“To
lead people, you must lead with affection (nee emotion)” – J R D
Tata
Consumer
emotions in marketing are all about caring for customer’s
motivations and attitudes in today’s competitive and changing
marketplace. It is central to delivering value and creating customer
loyalty on the one hand, and understanding what makes the consumers
“tick” on the other hand for effective promotion activities –
advertising, sales promotion, events, direct marketing, and now even
areas like retailing and Internet. A goal to increase the propensity
on the part of the consumer to buy truly on an emotional
relationship with the brand or the company.
Building a bridge between satisfaction and loyalty
Emotion
marketing, like all marketing, is common sense – today termed as
customer care sense! The element is emotions. Not in the everyday
sense – intangible, irrational, mushy, but as a force capable of
making the customers believe and act the way you want them to – to
buy, to stick around with you. You need to build a bridge between
satisfaction and loyalty in the customer. A connection that makes
consumers feel “sold” in a way that they go out of their way to buy
your product or service, and be loyal.
Emotion
marketing principles, today, lead to strategies so specific to
individual businesses that they are almost impossible to replicate
and provide you a powerful competitive advantage. Ad agencies have
long known that tapping into target audience emotions, such as love,
fear, pride, envy, pleasure, and comfort always works. And increased
consumer loyalty is the single most important driver of long-term
profitability.
Two
important ideals in marketing help in creating effective emotional
relationships with target audiences:
-
Understanding the consumers and speaking directly to their needs.
And their priorities.
-
Building and building your marketing communications to the same
high standards as the products and services offered (i.e. a
compelling product in the words of David Ogilvy).
The
challenge in this lies in matching innovative creative work with
results. Even the most emotionally charged, critically acclaimed ad
or TV commercial is meaningless unless it meets its objective.
Ordinary marketing communication changes the way a person feels
about a company or brand. But marketing to emotions impels consumers
to act on these feelings and gives them a reason to go beyond a
single purchase to repeat purchases and long-term loyalty. Loyalty,
that is directly related to profitability.
Putting emotions to work for you
Marketing through emotions means delivering the right emotional
content and message at the right place, at the right time, to the
right consumers!
Emotions
of the consumers are not to be taken lightly. Without belief and
understanding, without genuine care, and without true commitment by
marketers. Marketing should be designed to help you meet your
consumer’s most critical needs both emotionally and rationally.
Delivering a complete value proposition therein.
Hallmark
Inc. of the US, in contrast to just offering products and money
benefits, put three other value drivers into their marketing. They
call it the “3 Emotional E’s” – Equity (trust), Experience
(relationship), and Energy (convenience). The 3E’s provide clear
differentiation from the competition, and research has shown them
that these drive the majority of decisions to purchase among their
consumers and customers.
Equity,
allows consumers to feel emotionally connected to products and
brands. Experience, is all about shared experiences between the
products and buyers. Its about brand experience and "buzz” in
contemporary marketing. Energy, is the investment of time and effort
that the customer takes in purchase of a product or service. In
retail marketing, for instance, this is “service area”, and in the
Internet it is “a click”.
To
provide value a company can associate its brands with helping a
consumer satisfy a higher level of needs. By meeting more than one
need it is possible to exponentially improve the chances of
differentiating from the competitors. Reaching out to emotions
bridges the gap between needs and behavior. Motives reside primarily
in the unconscious mind, so when the subconscious mind perceives an
opportunity to meet a need, it stimulates emotions, which move a
person to act towards satisfying the need. This is called “impulse”,
and thus you have impulse purchases in marketing. Emotions also play
a part in more carefully considered decisions. Once a choice has
been made, there is always an emotional response to the final
answer!
The
answers to the marketing question as to how do we create a
compelling differentiated value proposition, therefore, lies in
understanding consumers’ highest-level needs and employing emotions
to drive behavior.
In conclusion
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