Power Marketing Tip #55: Buying is an Emotional Experience

Buying is an Emotional Experience

Your customer is an emotional being. You need to be aware of the emotional states that affect the decision to buy from you.
Your marketing must address the emotional needs of your customers.
There are three types of emotions and you need to address each differently.
 
Relationship
 
The emotions that the customer might need to feel are: confidence, trust, inclusion, feeling special, comfort and safety.

You can address these emotional needs by building stronger relationships. A significant contributor to the relationship building is the customer service experience.
 
The key principle to building relationships is to make others feel good about themselves.
 
Retreat
 
The emotions that might cause your customer to retreat from you include fear, confusion, suspicion, frustration, and anger.
 
Your marketing must mitigate these emotions because these can lead to lost sales and worse - bad publicity. The bad publicity is even more prevalent with the online review sites like TripAdvisor.com and the social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter. Bad news travels faster and gets remembered longer than good news.
 
You can minimize most of these retreat emotions with the use of clear communication, consistent performance and demonstrating a keen interest in your customer's satisfaction.
Building stronger relationships will also mitigate these emotions and the consequences.
 
Advance
 
The most common emotions that might move your customer to buy from you include: pride, greed, love, guilt, and especially, hope.
 
Your marketing needs to trigger or leverage the relevant emotions of your prospects. Depending on the market the appeal to these emotions might or might not need to be subtle.
 
For example, while signing the contract for my new car the sales person offered me a few extras which I quickly turned down. Then she offered tinted windows. I quickly refused but when she added that "it would make me look cool" I swiftly agreed to tinted windows.
 
This third type is the most important set of emotions to making the sale. Even if you build good relationships and mitigate the Retreat emotions you need to influence the emotions of Advance. These are the most important to persuading your prospect to buy from you.
 
Review the three types of emotions that can affect your prospects and identify the most likely emotions that relate to your best customers. Don't worry about the emotions of your bad customers.
Now examine how your marketing addresses those emotional needs.
 

George Torok

How have you noticed your emotions triggered by marketing, selling and customer service experiences?

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George Torok Keynote Marketing Speaker Co-author of Secrets of Power Marketing Get your free copy of "50 Power Marketing Ideas" Power Marketing on FaceBook Marketing Zoo on Twitter

Power Marketing Tip 54: Who Loves You, Baby?

Who Loves You, Baby?

In the 1970's police TV drama, Telly Savalas as Lieutenant Kojak's trademark line was "Who loves ya, baby?"

That's a good question for marketers and business owners to pose.

Who loves you?

When was the last time you pondered that question? Look at it again and notice that the question is not "Who liked you?" It is not "Who was satisfied?" The disturbing question is "Who loves you, baby?"

If you are a small business, you should be able to name names. And if you are the business owner you'd better know those names and understand why they buy from you.

If you're part of a large corporation you might need to check your database to look up those names. They might be members of your "Best Customers Club".

In either case you need to be able to describe those lovers in terms of demographics, econographics, socialgraphics and especially mind sets.

Every successful business will have customers who love you. They will go out of their way to buy from you. They will rave about you behind your back. They will forgive many of your mistakes. Like any lover they will keep coming back for more. Like any lover they want to be appreciated.

These are the most important assets that you have. They will give you money and they will help to promote your business. They will drag new customers to your door. You'd better know them well and treat them special.

The second question is "Who hates you?"

The answer is "Who cares?" Don't worry about these people. They will never buy from you - no matter what you do. Don't waste your time, money or effort trying to convert them. If you inspired some folks to love you, you also raised some hate along the way.

The sign of a strong brand is one that attracts a strong following of lovers while inciting a cluster of haters. For example, as popular as Apple is, there are people who swear they will never buy an Apple product.

So, Who loves ya, baby and what do you know about them?

George Torok Keynote Marketing Speaker Co-author of Secrets of Power Marketing Get your free copy of "50 Power Marketing Ideas" Power Marketing on FaceBook Marketing Zoo on Twitter