How Emotional Marketing Works to Build Connection

When was the last time you saw an ad that truly made you laugh, cry, or feel inspired out of your mind? It’s that emotional connection that emotional marketing hopes to accomplish. Instead of being based on pure logic or facts, this kind of marketing appeals to strong human emotions in order to form connections with the buyer that will have them think back and hopefully buy down the line.

If you’re a marketer who wants to make campaigns that move people and bring you the results you desire, you’re in the right place. In this post, we’ll analyze how emotional marketing operates, the psychology lying underneath it, techniques with proven success, plus tips on tracking its productivity. By the end of it, you’ll have the tools to channel emotions and form connections that resonate.

The Importance of Emotional Marketing

Emotions are a critical factor in human decision-making, including buying decisions. Harvard Business School research showed that 95% of buying decisions are made in the subconscious mind influenced by emotions. It’s not all that difficult a concept to wrap your head around — whether you’re picking out a pair of sneakers, selecting which app to download, or figuring out where to eat, your emotions play a much larger role in your decisions than you might think.

Emotional marketing by brands is an attempt to develop campaigns that not only attract attention but also resonate, remain with, and are talked about way beyond the sales pitch. This approach helps brands:

Build trust and authenticity.
Cultivate customer loyalty
Stimulate word-of-mouth advertising
Stand out from their competitors in a saturated market

Now, let’s discover how the psychology of emotion contributes to how brands emotionally connect with their market.

Recognizing the Human Psychology at Play

To grasp emotional marketing, you must first understand the underlying emotions that dictate our actions as human beings. The following are the underlying emotions that generally drive a consumer’s decision:

Fear

Ads that prey on fear are constantly calling for action by explaining problems and emphasizing solutions. For instance, something insurance companies commonly employ is called the “fear of loss” –or missing out– to demonstrate why their products are essential. Think of campaigns that stress security or stability, or peace of mind.

Happiness

Positive feelings like happiness, love, and laughter again leave the audience with positive associations with the brand. The Coca-Cola “Open Happiness” campaign is probably the most iconic. It’s an image that is all about being fun and making people feel good , not just about a product, and that has been a big part of the longevity of the brand.

Sadness

Sadness in advertising sounds a deeply emotional note; ads that trade in sadness are commonly produced by nonprofit organizations or brands looking to elicit empathy and a sense of altruism. Campaigns with heart-tugging storytelling, such as ASPCA’s “Sarah McLachlan” ads, drive meaningful action.

Anger

A less common emotion, but one that may be effective in a social justice or inequality campaign, is anger. It foments passion and alignment for a cause, as is the case with Nike’s campaigns around equality and systemic change.

Surprise

If you manage to surprise your audience, it does so in the most subtle of fashions, thereby creating an air of intrigue and memorability. There is no question that surprises are a great way to get people talking, particularly when it comes to viral marketing.

Learn how these emotions impact behavior, and marketers get a hint at how they can design campaigns that directly appeal to these profound human feelings.

Emotional Marketing Tactics for Success

Yes, understanding what emotions to drive is key, but the how matters too. Here are tactical approaches to make emotional marketing work for you:

Storytelling

Stories get through to people on an emotional level. They also add context to a product’s value proposition by demonstrating, not just telling. Through the use of identifiable ‘people’ who are dealing with ups and downs, you are making your brand feel more human and giving the audience a story they can picture themselves in.

Example
The Always #LikeAGirl campaign changed the meaning of a demeaning expression into an empowering movement that swept across the world.

Tips for storytelling success:

All of Your Collections Should be ’Hero’ Collections.
Develop a mini-plot with conflict, resolution, and payoff.
While keeping it at a relatable level, but still on track with the mission of your brand.

Visual Content

Humans process images 60,000 times faster than we do text, which makes images and video a massive opportunity for emotional marketing. Bright colors, awesome pictures, and powerful videos quickly help people relate to you more than someone with just words.

Example
Airbnb frequently pairs the images of these happy travelers, who are experiencing a new culture in some sort of immersion, with captions like “Belong Anywhere” — prompting a viewer to feel both a thrill of freedom, a hunger to experience newness, and a craving for connection.

Preparing and creating visual content that works:

Leverage high-fidelity, real imagery.
Think about the role of color psychology (red sparks excitement, blue nurtures trust)
Play around with static image and video formats

Individualized Brand Engagements

To be valued is to be moved. Customizing the content you provide to a person’s preferences, actions , and tastes leads to a more tailored and relevant experience.

Example
Spotify’s Wrapped campaign, which turns an individual user’s listening patterns into fun, shareable insight, bringing millions joy, nostalgia, and appreciation yearly.

Dos and don’ts for personalizing your marketing efforts:

Leverage data and AI to tailor communications.
Use customers’ names in your emails and messages.
Suggest products from browsing history or prior purchases

Emotional Marketing Case Studies to Bring Your Brand to Life

Dove Real Beauty

Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches drew attention to the disparities between how women view themselves and how they are viewed by others. Touching, raw, and so relatable, it opened up a discussion about body confidence issues and humanized the beauty industry. Result? More than 114 million people reached, and a lasting influence on branding attitude.

Nike Dream Crazy

Nike’s alliance with Colin Kaepernick on their Dream Crazy campaign was a brave exercise in wading into culture war debates. Polarizing though that was, it solidified Nike as a brand not afraid to mirror its customers’ values, and both sales and loyalty rose.

Google Reunion

Google’s Reunion ad in India showed how technology could bring together even estranged lives. It’s a moving story about two friends torn apart by history that struck a chord with millions, showcasing the immense emotional impact of connection.

How to Quantify Emotional Marketing Success

It’s not just about making emotive campaigns. To measure if you’re succeeding, you need facts you can measure. Here’s how:

Engagement Metrics

Track the likes, shares, comments, and time spent engaged with your content. Emotional campaigns typically drive above-average levels of engagement.

Sentiment Analysis

Leverage sentiment analysis tools to see what people think of your campaign. Do they have positive feelings about your brand?

Conversions and ROI

Discover if emotionally based campaigns are causally linked with high-value actions (e.g., purchases, sign-ups). A lot of those emotion-based retailing activities will experience a corresponding lift in sales, even if they are not per se specifically sales-oriented.

Surveys and Feedback

Ask them directly how your campaign made them feel. Tools like NPS (Net Promoter Score) can also tell you if customers are emotionally motivated to endorse your brand.

Forge Deeper Relationships Through the Power of Emotional Marketing

And when you know how emotional marketing works, it means you can really, truly connect with your customers in a way that means something. It’s not enough to just be pushing a product – it’s about building relationships, establishing trust as a resource, and creating content that outlives the campaign.

If your objective is to bring happiness, nostalgia, action, or just a message that needs to hit home, then emotional marketing is what you need to focus on with all your might. Try some of these to begin with, see what resonates best with your audience, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box.

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