It’s that time of year again; a time of ghosts, goblins, evil spirits, Puritan ancestors, turkey, and fairytales accompanied by all the smells of autumn, the dipping of temperatures, falling leaves, and the first nips of Jack Frost. Santa Claus and his team of reindeer cannot be far behind. What a great time to be a marketer!
The fall season cannot be here soon enough for those businesses that look to this time of year to experience some black ink on the revenue report. Beginning with Back to School and Labor Day, the fall selling season is full of great opportunities to market your brand, connect authentically with an audience, and grow your business. The remaining months of 2022 present some of the most advantageous opportunities of the entire calendar year. First comes Labor Day, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then the grand finale, the Christmas Holidays. Yea!
Each month is a good time to plan special promotions and seasonal events each with unique colors, fragrances, and decor. For brick-and-mortar locations, decorating the storefront and merchandise displays with the colors and traditions of each event is a must to capture the sights and sounds of each holiday and grab the attention of consumers’ emotions.
While emotion may not always quantify easily in data analysis, it is a very real motivator that can form a deeper connection between a brand and its consumers. Emotional marketing may persuade people to buy certain products, engage with a brand on a deeper level, share a brand’s content, or increase brand loyalty. To grab the most attention, create messages that appeal directly to specific experiences and emotions such as happy, sad, fear/surprise, and disgust/anger. Target the specific feelings you intend to inspire and create the appropriate content, graphics, music, and videos. American poet Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” If done correctly, emotional marketing and engagement will motivate a potential customer to notice and remember your marketing campaign over a competitor’s.
In a study conducted by Psychology Today, it was revealed that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use personal feelings and experiences, rather than product and service information, to make a final purchasing decision. In an analysis of the IPA dataBANK, campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well as those with only rational content.
Get to know your best customers, find out what the motivators are, and create marketing collateral and content to make meaningful connections through a website, email, and social media platforms. Utilizing emotional tactics have been proven to work by personally resonating with consumers and compelling them to act. Initiate an effort to determine how your customers feel, what they need, and how you are uniquely qualified to provide the solution. Dale Carnegie once said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”
What words, phrases, smells, sights, sounds, and colors trigger your emotions?