Emotional Intelligence In Marketing

Links Mentioned In This Episode 

Products We Recommend

Emotional Intelligence Book by Brandon Goldman

Story Brand By Donald Miller 

Links to Previous Episodes & articles

Episode 7 – Value-Based Marketing To Increase Sales

Episode 37- Strong Brand Identity Part 1: The Customer

Episode 38- Strong Brand Identity Part 2: How To Talk To Your Customers For Better Engagement

Love our Podcast? Buy us a cup of coffee to help keep creating for you.
Check out our new blog at marketingmasterminds.co for free marketing educational content with how-to’s and training coming soon.

Emotional Intelligence In Marketing

*Not ready to give this episode a listen just yet? Below is a rough transcript of today’s episode.*

Did you ever read an article, watch a video and feel like the company that produced it just got you, right? It resonated well with you. So if so, let me ask you a question. How do you talk to your leads in your marketing campaigns? Do you try to understand the emotional state they are in while they’re viewing your campaigns?

If not, you should. So today, Episode, we’re going to chat about emotional intelligence, which is what this is and how you can make your marketing messages one stand out and to be memorable, which is what we’re all looking for. So before we get into today’s topic, let’s just have a little housekeeping discussion.

so I’m going to refer. other podcast episodes, sometimes articles, product recommendations, book recommendations. When I do that, all of that is going to be in the show notes. So go to inca.com and click on the podcast episodes. And the show notes are right there. Plus we do a rough transcript of the episode so that after listening, if you’re just trying to find something specific from the episode, it’ll be easy peasy for you to do.

And just another disclaimer is that we partner with many of the products that we recommend in any and all of our episodes. And so we create affiliate links for you. And, when you click through, we get a very small percentage back. Usually the equivalent of a cup of. but I wanted to make sure that you know, that we do this one because whatever we recommend to you, we either use, believe in read consumer ourselves.

and we want to keep this content free. So that little bit of extra you give, helps us keep creating all this wonderful content for you. So if you’re going to buy, go to the show notes and click on our link, we appreciate it very, very much. All right. So let’s talk about emotional intelligence. So before we do that, cause it’s really become a buzzword.

You hear people in sales and leadership all the time saying, oh, you have to have emotional intelligence, but what is it? so there’s a lot of different definitions and ways that people explain it. But here’s the one that I found that I really liked the most. And. Part, one of it is recognize, understand and manage your own emotions.

You gotta know, oh, I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m this I’m that in a given situation, part two, which is a big end is you got to recognize, understand, and then guide the emotions of others as part of that discussion. That’s what true emotional intelligence is, is knowing what you’re feeling and knowing what they’re feeling, and then figuring out.

How you can guide those emotions, almost like a good guide, a conversation. And there’s a psychological principle behind this it’s called mirroring. So if we’re having a conversation with someone and you come across positive and upbeat, and just generally cool to be around. The other, person’s going to want to mere that even if they didn’t come into the conversation, mirroring that because those are the emotions I like to call them the motions we aspire to.

Right. Being positive people like they know they trust. And then,Versus the other way, right? If you’re not emotionally intelligent and someone’s coming to you in a bad mood, you may very well reflect that. But if you are emotionally intelligent and you come in with a positive attitude and they’re in a bad mood, Chances are you’re going to sway and change their emotion, Just by how you act. So it’s not that you’re forcing them to do anything. It’s what you’re projecting first. and what’s so interesting is that literally right before I recorded this, I was on a conference call with a client, and their. partner one’s sitting there and he’s very stoic and matter of fact, and the other partner comes on and he’s in a great mood and he’s smiling and everything.

And I’m watching the first partner and his whole demeanor changed right before my eyes. He relaxed, he smiled the conversation, got a lot lighter between the three of us. and it was just because the second guy came in and was just like, yeah, I don’t care that you’re in a bad mood. I’m in a great mood.

I’m here now let’s do this. So it was really cool to watch that given. what I knew I was going to be recording today. So I couldn’t wait to share that with you guys. Okay. So let’s talk about situations where emotional intelligence, right? This, knowing your emotions, knowing their emotions and guiding them through.

All of us in business, giving and receiving feedback, whether it’s to employees, to clients, to vendors, makes that a little easier meeting tight deadlines, right? It’s much easier to meet a tight deadline if everybody’s even keel on the same page or even positive about situation, dealing with challenges, in relation to.

Personal professional, all of them not having enough resources, right? Those are usually points of contentions navigating change. if COVID has taught us nothing, it’s taught us that we need to figure out how to navigate change. and then working through setbacks and failures, and then as entrepreneur.

