Emotional marketing: how to use your brand to defend a social cause
What emotional marketing is and what it’s based on
Our emotions are behind 80% of our purchasing decisions. We think we’re doing it rationally, but neuromarketing studies based on emotional marketing show that this is not the case.
As such, awakening feelings in our potential clients is a must but what does it consist of and how is it done?
Emotional marketing is a strategy aimed at connecting with consumers’ feelings. It strives to create a sentimental bond making the buyer feel that the brand offers added value with its product or service. This is, of course, as long as the product aligns with the buyers’ principles.
So, what characteristics does a strategy like this have to meet? Let’s see.
Characteristics of emotional marketing: 6 key points
To improve the connection with your customers, you have to analyze your brand’s values and those of your consumers. Focus your objectives on finding principles consistent with your company and its branding.
When you have that, apply these points to your communication:
- Put the focus on a main emotion. This way your message will hit deeper.
- Be consistent with what you sell.
- Identify your audience’s needs and connect them with the cause you want to defend.
- Focus on the benefits it provides and not its features.
- Encourage your customers to act so they’re part of a social movement with their decision to purchase. Feeling like a part of a collective will make your proposal stronger.
- Try to attract and retain customers with values and feelings that endure through time.
What is emotional marketing for
If everything above hasn’t convinced you, we’ll give you a very powerful reason to include emotional marketing in your digital communication strategy: it will help you stand out from your competition.
This is essential in times of rapid growth in the ecommerce sector.
In the business world, you have three options: stand out for your services, do it with your values or through your prices.
If your services are like those of other online stores and you don’t want to get into a price war, what you have left is standing out for your values. And it’s these values that provoke our emotions and lead us to making a purchase.
How to use an emotional marketing strategy on the internet
Achieving that connection at a sentimental level needs to be a part of the essence of your organization.
And how is that done? By becoming a lovemark.
Create a relationship through your brand values instead of focusing solely on the value of your products.
Show that you have your own personality, convey interest in what moves and rallies your buyers. You can do this in a number of ways. We’ll share some of them.
- Partner with a non-profit organization to make donations on a one-time or indefinite basis.
- Show your support for the social causes that connect most closely with your services and with your organization’s values.
- Give visibility to social projects that your audience can identify with
- Launch a special edition of one of your products with the colors and branding of an NGO collaborating with it.
- Support crowdfunding campaigns with a social purpose.
- Think about how you’re going to meet your environmental goals, integration, etc. and share the results in your emotional marketing campaigns on social media and in your advertising.
Advantages of a brand strategy based on emotions
- We’ve already seen that emotional marketing has many advantages for companies. But let’s summarize them to clarify:
- They reinforce your brand’s reputation and branding
- They help set you apart from your competition.
- They increase the perceived value of your products or services.
- They connect with your customers’ emotions, which leads to an increase in sales
- They create long-term relationships with your consumers and you gain loyalty by building trust
How to launch emotional marketing campaigns for your brand
First, identify the feelings you want your audience to connect with. For that, it’s important to know their fears, needs and desires and they’ll give you hints about what feeling most affects them.
Below you’ll find several social causes consistent with your business that you’ll want to contribute to. To make the final decision, you need to take the first point into account: that it connects with your customers’ emotions.
Now, develop your specific marketing plan based on that social cause and how you want to contribute. Include these values throughout your organization, even in your customer service channels. And, so you’re more clear on how an emotional marketing strategy works, we’re going to look at a couple specific cases.
Examples of emotional marketing: brands that use it to defend social causes
Companies know that the consumer values brand solidarity above other companies that don’t.
Ikea: the king of emotions in the home
Ikea teamed up with Save the Children in Christmas 2020 to provide study furniture to boys and girls from 870 vulnerable families. By doing so, they wanted to contribute to the children’s education and to a better future for the little ones, and also improve the brand’s social image, which the initiative helps to accomplish.
Toad&Co: the victory of environmental and social sensitivity
Just so you see that you don’t need a stock exchange to incorporate emotional marketing in your company, we want to tell you about Toad&Co.
This online store manufactures and sells sustainable and vegan clothing. It has advocated for 3 fundamental brand values from the start: economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability.
Its visibility strategy is based on its social networks using organic content, advertising and collaborations with micro-influencers.
These emotional marketing examples show us that values convey emotions that lead to sales; it’s something we’ve been seeing for a long time. For this reason, and for the good that you’ll be contributing to society, we at Oct8ne encourage you to take a stand on defending a social cause that aligns with your values.
