The marketing landscape right now has reacted to inflationary times, among many other elements, that have made once-reliable prospects quite a bit more selective. Customers have heavily leaned towards making saving money a priority, and simple brand loyalty doesn’t guarantee repeat business anymore. To hold a customer’s attention during this period of such intense competition, it is imperative to establish a very deep and long-lasting connection.
Much like the chemistry that occurs in a romantic relationship, this kind of solid connection is established when the customer feels that you have a deep understanding of what they are going through during their daily lives. Here are some ways to cultivate a competitive edge to succeed in this very important task.
Pay Attention to Feelings:
Many research teams have found that very important financial decisions are driven more by emotion than by logic. If you can pull back the covers and figure out which way your customer’s heart leans, you can align your strategy to appeal to the right senses. Aside from traditional tools like customer analytics and surveys, there are more measures than ever available to figure out why customers make the decisions they do.
Focus groups can give you valuable insight, although they are not as cost-efficient due to the selection process and time spent during the interview and review. There are many new and very dynamic companies out there that are innovating the science of collecting emotional data, and using advanced analysis to determine the motivating factors behind the final purchase. With these powerful methods, it is now possible to get to the bottom of how to push customers into acting to overcome objections and make the purchase.
Adjustments While Aligning Your Story:
Once you have pinpointed what’s meaningful to your customers, you can begin to create messaging that appeals to their emotions. If you are in the business of selling electric cars, you may quickly find out that your demographic cares more about financial security than environmental issues. If you have been using the environmental issue angle as a selling point, you could begin to focus more on the money saved by electrification instead of the benefits to the earth.
Especially since the beginning (and thankful end) of the pandemic, the consumer’s need for empathy and desire for deep connection has been more important than ever. Some advertisements are very effective without really offering much information about the product, and instead allowing the customers to feel emotion during the spot. Memories and milestones, protecting loved ones, and romantic attractions are all very valuable assets to think about using during content creation.
Curating For Optimal Emotional Pull:
It is now very necessary to curate emotion-based content for different varieties of customer bases and behaviors. To successfully achieve this, you can segment your marketing based on how different customer groups act emotionally. You may have realized that one demographic is affected by fears about unnatural additives to food, while another is envious of their friends who have lost weight. These two very different groups will receive different ads for products such as GMO-free food.
While segmenting and curating content, it has also now become important to realize that some consumers value working from home, and a dominating online presence for a product. Emotions such as admiration and anger are the top hot buttons that can drive consumers to loyalty, but we all know how risky playing on anger can be.
Word of Mouth’s Well-Evolved Appeal:
One of the most effective ways to connect with customers is by allowing them to feel extremely close to your service or product. Testimonials and other word of mouth strategies are some of the best marketing tools, with over 80% of customers surveyed claiming that influencers had convinced them to make a purchase. As you have figured out what triggers customers’ emotions enough to include it in your advertising, it is so very important to know that viral content occurs when people share on their own social media.
Review platforms such as Yelp have also made a drastic change to the consumer landscape, with those who have bought products trusting them just as much as a personal recommendation. You have the option of investing big bucks into a digital campaign, but many years have proven that consumers trust recommendations more than they trust the marketing team of the brand itself. It is not just products for physical appearance and medical issues that this applies to, as products such as sporting gear, books, automotive upgrades, and educational resources all can benefit from a user saying it changed their life for the better.
Be Kind, Cue and “Don’t Rewind”:
There are some very subtle ways in which digital marketers can strongly tap into the consumer’s emotional base. Color schemes, choices of words, and music can stir a strong response: the true marketer’s art is what to do with that attention once you have it. Blue has been proven to evoke trust, and has been the color of choice for many insurance and financial advising entities. Green has always symbolized a connection to nature, and a penchant for preservation. Another very proven method has been to always make a potential customer feel like their physical appearance simply is not good enough, but positivity goes further these days.
It is so very important to look at your current strategies to see what IS working, and hang on to it no matter how you choose to forge forward. Our years of experience will help you recraft your emotional marketing to become more effective. As you are gaining customers’ hard-earned trust, our strategy at Farfetched Studios will be to use our creative talents to convey long lasting value without extreme exaggeration.