We have setbacks, we have failures. What we do with them is really important, but how the other people around us, Look at those two. And then the last one is lead generation, which is what we’re going to focus on today because that’s what marketing is, right? It’s awareness. It’s getting people to buy your products and services.

so we’re going to focus on lead generation today. And so a lot of the information that is out. About emotional intelligence. it’s really about leadership,for employees, for you, for yourself, for sales, but not a lot of it talks about using emotional intelligence, with marketing campaigns, with the videos you’re creating with the images you’re using with the,language and messaging that you’re creating.

And so that’s why I want to deep dive into that. But if you want to understand more about emotional intelligence itself as a topic, understanding. There is a link in the show notes to a book that I have used and,multiple different, revisions over the last 10 or 15 years. So this is not a new topic.

but it’s kind of new to the marketing. so definitely go and, get a copy of that book. You won’t regret it. It’s a really good book. Short read too. so the first thing I want to make sure you understand in this whole entire topic, when we’re talking about this, is that all buying decisions are emotional first. Okay. We make the emotional decision to buy whatever that emotion is that we’re having at that time.

And then as a buyer, us, me, you, everybody, we use logic and reason and other things to justify that purchase. So you could be the Mr. Spock, very level-headed, but there’s still a level of emotion involved when you’re going through the purchasing process. It’s just how we’re built. so knowing.

Right. Knowing that emotion is like the number one thing involved in any purchase that anybody makes should make you go. How do I tap into that? to get people, to see my message, to understand it, to at least give it more than two seconds. And this is why you want to incorporate emotional intelligence in your marketing campaigns.

And the messaging that you’re using and you want to do it based off the emotional state they are in when they’re researching and buying for what you provide. So that’s really the crux of it. this is really good news for all you business owners and entrepreneurs out there that really don’t like, marketing, right?

or feeling salesy or feel like it’s not ethical because this is the most ethical way to market, You’re not pushing something on someone they don’t want. You’re not trying to get over on them. You’re not doing a weird salesy pitch thing. All you’re doing with an approach like this. Is coming from a place of wanting to help and serve where they are at in that moment in time.

so let’s dive into what that looks like. So the very first thing you need to do. And I’ve talked about this in quite a few other podcast, episodes and articles is you got to know your target audience. You have to know who you’re talking to. there is an episode. That I did. It is episode 38, strong brand identity, part two.

How to talk to your customers for better engagement in there. I walk you through the process of creating that customer persona for your target audience or audiences. More than one, you can definitely have more than one, but you want to know who they are. So in that customer persona, make sure you include the emotional state that they’re in, that you think they’re in.

when they’re research. And getting ready to buy. So it’s called the research and buying phase of the purchasing journey, right? Whatever, emotional state that they’re in at that point, that’s what you want to talk to. You want to acknowledge it, you want to empathize with it, and then you want to talk to them about how your product or service can help them move from whatever that state is.

To a, what I will generally call a more satisfied. Because if they’re looking to purchase something, they are unsatisfied once they have purchased it. And if they did a good job and it’s the right thing, they are satisfied. Now those emotions are going to run the gamut. They’re going to be sort of glad, sort of excited.

They’re going to be scared. They’re going to be anxious. They’re going to be stressed. They’re going to be mad. They’re going to be all those things, but really what it boils down to is they are unsatisfied. So they’re researching and buying something so that they can become satisfied. And so that’s really what you have to think about as the first step.

And then the second thing is that. Aside from that unsatisfied to satisfy what the emotion is and where you’re going to put them. It’s very, very specific to the industry that you’re in an even down to the region of the country that you’re in because every region city. area, they react differently.

Some are more, oh yeah. That’s okay. They’re more laid back. Other areas are much more, anxiety and stress level high, or they, react angry to just about everything, including someone, standing too close to. Type of thing. not good, not bad. Just that’s what it is. So when you’re listening to this and you’re looking into doing this more, realize that,you gotta look at your industry, what trends for you and what you’re doing, and then where you live, because it’s going to be very, very. you could be a carpenter on the east coast and your clientele’s emotional intelligence and, how they react to things is going to be very different than someone in Texas or California. so don’t try to find like a catchall. Okay. So this is really high level. This is very conceptual. So I want to walk you through quite a few examples to give you an idea of how this is going to.

Work, or how it does work. So that hopefully it clarifies it more. So the first industry I want to hit is life insurance. That’s a really interesting one. Nobody loves buying life insurance, no one like goes out into the world and go, I want to buy life insurance today. Like they do a cup of coffee, right?

Two totally different industries. So I’m going to give you two different examples within life insurance, because actually the emotional state of the person in the buying process is different depending on why. So let’s say we’ve got, couple a right. They just had a baby and they’re building their family and they want to make sure they can provide if something happens to them in the case of life insurance.

