Capitalise on your communication with clear emotional benefits

The only reason people buy anything

Emotion

But most businesses sacrifice everything for marketing campaigns that generate little return on investment.

Here’s how to define your emotional benefits so you can capitalise on your communication

 

Why we buy

Every buying decision is dictated by emotion.

Then justified with logic.

 

When you buy anything the emotional side of your brain takes over.

You see the product or service in front of you.

You imagine how your life will look once you have it.

 

You then justify these stories with the functional benefits of the product or service.

• Yea the faster processor will actually make me more productive.

• Being more productive will mean I make more money

• Making more money will allow me to do x y x

 

This is how people buy.

The best brands in the world know this.

But wait there’s more…

 

Time to get emotional

Successful brands are so tuned in they dictate what emotional benefits their offering has.

They influence the customer’s emotions.

 

When the brand is clear on the emotional benefits of its offering each bit of communication becomes stronger

• More sales

• More loyal customers

 

When brands don’t know their emotional benefits they are shooting in the dark.

Don’t be like most brands.

 

Use these two tools to define the emotional benefits of your product or service

Your business is too important to miss this crucial step

 

1) Start with your functional benefits

Functional benefits are what your product or service does.

Write them all done.

Think about how they will make people feel.

Now beside each one write down feelings.

You then want to layer the emotional benefits on each other.

 

Example

It looks like this.

You are selling a phone.

It has great cameras

 

1) It will allow your customers to capture the experiences they have

2) Capturing experiences will allow them to feel close to their loved ones all the time

3) Feeling closer to their loved ones makes them feel happier and safer

4) Feeling happier is good for their health

5) Having good health allows you to live longer

6) Living Longer will allow you to spend more time with your loved ones

 

The emotional benefits just build and build.

This isn’t to say that everyone will look at a smartphone camera and think it will make them live longer.

Maybe they won’t get to 6.

But they will probably get to 3

 

Each functional benefit of your product or service will have multiple emotional benefits.

Your job is to layer them up and work out which path is stronger.

Then when it comes to selling your product or services you build your communication around the strongest emotional path.

 

2) Think about stories

Stories are key to human behaviour.

We communicate in stories.

We even go as far as to label parts of our history in chapters.

 

Go back to your list of functional benefits and think of a story in which your product or services helps your customers.

This will help you realise your emotional benefits.

Let me explain

 

Let’s go back to the phone camera

A story could be as simple as the customer needs to remember something but can’t write it down

So they take a photo

This information could be vital like the time of an appointment

 

The emotional benefit for the camera would mean that they are always on time.

Being on time can make people feel professional

You then want to layer the emotions on the story to make it stronger.

 

3) Refine

Refining your concepts will only make them stronger.

By this time you will have many emotions for each functional benefit your product or service has.

You will also have lots of stories.

 

Choose the strongest stories and emotions that you think will appeal to your target customers the most.

Then refine.

Refine the story.

Refine the emotions.

 

Make sure you use words that have an emotional meaning.

Always use words that your target market would use and understand.

This approach will leave you with lots of options for how to define your communication that will connect with your target market.

 

In summary

1. Draw out your emotions from your functional benefits

2. Layer them to make them stronger

3. Create stories to think of real-world use

4. Refine the strongest concepts

5. Deploy these in your marketing

6. Enjoy the increased ROI