The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building Emotional Engagement

In the same way leaders are rated based on both their emotional and intelligence quotients, business are evaluated based on the factual and emotional appeal of their organizations, the latter being used as a scale more than the former. Emotional-brands connect with their customers on levels that factual-oriented brands could never reach.

Look at brands like Always and Apple; they spring for the emotional approach and cornered the market. This strategy can however go south quickly if not done right. Emotion is power and the minute you inject it into your content as a marketer, then you have an audience. Here is a guide on how to keep the interest of that audience.

The Simplicity of Emotion

Most people believe that emotion is a complex thing, and while this might be true, it is also as simple as anything could get. Something as slight as the sound of falling rain could spark familiarity in a person. As a marker, all you have to know is how to design your brand so as to appeal to the customers’ everyday experiences.

1. Listen

You cannot know what your customers want until you listen to them. Communicate across to them and not just at them, and while at it, remember to pay attention to the unspoken. Customers can say one thing, but it is up to you to dig deeper into their words and find out the truth that they are hiding beneath their reviews and complaints. Only after you understand the needs of your customers should you go ahead and sell your brand to them.

2. Hit a little close to home

Not that you should take a degree in psychology, but it would help you to know a bit about the subconscious and how to engage it. Do you chain your pens to the desks like banks do? Customers get a feeling of distrust.

Do you give out free coffee and donuts at the reception in case of a hold up? Customers feel welcomed and valued. From the color to the design of your branding; make sure everything reflects on the kind of product you are marketing.

3. Make it believable

Life is so much different from fantasy, and although people want to be told stories now and again, using the unreal to sell your brand will only support you for a short time. Your brand has to reflect the challenges that your customers go through on a daily basis and then offer a solution to them.

That diaper advert should show how messy and stressful parenthood can be. Make your brand into a whole arc that hits the audience with an emotional wave – the time to take your customers by surprise – just in time to offer a solution.

A successful business has one of his hallmarks as the ability to utilise creativity to venture into new territory. Without developing emotional engagement, businesses will stagnate and finally fade away. Those with continued power, however, have gathered an intangible and often underestimated factor that enables them to aim on the future with clarity: emotional taste. Although this may shock many, for sure the ability to connect with your customer on an emotional level is the only way to trigger the business forward.