Emotional Intelligence In Marketing

We’ve always heard how psychology is an important aspect of successful marketing strategies. Whether its different insights or color psychology or just some parlor tricks that influence people’s buying behavior, psychology plays a major role in making your marketing success come to life. But what exactly makes you understand consumer behavioral patterns and to come up with ideas and plans to satisfy those patterns? Emotional Intelligence. It’s not an uncommon word, and yet a lot of people don’t have proper knowledge of it, even if they have a good grip over it. In this blog, I aim to discuss what emotional intelligence is, how it’s important in marketing and what components of it you need to make your strategies a success.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Marketing is all about understanding and connecting with people in the most influential ways possible. And Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to understand and manage emotions of one’s self and those of people around them. People with high levels of E.I are capable of understanding why they feel what they feel and how these emotions can impact others. Such people are considered to be valuable team members as their empathy, curiosity, and self-motivation drives them to come up with new and improved plans that make it easier for people to understand the brand’s message as a whole.

Researchers have often tried to study the impact of emotional intelligence in making content go viral. And one of the most basic finding is that those who understand what people are looking for often and present it, end up getting more shares and likes than those who just want to post content for the sake of posting. Just think about it for a second, even in an office environment who will get things done more accurately? A boss who screams at his employees during times of stress or one who understands the situation and responds calmly? The difference between the two is that the latter has better emotional intelligence.

The Best Marketers are Moving Toward E.I

When digital marketing started becoming more and more common, competition increased and brands started to focus on how they can beat each other rather than how they’re approaching consumers. In this competitive and conflicting market, the importance of creating meaningful connections with the audience got lost in the noise. And this lack of empathy is felt more by consumers than by the brands aiming to become better than their rivals at every point. Only about 1/3rd of consumers feel like they’re heard and understood by their favorite brands.

Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti says that everyone started believing that social media marketing is a game of algorithms, when it’s actually about humans and making valuable content to reach them.

Slowly, but gradually, brands are beginning to recognize and understand the importance of E.I in their marketing strategies. They’re beginning to realize what they’ve been missing all this time to make their content reach out to their audience, and they’re trying to bring in a change in their system of working to cater to the audience accordingly. I recently worked for an e-commerce brand focused on baby and maternity products. One of their main objectives wasn’t to sell the products but the reason for which it is sold i.e. making people realize the importance of the products they need either when it comes to babies or their mothers. Their strategy involved providing solutions and knowledge to women who needed information about maternity so that they could feel heard by the brand and trust them accordingly.

Another example we’ve seen in the Pakistani market is of Shan Foods. They’ve always been known for making relevant and thought-provoking ads but recently, their focus has shifted to redefining gender roles; showing that the brand realizes raising a voice against age-old gender stereotypes is a need of the hour, and they’re doing their best to bring a meaningful shift in people’s thinking.

There are different tried and tested methods of making your brand’s emotional intelligence be of use to your strategies.

Following are some of the ways to implement this:

Treat Emotional Intelligence as an Asset

Marketers need to realize that emotional intelligence isn’t a temporarily trending strategy, it’s an asset that can drive investments for your brand. The way creativity is an important aspect that can make or break your content, emotional intelligence also helps the audience realize whether your brand is worthy of their attention or not. And it will always remain relevant no matter your niche, audience or product.

Optimize Creatives with a Human Touch

With the increase in technological solutions, creatives have become automated as well. Brands need to apply a human touch to their creative strategy so that the audience can feel the message the brands are delivering, and are stimulated to take action. Creatives don’t just mean visuals, but the tone of language, the words, everything matters and everything makes a difference.

Provide the Audience with a Fulfilling Experience

Many brands are investing time and energy into creating life-like experiences for their consumers through the use of augmented and virtual reality. The purpose of using such practices is to give the customers a view of how the product will satisfy their needs before they ever make the decision to buy it. This is another way the audience will feel like they’re understood by the brand and hence they will want to invest in that brand further.

Apply Emotional Intelligence to Your SEO Practices

Google’s algorithms are important, but it’s equally important to understand your audience’s language and way of thinking. Your SEO practices need to be a balance between fulfilling Google’s SEO policies while also catering to provide what your audience mean when they search for things relevant to your brand. By understanding the deeper meaning behind your audience’s needs, you can introduce strategies that can meet them with ease.

Why You Need Emotional Intelligence for Your Strategies to be Effective

Build Rapport

People with high levels of E.I have better empathy and they’re more capable of understanding the emotions of the people around them. Moreover, their social skills are more advanced than the rest of the crowd. This means that they can make positive relationships on a personal as well as professional level, hence communicating with customers is easier for them. Such people can help build a better rapport with other professionals and the audience alike. And better rapport means better interaction and more trust between consumers and producers.

Improved Listening

E.I requires you to be attentive as a brand to your audience’s complaints and needs. Hence, you become better and listen to what your audience is requiring of you and what it is that they don’t want from you. When the audience feels heard, they feel cared for. And when they feel cared for, they become more loyal to your brand.

Gain Knowledge

More or less a part of listening, gaining knowledge is yet a different process. You don’t just learn about your audience’s needs but your brand’s as well. E.I requires you to not just be aware of another’s emotions but also your own. This means you gain deeper knowledge of where you’re lagging and what you’re doing right once you survey your customers and the overall market you’re a part of.

Components of E.I You Need to Master

Self-Awareness

This is the ability to recognize one’s personal moods and correctly identify the emotions we’re feeling. Self-awareness is a vital part of one’s life as it results in a boost in confidence and also develops the ability for one to take care of their own needs properly enough for it to be healthy.

Motivation

Internal motivation is the idea of working for what’s important to you as a person. This is the emotion that’s driven by paying attention to our own curiosity for learning and our desire to get results. It’s stimulated by commitment and optimism as we work toward what’s valuable to us.

Empathy

Empathy is the skill to understand the emotions and underlying conflicts of others and respond to them accordingly without making the matter more complicated for them.

Social Skills

Refers to managing relationships, building meaningful bonds and rapport, and finding common ground to create networks. It’s a skill that’s used for persuasion, to build expertise and derive productivity from the team.

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation refers to addressing and redirecting conflicting situations, moods, and thoughts and finding productive and meaningful outlets and alternatives to attain a more positive and helpful experience.

Ultimately, the goal for brands is to combine emotional and psychological insights such that the audience can make a meaningful relationship with your brand on the basis of its human appeal. In a world where technology is taking the spotlight and capitalism is making robots out of people, providing a human and relatable experience is the refreshing outlook we all need. Emotional intelligence in marketing is something that needs to be more looked into and studied to make people’s experiences with brands better and more positive.