Many consumers make buying decisions not based on logic but rather on their feelings and emotions. As such, successful brand marketing connects with the target audience in a very personal way. This emotional marketing helps to create meaningful relationships that build a loyal customer base and increases conversion rates.
Authenticity and honesty are key to creating a successful emotional marketing strategy. There needs to exist a full understanding of both the target audience and the brand’s identity. Done well, emotional marketing also helps companies to differentiate themselves from the competition by communicating the organization's interests, values, and passion.
Advertisements have fed into consumers’ impulse-driven purchasing for decades. Emotional messaging, flash sales, and purposefully timed promotions are effective approaches. The key is to integrate appeals to irrational shopping urges with rational, data-driven marketing. Here are some ways that emotional marketing can convert potential customers into loyal brand supporters.
Milestone Connections
Society is obsessed with milestones both personal and general. From a first tooth to a seventieth birthday to the twenty-fifth anniversary of Jurassic Park people want to acknowledge and celebrate these events in some way. Milestone occasions are excellent opportunities to build a relationship with your brand’s customers. Share and celebrate your company’s milestones on your website and social media pages. Offer milestone centered discounts and sales to share the celebration with your customers.
Be Inspirational
Emotional marketing strategies are yet another reason it is so important to understand what motivates or encourages your target audience. People’s behaviors often change when they are inspired. Human interest stories that show a good deed in action or someone overcoming an obstacle can inspire your customers to take action of some sort. Associate your brand with a role model that tells a story that embodies your brand. To make an inspirational approach work, people have to believe in your products or services. Build emotional connections with your customers that will help them view your brand with pride and enthusiasm.
Appeal to Raw Emotions
Showing how a product or service can make someone’s life easier or better is one of the most effective ways to humanize a brand. Emotional marketing that focuses on consumers’ most personal feelings can provide a name and face to your organization and help your target audience relate to your brand and care about it as well. Successful campaigns with themes about a mother’s love, long-distance friendships, and so on can help you tap into the emotional aspects of your customers’ purchasing behaviors.
Tie into Local Communities
If the structure of your business allows, appeal to more communal emotions as well. People take pride in their communities and hometowns. If you can tap into a “buy local” type of strategy, do. Even large city targeting can be successful. A great way to do this is to be a sponsor in a community event. Donate your organization’s time, talents, or money to associate yourself with events that have a positive impact on local communities relevant to your target audience.
Meeting Aspirations
Use marketing that shows people’s goals being met or dreams coming true. Understand the hope, desires, and needs that you can fill for your target audience and tie that into how your brand reflects the self-image and identities of your customers. Build a story that people will relate to and transfer to their lives as they seek to meet their goals and make their own dreams become reality.
Be Consistent, Be Real
To build a credible and recognizable brand, your storytelling must be consistent across all platforms. You help consumers create meaningful connections to your organization by evoking the same tone and message regardless of where someone interacts with your brand. Use messaging that resonates with your target audience and tell a real story.
Because impulsive and emotional purchases are, for the most part, irrational, you won’t always be able to predict future behaviors based on past purchases. Consumer behaviors change from day to day. That is the nature of emotions! Authenticity is key to creating successful emotional marketing campaigns, regardless of the strategy you use. Connect with consumers by speaking from the heart of your brand and you will transform potential customers into loyal supporters of your organization, products, and services.
The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing know that each brand has different challenges and goals. Let us help you harness the power of emotional marketing to connect with consumers and help your brand stand out among the competition. For all things marketing, websites, and more, contact us today!