Emotional buying – knowingly or unknowingly – has always been a pivotal aspect of marketing. It drives almost every purchase decision, even if customers think of their purchases as rational.

If marketers learn how to use emotions in marketing, they can gain customer trust and grow sales and revenue of their business.

In this post, we’ll delve into how you can use emotions in your marketing and advertising campaigns.

Emotion Influence

How Emotions Affect Shopper Behavior?

In order to understand how emotions work, we need to put ourselves in the buyers’ shoes. When we make a purchase, we try to be as rational as possible. We even lie to ourselves that our decision was purely based on facts and not a single element of emotion drove that decision. But in reality, every decision is the result of an impulse buying behavior. Specifically women tend to shop online for fashion products with a buying behavior pattern in most cases.

Forget about shopping; any decision we make is driven by emotion. In a physical fight, fear (an emotion) forces us to either fight or run to save ourselves. We watch a movie out of excitement (another emotion). The same goes for purchases.

We purchase out of fear, shame, pride, guilt, satisfaction, and the like. We’ll delve into the types of buying behavior later, but for now, let’s establish that emotions driver purchases. You might buy a car because all your neighbors and relatives have one. Or, you might do so to show off. By no means are these purchases rational.

Types of Consumer Emotions

More than 100 emotions have been identified, but not all of them drive buying decisions. In fact, emotions that affect consumer impulse buying behavior are only a handful. Let’s discuss the kinds of buying behavior in brief.

1. Pride: Let’s return to the car example again. Let’s say none of your relatives have an expensive car. You don’t really need a luxury sports car, but you can afford it. At the same time, you think of the attention you’ll get by showing off your new car. So, you end up buying a more expensive car just to show off. This buying emotion that’s driven by showing off to someone else is referred to as Pride.

2. Shame: Shame is the reverse of pride. In pride, you buy stuff that nobody has, so you can show yourself as better or higher in status. In case of shame, you buy something because everyone except you has it. Let’s say all of your close relatives have a car, but you don’t. So, to avoid shame and humiliation, you end up purchasing a car. This buying emotion that’s driven by social influence on buying behavior refers to as Shame.

3. Guilt: We also call it FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” Let’s say you see an amazing deal; there’s 50% off on your favorite Adidas sneakers. The price seems reasonable, so you buy it, just to avoid feeling guilty once the sale ends. This buying emotion that’s driven by the fear of missing out or feeling guilty is referred to as Guilt. Mostly online shopping for clothes is out of guilt.

Factors Affecting Customer Behavior

Emotions aren’t necessarily psychological. There are several factors that may affect the consumer buying behavior process. Let’s quickly discuss some common factors that affect customer behavior.

  • Psychological: These include motivation, attitudes, perception, learning, etc.
  • Personal: These include lifestyle, personality, economic circumstances, occupation, age, etc.
  • Social: These include status, role, family, social buying behavior, and reference groups.
  • Cultural: These include social class system, subculture, and culture

How Can Marketers Utilize Customer Behavior for Better Conversions?

Okay. So, we’ve learned that emotions drive purchases, along with different emotions and the factors affecting them. But now what? How do you utilize these emotional buyingmotives to grow your business? Here’s where the concept of emotional marketing comes into play.

Emotional marketing refers to a marketing strategy that involves the deliberate use of persuasive messages to trigger the emotions of your target customers. Instead of targeting your customers with facts and benefits, you focus on tapping into their emotions. Most often, an emotional marketing campaign appeals to a single emotion only.

Let’s take a look at how you can utilize customer behavior and emotions in your marketing strategy.

1. Inspire Them

Emotion Influence

Find out what motivates or encourages your customers. When you inspire people, you trigger impulse buying behavior. They might feel a sense of accomplishment or pride from completing the purchase.

You can inspire your readers in many ways. One way could be to donate a portion of the sales money for a good cause. This way, you’ll encourage your buyers to donate for a cause by purchasing from you.

 2. Aspire Them

Aspiration is related to your customers’ dreams. Life coaches and motivational speakers always sell the idea of aspiration. The same goes for those who sell courses. You can sell the idea of enjoying a unique lifestyle, fulfilling life goals, becoming financially secure, get a dream car, and the list goes on. People are aspired to do a lot of things; you just need to know what the case with your customers is.

3. Express Love

If you manage to appeal to your customers’ raw and personal emotions, you will transform your business from a faceless name to a loved brand that people can relate to. And your business doesn’t necessarily need to sell appealing products for this. Just try making someone’s life better or easier, and you’ll see the results.

4. Milestone Connections

Google turned 18 this year. Big Mac turned 50 a couple of years ago. If your brand is close to a milestone, you have an opportunity to tap into people’s emotions. You don’t need to turn 50 or 20 or even 10 years old to celebrate milestones. Yearly birthdays do just fine. Make sure you share the milestones and celebrations with your target customers to tune them in.

Wrapping Up

Adding emotions to marketing campaigns is a strategy that’s been practiced for years. But most marketers fail to understand the true emotions that drive their customers. Once you successfully identify those emotions, you’d be able to create tailored marketing campaigns that increase brand recognition, sales, and profits and online shopping urges from online stores.