DECISION POINT: The 3 Secrets to Emotionally Intelligent Marketing
human factor marketing 101
1. Reframe the Challenge
Incorporating “emotions in marketing” is a strategic imperative. Your ability to do it well is a competitive advantage. However, a direct approach can offer you a double disadvantage:
a. The phrase “emotions in marketing” is a non-starter.
It bears an inherent and irritating irony in that it incites an often polarizing emotional response. Odds favor the unfavorable, likely evident in the form of a total shut down.
Boo. Sad face.
b. The intention to “get emotions in marketing” is misplaced.
Emotional intelligence is a two-part equation where one achieves understanding and command of self IN ORDER TO understand and influence others. Low or unexplored EQ stops at the self.
Much in the same way, “emotions in marketing” is a two-part equation between marketer / marketing organization and stakeholder. However, its common understanding and explorations focuses on the marketer or marketing organization - the least valuable of the variables.
Emotionally intelligent marketing is not about how the content makes us feel. It doesn’t exploit or manipulate an emotional reaction. It is designed to inspire an emotional response that leads to a sense of connection based on our need state.
What we feel informs what we do.
You can avoid the interaction, but you can’t avoid the truth:
Every decision point is informed by emotions, even those appearing wholly analytical or data-driven. Emotionally intelligent marketing prioritizes the human experience of the decision point by considering the emotional framework behind it.
It plays to what we do with a feeling - specifically, its relationship to our needs and how our need state influences our decision point. It considers and invokes our why (or why not) in terms of our decision’s implications, and emboldens our confidence by engineering moments of self agency within a largely directed or automated customer experience.
2. Talk about “Emotions in Marketing” without Saying “Emotions”
Your business is making the tech; my business is making adults cry over tech. Or, stated differently, ensuring their vision is understood and reflected in your narratives about what tech makes possible.
Resonance earns customers who say,“Take all my money!” followed by “What can I do for you? How can we work together?”
We can’t convert connection into an action and expect to earn lasting customer relationships without resonance. And we can’t create resonance without understanding and speaking to the emotional framework of the decision point.
