Building relationships and connecting with people involves a certain level of emotion, so it stands to reason that if your brand ignores people’s feelings, yes even if you are a B2B business, you won’t resonate and connect.
The fact is that many B2B brands feel restricted in their options to market their products or services and often only stick to mostly logic to appeal to audiences, but this doesn’t need to be the case. Using emotion can be very helpful in getting your point across. In fact, some research indicates that most B2B consumers become emotionally connected to a brand one way or another when engaging with it and that 50% of buyers are more likely to buy your products or services when they feel emotionally engaged.
Unfortunately, telling people why they should buy from you or use your services isn’t enough, you need to appeal to their emotions as well as provide rational messaging to convince them. And when they do choose to buy from you, using emotion doesn’t stop there, your brand needs to create a level of trust with the consumer to cultivate a personal connection. If you think about it, it isn't really shocking to learn that B2B brands don’t feel comfortable with using emotion to market their products or services, because they deal with data and facts all day and don’t make decisions based on emotions within their own businesses. Most B2B consumers don’t like to think that they are guided by emotions either, but part of being human means making decisions based on feelings, whether we like it or not. We like to think of ourselves as being rational decision-makers, so who can really blame B2B brands for positioning themselves in a logical light in order to appeal to our ideal way of thinking?
The funny thing is that on average, B2B consumers are very emotionally connected their vendors or service providers because so much is at stake. Think about it. Imagine a scenario in which a multi-million rand deal could potentially go wrong and the repercussions of that. It makes sense then to develop a substantial amount of emotional connection beforehand with consumers to help mitigate most of the risk.
What does this mean for my B2B marketing strategy?
Does it mean doing the complete opposite and scrapping all logical content and ad copy in favour of something that tugs at audiences heartstrings? No, because a combination of logic and emotions do work together to convince people on two levels. Emotional messaging builds the brand while rational messaging appeals to their logic and common sense, which leads to action.
What does B2B emotion look like?
It essentially looks like associating your brand with positive feelings such as confidence, trust, being impressed and the overall sense that you are well-liked by consumers. Your messaging doesn’t need to evoke obvious emotions, it can be subtle, creating a feeling of concern for what the consumer is going through is particularly powerful among B2B audiences because it brings forth another feeling of connectedness.
When should you appeal to reason rather than emotion?
When it comes to lead generation. Making a sale requires immediate action and doesn’t rely on memory like brand building does, and so it doesn’t rely on the use of emotion. If the goal is to target the bottom of the funnel to create sales, then rational messaging will work to appeal to the left side of a person’s brain in order to clinch the deal.
How do emotion and logic work together to generate more leads?
Emotion sets the tone for your brand and lets people know who you are and what you stand for as a business. From there, consumers can decide whether they like and trust your brand or not. Engaging with your audience and building brand awareness through emotion further influences the consumer’s view of your brand. All this acts as the groundwork for generating leads. Once a consumer decides that they like you and feels that they need your product or service, you can use rational messaging to prompt them into action, by either filling in a lead gen form or signing up for a trial. This is why businesses who invest in brand building are far more successful at driving sales and generating leads versus those who do not. And businesses who manage to successfully cement their brand with a particular emotion are the most successful of all.
If your business needs help with brand building and lead generation, feel free to get in contact with us so that we can work together with you to come up with an appropriately tailored strategy to suit your business’ unique needs.