So they really are happy. They’re optimistic. They’re not happy, not optimistic about buying life insurance, but they’re happy and optimistic about why they’re buying the life insurance. Right. So they’re going to be in that kind of a mental state when they come across your marketing material. Now let’s say person B, right?

They’re looking for life insurance. They’re doing research, but it’s because they recently lost a friend or a loved one to an illness, So they’re sad. They’re worried, they’re anxious. And they’re scared because when stuff like that happens to us, we immediately put ourselves in that. And maybe the person that they lost didn’t have life insurance.

Maybe their family had to set up a go-fund me, to pull together the money to pay for the funeral. Or they were just bogged down in medical bills, whatever the case. A very different experience. So in these two examples, if you’re a life insurance agency, if that person walks through your door, you’re going to greet them and talk to them completely different.

That’s in person emotional intelligence. If you’re going to be running marketing campaigns, you’re going to want to run two different types of campaigns out to attract those different people. Because if you try to create one campaign that talks to both of them, neither of them is going to respond because they’re going to feel like, oh, that’s not for me.

So if you’re running digital ads, you’re going to run two sets. If you’re sending out emails to an email list, those are going to be different. And the emotional intelligence line. That you’re going to be using in. These are going to be completely different. All right. So let’s go to a lighter type of topic, right?

shoes, I always like using shoes as an example,because it’s a really great way where there’s a functional need then there’s this style need. and then there’s just the whole, I love shoes need, But you can still have different emotions within this set. So person a they’re celebrating a milestone and they wanted to buy these pair of shoes as their reward for that milestone.

So in that instance, when they’re going to buy and where they’re going to buy from, they’re happy in their excited. No they’re anticipating like, yeah, I just did this and this is my reward versus person B right. They got to buy a new work shoes because their dog just chewed through their shoes.

Right after they got home, they’re not going to be in the same state as person a right. This second person is going to be, stressed, frustrated, mad, because their work shoes are really expensive, you know,or, it’s just very inconvenient. They have to go out and get shoes, maybe they can’t order them because they need them for the next day.

So they’re in a very different mental state. Both people are buying shoes, but they’re buying them for very different reasons. And If you’re going to be running any type of marketing campaigns to people, you’ve got to know who you’re talking to and the emotional state they’re in, when they’re going to start buying.

All right. Now, I want to. Look at my, friends over in the real estate industry, the realtors, they had people buying and they had people selling homes. And you’ll see why I pick this one in a minute. Cause it’s really interesting. so buying a home in a new place that accompany relocated them to right as a family,they could be scared.

one spouse, if it’s a couple and a family or the. Some of them could be mad, which creates a stressful, situation. And there could be some kind of joy in that. Like maybe they’re going someplace, that they’d never been to before, but there’s a mixed set of emotions and you’re not dealing with just one person’s, in this whole.

second scenario is selling a home and they’re empty nesters, right? They’re a little scared, ? This is a life transition, They could be excited about where they’re going to, they could be a little sad because it’s their family home, but it’s the right thing to do. but they’re going to be a little scared.

And then I picked a third scenario for this one first time home buyers. Brand new couple going out on the room, really happy. They’re really excited, but they’re also a little scared. So through all three of these, do you see a theme right? Buying or selling a home huge transaction for most of us.

It’s the biggest one of our lives. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first, second or third, it’s still always going to be the biggest. So we’re always going to be a little scared and we’re always going to be a little anxious. So regardless of the secondary emotion involved in that, whether it’s mad, happiness,anxiousness, there’s always a little fear in there.

And so as a real estate agent, one, you’re going to allay the fear, Empathize with it, and then to talk to the secondary one as well.

And so the last example, I’m going to go to my trades friends, and we’re going to talk about a plumber, right? Master plumber, two different scenarios here, person, a they’ve got an unexpected repair, a pipe burst in their home. So obviously they’re going to be mad. They’re going to be scared. They’re going to be worried and they need a plumber really, really fast.

They could have standing order. They can not be able to take a shower, not a great situation. and then. Scenario B is they’re renovating their master bathroom. So they’re getting all beautiful new fixtures and shower heads and all that other good stuff. maybe some plumbing has to be moved, but it’s planned.

So in this they’re excited, they’re happy. They can’t wait for the end results. Two totally different conversations. And again, two different campaigns, right? You can campaign to the unexpected person first, because if they’re doing Google searching for. Emergency plumbing. You can ads out there for that versus the second one where you can show beautiful pictures of,sinks and faucets and allow them to dream a little bit while they’re actually interviewing, plumbers as part of their.

So hopefully that clarifies this a little bit more for you, and related to your industry. So now that you understand emotional intelligence and marketing a little better, let’s put this new knowledge that you just got to work for you, and let’s take some action steps. So the first step that you want to take is figuring out the emotional state.

