Triggering marketing and sales results using customer emotion

Making sales makes business work!

That’s why sales strategy has to evolve and be honed, because understanding customers and their behaviour is more critical than ever.

Why? Because customer expectations change, as they hear about and see new solutions and services from different providers, so their market expectations change.

Therefore - you to have to maintain awareness of your market, what is changing and how you can adapt, because different customers will have different expectations. Grouping your customers is imperative to ensure understanding of where those different needs are amongst you customer and prospect base.

This begs the question - How are you using research to understand your customers, needs and requirements? Qualitative, quantitative, in-depth analytics?

These are all helpful and informative approaches, do they reveal what decisions are made deeper in your customer mind and how they emotionally connect with your services and solutions?

Traditional research methodologies, often rely on direct questioning and rational analysis, they provide valuable insights. However, they frequently miss the mark in capturing the subconscious drivers of decision-making, those that significantly influence buyer behaviour.

This is where System 1 research techniques come into play, offering a powerful methodology to enrich sales strategies by tapping into the emotional and instinctive aspects of decision-making.

Understanding System 1 and System 2 Thinking

To appreciate the value of System 1 techniques, it is essential to understand the dual-process theory developed by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman demonstrates, human thinking can be divided into two systems:

System 1: Fast, automatic, emotional, and subconscious thinking. This system operates effortlessly, relying on intuition and heuristics to make quick decisions.

System 2: Slow, deliberate, and analytical thinking. This system is more effortful, involving conscious reasoning and logic.

While System 2 is crucial for complex problem-solving, the majority of day-to-day decisions, including those related to purchasing, are driven by System 1. Therefore, understanding and influencing these automatic, subconscious processes are key to developing a robust sales strategy.

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The Role of System 1 Research in Sales Strategy

Maru System 1 research techniques focus on uncovering the implicit, often subconscious, attitudes and feelings that drive consumer decisions. These methods include implicit association tests, implicit response tests and emotional response analysis.

By employing these techniques, businesses can gain deeper insights into the emotional and subconscious factors that influence buying decisions, thereby refining their sales strategies.

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Unveiling Hidden Consumer Motivations

Traditional research methods, rely on perceptions or stated attitudes, which can be skewed by post rationalised thinking.

System 1 techniques, on the other hand, bypass these limitations by measuring non-conscious responses.

For example: Implicit Association Testing (IAT) reveals genuine emotional reactions to a product or advertisement, providing insights that customers may not be able to articulate themselves. These insights are invaluable in crafting sales messages that resonate on a deeper, more emotional level with customers.

The IAT campaign case study shared below demonstrates this approach.

Supporting Evidence: Research has shown that emotional responses, captured by System 1 methods, are strong predictors of purchase intent. ?A study published in The Journal of Advertising Research found that emotional engagement significantly predicts the effectiveness of advertisements, with emotionally engaging ads being more likely to drive sales.

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Optimising Customer Journey Mapping

Understanding the emotional and subconscious experiences of customers at different stages of their journey helps businesses optimise their sales processes. By mapping these experiences using System 1 techniques, companies can identify pain points or moments of high emotional engagement, allowing them to tailor their strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Supporting Evidence: Our case study shared below found that a brand that successfully connects with customers on an emotional level develop higher levels of NPS. The study emphasises the importance of understanding and leveraging emotional drivers to create a more compelling customer experience.

Enhancing Sales Messaging

Sales messaging that appeals to both rational and emotional aspects of decision-making is more likely to be effective. System 1 research supports crafting messages that trigger the right emotional responses, increasing the likelihood of sales and conversion. For instance, messages that align with the customer’s subconscious associations and emotional triggers can create a sense of trust and empathy, prompting decision-making.

Our case study below demonstrates how emotional messaging increased the sales volume of this sleep aid product.

Integrating System 1 Insights into Sales Processes

To fully leverage the insights gained from System 1 research, organisations need to integrate these findings into their sales processes. This involves sharing with sales teams the narrative descriptions of emotional and subconscious aspects of customer behaviour and adapting sales discussion, pitches, customer interactions, and even product presentations accordingly.?

Training and Development

Sales teams can apply techniques that evoke emotions from customers that influence purchase decision making, they can be trained to apply emotional actions and respond to emotional cues from customers. This involves using insights from System 1 research to develop narrative and techniques that are more likely to resonate with customers on an emotional level.

Personalisation

System 1 insights can also drive personalisation strategies. By understanding the emotional triggers of different customer segments, businesses can tailor their communication and offers, making them more relevant and appealing to each segment.

Feedback Loops

Creating feedback loops where System 1 insights are continuously fed into the sales strategy can help businesses stay agile and responsive to changing customer behaviours. This ongoing process ensures that sales strategies remain effective and aligned with the evolving emotional landscape of the target audience.

Conclusion

System 1 research techniques offer a powerful way to understand and influence the emotional and subconscious factors that drive decision making. By integrating these insights into their sales strategies, businesses can create more compelling, emotionally resonant sales processes that are better equipped to meet the needs and desires of their customers.

As the sales landscape continues to evolve, the ability to tap into the subconscious will be a key differentiator for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge.

Thank you for reading this paper.

If you would like to understanding how you can use emotion in your marketing and sales strategy message me to find out more.