We hear and read a lot about emotions. How many times do we see and hear advertising that tells us to “feel more” or describes “the feeling of” something? In our work, we encounter everyone from business leaders to marketers to creative agencies and neuroscientists. All of them want to sell more or help businesses to sell more. But what if all these attempts to trigger emotions are failing? What if our advertising is having the same impact as before? Perhaps our campaigns are also alienating some demographics. Read on as we look at emotional marketing and the pros and cons of emotional connection.
Definition
Emotional marketing is the process of establishing an emotional connection with customers through advertising.
Put simply, it aims to establish a deeper emotional connection than perhaps is typically associated with advertising. Historically, advertising was mostly about creating demand for your product. Sometimes, there is a demand and you just need to supply it, therefore it becomes more important to stand out from the crowd.
Pros
Emotional marketing can increase the emotional value, connection and engagement with customers. The real value lies in the increase in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) that is achievable with deeper customer loyalty. Emotional marketing allows us to increase the positive mental associations with a brand and what it markets to customers. It also facilitates the stimulation of an emotional, and commonly, a physiological response to advertising. In summary, emotional marketing is more effective than traditional advertising campaigns if it can trigger the right emotional response. More of the ‘right’ emotional marketing can deepen positive feelings towards a brand.
Cons
Emotional marketing aims to increase positive mental association and positive valence emotional responses. However, it is difficult to understand what emotional and physiological response is being achieved and what is ‘right’ for your brand, your customers and your products or services. If you trigger the wrong valence of emotional response or do not achieve sufficient activation, the effect may be lessened. The human nervous system is complex and nuanced and we find it difficult to verbally describe how we feel. Put simply, this is because emotional and verbal communication reside in different parts of the brain. Therefore, telling someone to “feel happy” or “get that feeling” may not translate into emotional response or even the ‘right’ emotion. It is also important to note that individuals, demographics and cultures respond differently (i.e. they respond in the context of ‘their’ individual world).
Alternatives for emotional marketing
Neuromarketing is a supporting contributor to emotional marketing. Using neuroscience to predict or measure the emotional response to advertising increases the probability of the right emotion. Furthermore, neuromarketing gives you research to trigger the right emotional valence to a higher activation, more of the time. This is due to the fact that neuroscience is a market research technique that virtually eliminate bias and also reduces the risk of triggering the wrong emotions.
This is important because not only are we humans terribly bad as describing how we feel but we are often unaware of our emotions. Since 95-98% of our purchasing decisions are subconscious and largely emotional, we consciously try to rationalise a decision after the event. This means that when we ask people about their emotional motivators, they either don’t know what they are or can’t explain them in words. What works for one brand, product or industry may not work for another and it varies by customer profile too. Neuromarketing means that brands don’t need to ask questions that humans cannot accurately answer and that improves emotional marketing.
Emotional connection
Emotional connection is an alignment between individuals or groups based on the unspoken language of feelings. If you feel seen or heard by the other party or parties then you can communicate more easily. An ongoing emotional connection deepens the bond between the parties.
In summary, developing your ‘emotional capital’ with customers increases the emotional value to them. This results in increased purchasing, satisfaction, loyalty and retention. An approximation would be to describe the emotional connection of emotional marketing as the B2C equivalent of one-to-one or one-to-few campaigns.
Emotional marketing meets neuromarketing
Thank you for reading our blog on emotional marketing. We are passionate about achieving better outcomes for business leaders and marketers. One of the ways in which we do this is through our range of neuroscience services. These help you to increase positive association and emotional response to brands, marketing, packaging and experiences. So, if you would like to deepen your emotional connection to customers more of the time, why not leverage neuromarketing. You can also create more experiential products, services and customer journeys with neuroexperience.
To speak to a human being about neuromarketing research, simply call 01565 632206.
Alternatively, why not email sales@think-beyond.co.uk or key-in a few bits of information online for us to call you back.
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