A consumer’s decision to purchase a product or service is dictated by several rational factors like pricing, utility, affordability, reviews and comparisons. But beyond such tangibles there is one factor that every marketer needs to be aware of: EMOTIONS!

Why would people otherwise choose expensive branded products over their exact generic equivalents selling at a fraction of their price? Emotions typically operate on a level of irrationality, that is both undefinable and undeniable.

The author of Descartes Error Antonio Damasio argues in his book that emotions are an essential ingredient in almost all decisions. He says, whenever we have to take a decision our past related experiences come into play. These emotions create preferences depending on the options we are considering, leading to a decision.  

That is why you hate going to a restaurant the second time when your first experience is not good or you prefer to buy a certain kind or brand of shoes, personal accessories, electronic items et al.

An analysis of IPA data (the UK-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) in the book Brand Immortality shows that campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well (31% vs. 16%) when compared with only rational content and somewhat better (31% vs 26%) than those with a mix of emotional and rational content.

How can marketers profit from these insights?

There are various strategies by which marketers can use emotions to their products’ advantage. You can use a variety of emotions or a potent mix of these emotions described below to influence your potential customers but first, you must know your customer.‍

Know your customer

It is vitally important that you have a solid profile of your target audience. Thus conducting a well-thought-out target audience research is imperative. This is the base that will give you an idea of what emotions to use in your marketing. Obviously, you want to use emotions that will elicit the most beneficial response in your audience. Researching your audience will help you save both time and money.    

Once you have the complete profile of your target audience you can decide on a number of themes for your marketing strategy:

• Make your customers happy. After all, every company wants to have happy and satisfied customers.

• Tell a story. We all are attuned to hearing stories. So, create a marketing campaign with various human emotions, joy, hate, anger, sadness, passion, excitement, etc as almost all people across nationalities, age, gender, race, culture, etc. relate to a story very easily.

•  Use sadness to further your product. Yes! Sadness! Using sadness effectively by giving your customers a way to alleviate their sadness is a sure shot winner.  According to an Outbrain study, negative words had a 63% higher click-through rate than their positive counterparts.

•  Use the science of colours to connect with your audience.

• Create an emotion of trust by being transparent and avoiding any hidden fees or cost. User generated content like videos and stories can be used to build trust.

• Create a sense of urgency. Use the feeling of fear, guilt and anxiety to push your audience to engage with you. For example, giving a limited period offer minimizes your risk of losing customers.    

A small note for smaller entities. They must ensure that their marketing efforts clearly identify their product. They should use a mix of rational and emotional content as their name has lesser recognition and purely emotional marketing may confuse the audience.  

Every major brand whether it be De Beers with - A diamond is forever, Surf - Daag Acche Hai or Fortune Ghar Ka Khana uses emotions in its marketing campaign to connect with their audience.

So what are you waiting for! Use these insights in your marketing campaign and boost your revenues. Better still, come to Outsourced CMO and let us handle all your marketing efforts and see your sales multiply.