All Marketing is Emotional!

Whether we are communicating with consumers, businesses or governments, in the end, we are marketing to people.

With this in mind, all marketing is emotional. No one makes decisions without checking in with their gut or preconceived viewpoints of the world. No matter how much procurement people tell you that all bids are fair and open and built on an unbiased set of criteria. . . don't believe them.

Procurement officers have just as much emotion and fears as everyone else. Have they had a good experience with your company before or have they had a bad one? Both of these will influence them one way or another. Do they know of your company and do they hear positive or negative things about your company and it's reputation? Yes, those will influence them as well. Are you a leader in your industry? As the saying goes, "no one was ever fired for buying IBM." Don't kid yourself, being fired for making the wrong decision may not be a communicated fear, but it is there none the less.

What this illustration is trying to display is that we all come to our decisions in life, no matter what they are, based upon preconceived viewpoints, biases, loyalties, mistrusts and so on. We all want to mitigate risk, we all want to be able to know that the decision we made will not be questioned (or deemed wrong) and we want others to like us.

So, know that I have you thinking this way, how are you communicating with those you wish to influence? From how you communicate your value within an request for proposal, to marketing a bar of soap. . . what can you do to alleviate the fears of others and help them understand that you empathize with their situation, understand it from their point of view and can truly help them?

People buy because the solution they choose solves problems for them, plain and simple. They buy your product, because at some level, they trust you more than someone else and trust that your solution will solve whatever problem they have.

Hmmm, did the words cheaper, faster or better come into this conversation at any time?

No they did not. . . trust me!