Why Emotions Are Important In Content Marketing in 2022?
Are you tired of spending hours on creating content, only for it to not reach your audience?
In today’s digital world, resonating with your audience is the name of the game.
Be it for your blog posts, social media campaigns or product launches, there are some key principles you can apply to improve your content marketing strategies.
“A viral hit isn’t always matter of luck.”
One key principle that is important to consider while creating content and making a marketing plan is EMOTIONS; AND WHY THEIR IMAPCT IS IMPORTANT?
Content that evokes high intensity or positive emotions is more likely to go viral than content that provokes negative or no emotions.
Examples of high intensity emotions are: Awe, Laughter, Amusement, Joy and Anger.
According to statistics shared by Business Insider these are the 5 emotions that make content go viral.
First let’s understand what each of these emotions mean.
Emotions Glossary:
Awe: An overwhelming feeling of reverence and admiration.
Laughter: Is thought of as an audible expression or appearance of excitement and an inward feeling of joy and happiness.
Amusement: The state or experience of finding something funny.
Joy: A feeling of great pleasure and happiness.
Anger: A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility.
Content Driven Strategy & Consumer Emotions Need To Work Together!
A content-driven strategy is fast becoming the new marketing buzz phrase and based on which a lot of brands are implementing content strategies into their marketing plans.
Content-driven strategy is about telling your brand story in a compelling way that offers value to your potential clients, builds their trust in your brand and moves them into action to interact with the brand.
As the market becomes more saturated and competition gets tighter, it is evident that marketers need to change the focus of their strategy to attract and build trust with new and potential clients.
The bottom line is your content needs to resonate with your target audience for them to give you a chance.
Give your consumers what they want and make them trust that they need you.
Consumers know what they want today, and they are not going to fall for something that does not connect with them.
Especially, post the 2019 Pandemic that hit globally, consumers have been jarred into getting in touch with their emotions and accepting them and then making calculated and informed decisions rather than falling for every new shiny thing that brands throw their way.
Your consumers were always intelligent but today they are also cautious, hence there is more reason that brands really focus their content and harnesses the consumer emotions.
Advantages of a content-driven strategy for your company:
- Increased search engine result rankings
- More visitors to your website or blog
- Increased tweets and ‘Likes’
- Increased client acquisition
- Brand awareness
- Builds trust and loyalty in the brand
Channels to drive your content strategy:
- Website – articles, press releases
- Social media
- Industry blogs
- Client case studies
- Newsletters
- Videos
- Whitepapers
- Industry updates
- Events
As we saw in the statistics above content that inspires emotions of awe and laughter are likely what your consumer would connect to the most and share it on top social media platforms or through word of mouth.
In the current economic climate what your consumers need is that they can trust you and that you can help them with what they are looking for.
Look at your marketing strategy from the consumer’s point of view. Your consumer needs a simple and trustworthy brand, not shiny and complicated that gives them a hard time in trusting you.
Now that we understand emotions and how they are the key to making your content work to your advantage, it is important that you design a content driven marketing strategy.
Let’s talk about viral marketing and its positive examples:
What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing is any content that is well received by the audience resulting in high number of likes, shares and comments with innumerable views in a short time.
What are the types of viral marketing?
Some of the types of viral marketing are:
- Teaser
- Word of mouth
- Emotional
- Humorous
- Incentivized
- Popular opinions
What are the advantages of viral marketing?
Some advantages of viral marketing are:
- Faster branding
- Reduces cost of distribution
- Increases reach
- Dripping engagement
- Rapid lead acquisition
- Adds credibility
Viral Marketing Campaigns And How They Work With Consumer Emotions:
Oreo: Dunk in the Dark
In the midst of a power outage that occurred at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 2013 in New Orleans, a situation that lasted for 34 minutes causing complete darkness at the stadium, Oreo pulled a fancy stunt with their marketing campaign.
The famous cookie brand capitalized on the massive power outage situation by posting a simple tweet on its Twitter account. The post showed a dimly-lit Oreo cookie with the words, “You can still dunk in the dark.”
Marketers need to always be ready to take advantage of timing and make it easy for decisions to be made quickly.
#ShareACoke
Coke returned with this amazing campaign, only this time with personalized bottles.
It encouraged people to share their joy within different relationships – boss, friend, partners, etc. Their audience loved this idea, and the campaign proved to be a huge hit.
e.l.f. #eyeslipsface
e.l.f. #eyeslipsface on TikTok – Budget makeup company, e.l.f. came up with an idea to combine their brand qualities that they could us on Tiktok, to resonate with the audience on the platform. They collaborated with Movers and Shakers to produce an original song, called “Eyes, Lips, Face” which blew up on TikTok immediately. They gave the audience exactly what Tiktok was supposed to offer which not many brands had tapped into yet.
e.l.f. harnessed what the Gen Z audience wanted with a move that was culturally relevant and hot commodity at the time.
Wendy’s: Chicken Nugget Retweet Challenge
It all started with a simple tweet in 2017. Carter Wilkerson tweeted at Wendy’s, the fast-food chain, asking how many retweets he would need to earn to get a free year of chicken nuggets. Making the most of this bait, the chain immediately replied with the answer: “18 million.”
Carter reached out to the internet to him achieve his goal, and the internet delivered. Although the tweet didn’t reach 18 million tweets, it did become the most retweeted tweet of all time (at the time) and Wendy’s decided to reward his efforts.
This viral social media example shows what to do when your brand receives positive attention from an unlikely source. Wendy’s would have never imagined how viral this tweet would go, but they made the most of the limelight and gained momentum.
Dove: Real Beauty Sketches:
Dove very successfully harnesses the emotion of awe and joy in their campaign. The video is incredibly moving and reveals the internal struggle that many women face every day. Not only does the video spread the brand’s message and belief in confidence.
Receiving over 163 million global views, it generated 4.6 billion media impressions.
Viral video marketing works the most when the brand touches consumers’ emotions. Viral marketing in general thrives on emotions (like joy, awe, humor), but video has the unique ability to touch people in a special way.
Your consumers emotions are the greatest tool available to you. If you want your content and brand to resonate with your consumers, then you need to think like them. Put yourself in their shoes and build a strategy that will make your consumers believe that they need you, that you can help them. Ask yourself that are you guilty of selling to your customers without adding value to them?
Content driven strategy for every service, company and brand needs to come with keeping your consumers in mind and how you can give them what they want and get what you want from them.
Consumer – Strategy – Content – Sales
Like we said – “a viral hit isn’t always a matter of luck.”
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Have you had your fill of information and are ready to get started? Please get in touch with us to discuss your content marketing strategy.