Emotions

The famous poet Maya Angelou once said- “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel….”

Is this not marketing gold right there?

You may have the best products and services in town but if your content and website design does not emotionally resonate with your customers, you could be losing out on valuable sales and harming your brand.

Emotions play an important factor when it comes to marketing, which is why it is imperative to discover the emotional needs  and desires of your demographic.

How do you emotionally connect with your customers? Does your content speak to them?

When it comes to establishing an emotional connection there are two important factors to consider- one being the overall emotional connection and the other being the quality of the content on your site.

Let’s look at both of these factors in more detail…

1.) Emotional Connection

What is the one thing that your customers desire?

Finding out what your customers connect with can help you to better plan and implement your marketing strategies and gives you the power to tap into their emotional triggers.

What your demographic connects with will be unique to your business, however to discover what your customers may connect with, think about the “feeling” not a feature.

Avoid thinking about features such as certain aspects of your product or services and instead go straight the the type of feeling your customers may be looking to experience by obtaining your product or service.

Although you don’t want to focus on features, you do want to keep the “feeling” specific to your product or service.

For example, picking “happiness” is far too general and not specific to any one product. A better example would be choosing “comfort”, “warmth” “homely”, “family”etc. Of course all of this depends on what type of service you are promoting. These types of feelings would be perfect for a canned soup company, but may not suit the latest tech gadget.

Take Apple for example, when they first hit the market their slogan was “think different”, although they don’t really use this slogan anymore, they still pride themselves on ‘”innovation” and diversity.

Apple also really aims to appeal to forward-thinking individuals who desire to have the latest innovative technologies.

CEO, Tim Cook even commented that Apple’s success was really attributed to the fact that they keep innovating-

“You have to keep innovating and that to not innovate is to die…”

Even though there may be many emotions that your customers may connect with, pick the most pertinent one and do it well. You are never going to be able to please everyone, but if you stick to one “feeling” and market it effectively, it is going to yield you the best results.

Find the one emotional trigger that your company can offer above all the other competition and make it work for you.

2.) Content Connections

Having good quality and thought provoking content is another great way to tune into the emotional concerns of your customers.

Content has the ability to effect users cognitive behaviours, stir compassion and speak straight to their heart. But, the most important thing about content is that inspires your users to take action.

Now that you understand what emotional connection your demographic has, try to implement it into all of the written copy on your site. This includes everything from your blog to your sales copy.

On the blog content you want your emotional triggers to be more subtle, whereas with your sales copy you should really find a way to take full advantage of your customers emotional triggers.

Here are a couple of pointers to developing meaningful content:

– Headline: from the headline to your blogs to the headlines on your sales page, you must grab your audiences attention and peak their curiosity to keep reading.

– Sub-heading/Intro: You must try to connect with your customers on line one, not line sixteen. Many people stop reading shortly after the first paragraph, so use this as your opportunity to instantly connect with your readers.

– Inspire: Your content must be written to inspire your users to take action. This may be clicking on another blog link in your site or it may be signing up for one of your services, whatever the action, your content must inspire them.

But how do you inspire your readers?

It is not about writing blog posts that want to make your audience cry, instead it is about evoking a feeling and response in your audience to inspire them. Ideally, this inspiration will allow them to take a desirable action on your site such as ordering a product or service.

Here are a few ways to inspire your readers:

– Use “YOU”: This allows your readers to feel like you are only talking to them.

– Talk about them: For example, say you are catering to women with frizzy hair. Talk about the struggles with frizzy hair, make them feel like you understand, make them feel that your product or service is the perfect option for them.

– Be the only solution: Keeping with the same example, there are many solutions out there for frizzy hair, but how can you set yourself apart as the ultimate solution? If you can nail your demographics thoughts and feelings and articulate it through the content you are pretty much there. Make your customers feel that you are exclusively designed for their specific needs, wants and feelings.

– Images: the images you choose for your website can also play a huge factor in emotions and engagement. It can also help you target your demographic more specifically. Continuing with the example above, it wouldn’t really make sense to market a hair frizz product using a woman with short, straight hair, it may be more beneficial to have an image of a woman with long, thick, curly hair who is more likely to experience frizziness and may speak to your demographic more. Of course, this is something that will depend on your audience.

Finding your emotional selling point is key when it comes to effective marketing. Remember, at the end of the day, what your customers walk away with when they leave your site or your store is how you made them feel…