81. Grow Emotional Engagement with your Customers

Many marketing messages are going unheard because they aren't connecting with their target audience on an emotional level. 

As you prioritize emotional connections within your content creation,  you’ll see the benefits of engagement, customers will listen, and they’ll take action moving forward down the customer and buying journey.

Transcript

Welcome to The High Performance Marketing Podcast, a show focused on helping entrepreneurs and small business owners connect with their ideal customers using simple marketing and quality content. I'm your Marketing Guide, Ali Garbero.

When I began my career in sales I focused a lot on selling the logical. I focused on the numbers and data that made the purchase a smart decision. I’m not implying people don’t need logic to make a decision, but if you’ve ever heard the saying:

Logic makes you think, emotion makes you act.

Then you understand that you need both - and that of the two - emotion will get people to move forward.

So when it comes to your marketing, how can you actually make your voice heard when you’re dealing with a number of challenges, including market saturation, and a whole bunch of generic or irrelevant marketing messages that fail to reach their target?

On today’s episode of the podcast, let’s dive into how you can create emotional impact in your writing so you engage your audience and make your content memorable. Why?

Because that’s how you get seen and heard and  ignite your audience's emotions to inspire them to move further down the customer or buying journey.

First, creating compelling content that ignites your audience's emotions and inspires them to take action starts with knowing your audience.

Spend a little time researching pain points. What do they need? How do they respond to different emotions? 

For example meme content generally invokes laughter, humor, or relatability. This kind of content would cause your audience to laugh. 

Next, use dialogue in your content.. You might share a review that says “our client james was so happy he worked with us.” 

Or you might decide to create a short dialogue. The first is a car salesman, the other is the customer and it would go something like this: 

“When James called our dealership, he spoke to Jessica our salesperson and said “I’m interested in the xyz car but I have to keep my monthly payment at $400 a month.” Jessica responded “of course James, we deal with all kinds of budgets, and since you’ve expressed that your monthly payment is one of the most important factors in buying a car today, we are happy to honor that budget.”

A dialogue allows people to connect with the individuals they’re reading about or watching so that they experience the emotions themselves. 

Another example of how to use dialogue in a simple way is how car company Ken Garff does it. They have billboards everywhere and one looks like this

It has an image of a mouth one one side that said them. On the other side there’s an image of an ear and it says us.”

That’s such a simple way to create dialogue because driving down the highway at 90 mph you read that in just a few seconds, you hear that dialogue you started envisioning all of the times you’ve walked into a dealership where no matter what you said they simply didn’t listen.

This leads me to an additional point - create relatable characters or individuals in your content creation. For example let’s say you’re writing an email - take a moment to describe a client you worked with. Instead of saying something like “our tech leaders are glad they invested in our software.”

You could write “Bob was tasked with overseeing an IT team of 6 techs. His workload was well beyond his capacity to handle causing him to work 12 hour days, and blow through lots of mountain dew. Bob’s weight and blood pressure both suffered. Bob was relieved when he selected our services to offload much of his IT tickets.

Now I know that sounds lengthier and less concise than just saying Bob the tech leader is happy he used our services, but when you develop well rounded characters into your marketing, with backstories, flaws or desires, your readers and audience grow to understand why Bob would feel relief when he was authorized to hire your  outside consulting company to offload some of his work. 

Next use metaphors and similes in your captions, videos, website. 

For example let’s say you owned Doordash. Before you understood what Doordash was, or if you were describing it to someone who’s never used the service, you might say - it’s like the Amazon of food.

Previously when I first started this podcast I used to say “I’m your personal trainer in marketing.” Because people could understand what a personal trainer does. I wanted my clients to understand that I was there to help them reach their goals and then one day I had a colleague of mine share “ I don’t really like that comparison because it makes me feel like I have to do all of the work. So just be cautious with the metaphors or similies you use in your marketing message.

Next, Build some tension in your content. Help your readers or viewers with anticipation and waiting so they have an emotional moment when the ending finally occurs. I’ll give you a great example.

Dave Ramsey does this all the time. 

He has something he refers to as a debt free scream. He has people who have used his 7 baby steps to become debt free come onto his show. And if you’ve ever watched a debt free scream it’s awesome! I mean I tear up every time I listen to one. But he doesn’t just bring these people on and say - ok cool well here’s the mic, go for it.

He builds tension. He asks them questions about how much debt they were in, what they did to get out of debt, what advice they’d give to others, things like that because all along the way - we’re waiting - we’re anticipating this amazing moment when they finally get to yell into the mic and say ‘we’re debt free!!” It’s literally why it makes me cry. A perfect example of how to build tension to help me experience a powerful emotion.

Now, to wrap things up I’d fail you if I didn’t mention storytelling as a way to leverage emotions in your content: 

Stories create a connection between your audience and your content, and they inspire a wide range of emotions. 

When you share stories, think of ways you can evoke a desired emotion while still sharing an important message with your audience. How do you want people to feel because you shared this story? Do you want them to feel excited and pumped to do the same thing? Think about the conflict or the challenges in the lives of your ideal client and use those to stir emotions in the stories you share. Not in a manipulative way but in a way that feels relatable.

For example, on my website - my story starts with the fact that I know many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed with their marketing. Their emotions around marketing include frustration and confusion. So I mention that in the words on the page. 

In my podcast I use storry telling because it’s easier to remember too. When I share a story, I try to always start with the problem because problems get people to pay attention.

Look, the world is saturated with thousands of messages that go unheard. Don’t let yours be one. 

The key to creating emotional impact in your writing, or content creations is to make readers, viewers, your audience care about your brand —-----so help them do that by engaging their emotions.

Adding emotion to your customer journey isn’t just about trying to sell more of your services, it’s about building relationships. And while this all sounds touchy feely, the data shows that consumers today want a less transactional feel and a more emotional relationship with your brand.

Think about the friends you keep. What feelings do these friends invite into your life? Some invite stress, envy, or jealousy, others invite kindness, fun, compassion. Nowadays you need to apply the same principles in your marketing that you would apply to building a human relationship with a friend. 

As you prioritize emotional connections, and emotions in general within your content creation,  you’ll see the benefits of engagement, customers will listen and they’ll take action.

Thanks for joining me today. If your content needs and emotional spruce up - connect with me at writebrandmarketing.com

I’m Ali Garbero, Copywriting is what I do, Content Marketing is what I create, more customers is what you get.