Head vs Heart: the Importance of Consumer Emotions

Have you ever heard a sad song and felt an immediate connection to the singer? Or, heard a joke that made you laugh so hard, you felt like you had something in common with everyone else in the room? Emotions are a complicated and baffling aspect of human nature, yet an amazing and necessary tool to connect to those around us.

The parallel between marketing and relationship building holds strong: to market to an audience, you have to understand their emotions. As humans, we feel first and think later. Customers should no longer simply be a number, but a free-thinking (and feeling) human being. By connecting them to your brand, they are far more likely to not only purchase, but vouch for your brand.

Feelings have a 1.5 times higher impact than thinking, when it comes to decision making. This means successfully understand emotions, and marketing to them can lead to loyal customers who become your biggest advocate. Customers are twice as likely to do business with a brand they feel an emotional connection with.

Another wonderful thing about appealing to emotions can be found in how easy they are to translate. Across different mediums, languages, cultures, genders, ages, and so on—emotions are a binding force for humans. Brands who highlight their humanity can connect with a broader audience, and build loyal customers.

Understanding where your customers emotions lie is crucial to developing a successful marketing strategy. Not only is it a great tool to reach broad audiences, it creates authentic connection and encompasses our human-ness! Emotions must be researched, studied and comprehended to work as a tool. Investing in the ability to understand, and evoke, positive emotion in your consumer is key to a healthy brand.