimental effects to one’s marketing strategies, emotional marketing will force you to create them. It will force you to get to know your buyers. One cannot happen without the other. And getting to know your audience will strengthen the relationship and promote loyalty.
9. Emotional marketing forces you to tell a story
There cannot be emotional marketing without storytelling. Humans are hardwired for story, and that story is often undermined unless you are opting for emotional marketing. Tapping into the emotional aspect of storytelling can turn any simple content into an entire movement. Storytelling makes content relatable to real life, makes it relevant, and forms a connection between buyer and product.
10. Emotional marketing creates a sense of urgency
Emotional marketing does not have to be all about creating warm and fuzzy feelings, stirring happiness, and sharing smiles. Emotional marketing can develop a sense of urgency and push people to do something and to do it now. Rest assured that if you give people too much time to decide, they will most likely postpone it until they forget about it entirely. It is not enough, therefore, to arouse interest with your content. Interest can fade, whereas a sense of urgency will not.
11. Emotional marketing creates nostalgia
Nothing makes people more inclined to buy something, than a product that travels them through memory lane, filled with emotions of nostalgia and serenity. We all look fondly back to those days where things were simpler; life was more relaxed; daily proceedings were less hectic; back to those days when we felt safer and perhaps, happier. Memory obscures reality, covering the past with the fairy dust of nostalgia. Everything was better back then. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, and when products evoke nostalgia, buyers hope that things may get better now, perhaps as good as they once were.
12. Emotional marketing pushes your audience to think and act differently
Humans have a pre-existing set of beliefs, thoughts, and modus operandi. Trying to change these by omitting emotional marketing from your content is almost impossible. People will change their opinions based on emotions. No matter how much we try to rationalize something, we act driven by emotions in the end. Beliefs and actions cannot, therefore, change via rationalization. Beliefs can only improve, and actions ignited via emotions.
Is it Time to Invest in Emotional Marketing Strategies?
Our first impressions form within seconds, which means that we have no time to logically think and rationalize about how we feel about a particular product or service. Since our primitive emotional brain appears to do all the work in the first place, marketers need to rethink the importance of investing in emotional marketing strategies. Emotion is what brings brands and buyers together and ensures that they stick together; for better or worse. Till a rival, more successful marketing strategy, pulls them apart.