And if you are not sure about the emotional state, the simplest thing to do. It’s ask, right? talk to your best customers and ask them how they were feeling when they chose your business to work with. Might be a little bit of a conversation. How were you feeling? what was the situation you were in?

You may already know, because when they first contacted you, they may have told you the whole entire story. So it may just, be, you recalling this story and you’ll know how they were feeling. Based on the conversation. So in the scenarios above, and maybe those conversations you’re having, you might get different multiple emotional states because you probably just starting out with this.

the one I suggest you start with is the most upbeat state first, right? So obviously they’re all unsatisfied trying to get dissatisfied, but in some of these scenarios, the people were happy and. those are the ones you want to start with. First, the happy, the excited, the glad, it is far easier to sell to people that are already in that, happy, excited, glad fees, then trying to get them from scared, mad, anxious to I’m.

Okay. I’m ready to purchase. Cause we’ve gotta be in some state of balance or at least. Resignation, to make a final purchase there’s language out there that says you’ve gotta be in a good state. You gotta be happy with the purchase you’re making, but obviously in some of these instances, you’re never going to be happy, right?

The dog, get your shoes. You’re never going to be happy. You’re going to resign yourself to having to buy a new pair of shoes and you’re gonna make the best of the situation. You’re making lemonade out of lemons. same thing with the pipes being burst. Start there, it’s a much simpler process to get people that are closer to happy and excited to that full satisfied than it is those that are like, oh, we on the other end of the spectrum, you can get there at some point, but start with the easier group first.

So the next thing you’re going to do is you’re going to create your core language by creating a brand script. Again, go listen to episode 38. I talk about. The customer persona, creating a brand script, brand script comes from, Donald Miller’s StoryBrand. It is a way to help you understand and define the customer.

And we’ve pulled a lot of bits and pieces from that in how we create customer personas and the brand script. But what a brand script is, it’s high-level language of how you talk to your customer. Allowing them to be the center of attention and you being the person that guides them through the situation.

there’s a link in the show notes for the book. I highly recommend it. It’s a pretty easy read, very entertaining. He’s got a lot of different,examples in the book of people he’s worked with. and he also gives you step by step instructions on how to get yourself through that brand script.

And then you can add to that, the emotion piece that we’re talking about here today. And so with that brand script plus with knowing the emotional state is going to make it really easy for you to create the messaging for all of your marketing assets. And that’s going to be your next step. Look at your website.

Are you using an emotionally, intelligent state? To drive people, your subject lines for your email, your digital ad copy. Look at your images. Look at your videos. Are they balanced correctly for the emotional state that the buyer is in or where you want them to be? Look at it from that perspective.

Picture image or video really resonate with the state that they’re in, when they’re doing their research, right? Those are the types of things that you need to update and look at. And again, that brand script is going to make it far easier. The customer persona is going to make it far easier to create that because you’re going to know how you want to talk to them by this.

So here are my final thoughts for you on this topic, right? This is advanced level stuff. it’s not easy to create. It’s a little different than just saying, Hey, buy my stuff. This is really good stuff. it’s a little different, you’re tapping into the psychology of it a little bit.

So you may not like that. Like it from a, you want it to be done, but you don’t want to do it. and you don’t like doing marketing. then you need to,delegate this, right? And this may be where you want to hire an agency to do this, scripting work for you, creating your messages, all that good stuff.

Just make sure you hire an agency that already believes in marketing this. Not all agencies out there do this. We do it here at income. It is the core of what we do. We don’t market any other way. we tap into those emotions and all the really big good agencies do that. So when you’re interviewing agencies, talk to them about emotional intelligence, when you’re interviewing them, Find out their customer persona process.

Do they create any type of core language? They may not call it a brand script. They may call it something else, but just make sure it’s part of their foundation because just simply asking them to do it. If they’re not good at it, they’re going to be no better at it than you or someone on your team.

Who’s never done it before.

So here at Inc. We like to give back to the business community, we provide a 45 minute free consultation via video conferencing, where you can ask us anything about marketing. you can give us a scenario. We can give you the idea of the emotional state that the person’s probably in. We can talk about your website.

Whatever you need. if you’ve just got a quick question or what we love, love is recommendations for shows. what do you want to hear about? You can put that in the contact form on the website at dot com I N K yma.com. we also have a free educational blog called marketing masterminds, where we write articles.

We have video tutorials and trainings. That you can go so that you can do your marketing yourself because maybe you’re not ready for an agency just yet. So I hope you found the information in today’s podcast useful and helpful for you. If you think it could help your fellow entrepreneur, friends in your networking groups, that you talked to over coffee, please share this right?

The goal of this podcast and all the free content that we produce is to help the business community grow and thrive throughout the entire country. Thank you for listening and have an amazing day.