Rational vs. Emotional Marketing

October 30, 2017 | Blog, Resources

Four yellow balls with facial expressions depicting different emotions: a sad face, a happy face, an angry face, and a worried face.
If you are ready to kick off a successful marketing campaign, you have to weigh the benefits with the costs of money and resources. Sometimes, we have to make cuts that will harm the impact. Getting it right is half of the battle – and it doesn’t help that there are so many options available to use. Many people prefer to use predictive techniques that allow for a more rational approach whereas others are more interested in appealing to the emotional side of marketing.

While rational marketing highlights the benefits of your product on a factual level (i.e. it will make you 50% more likely to run a mile in under 10 minutes), emotional marketing pulls at your audiences’ heartstrings (fit into your high school prom dress again!) Both approaches have validity and when they are packaged together, they can be extremely potent.

However, you have to realize that it is hard to balance the two together.

Rational Marketing Appeals To Reasoning

While working in marketing, it is easy to list off dozens of reasons and statistics about why your product or service is the superior one. These reasons are so deeply ingrained into your mind that you don’t even have to think about it. Anyone who watches television or sees internet ads can tell you about the statistics put forth to them – this pill will make you feel better in two weeks, this drink helps you lose weight at a 70% faster rate than diet and exercise alone, these chips are 25% more crispy, this software works at twice the speed of the leading competitor, and so on – we have all heard these. Statistics and facts sound impressive to all audiences, including other businesses that probably utilize some of the same techniques.

It’s a fairly straightforward approach: explain why your product is better than the others in a simple and easy to understand way. Maybe add a little something to make yourself unique. This is the most common sense approach to marketing and advertising that appeals to everyone, including entrepreneurs and business owners who tend to have more rational thinking minds.

Sometimes, however, it just isn’t enough, especially in competitive markets.

Tugging At The Heartstrings Helps With B2B Marketing

The more emotional approach to market puts everything into a completely different light. In these types of marketing campaigns, the focus isn’t on what the product does but instead on how it makes you feel emotionally. Think of advertisements for software products that bring teams together – images of people giving high fives, shaking hands, and generally celebrating can be enticing for those with work environments that are tense. This is an approach that works as well for more professional services as it does for alcohol, make-up, and even toilet paper.

You do have to be careful that emotional campaigns don’t fall flat if you cannot find the appropriate emotions. It can be difficult to highlight the right tone, but if you are able to know some information about your target audience, it is easier to pinpoint what emotional strokes will work without seeming too manipulative.

Rational vs. Emotional B2B Marketing

There is some debate about whether or not emotional marketing can work in a B2B sense. Often, we default to the rational approach because we all assume that the information needs to be based on facts.

This isn’t always the case, however. There has been some proof recently that newer, more innovative companies that rely on B2B consumers actually benefit from emotional marketing. They are viewed as more modernized and cutting edge.

Are Marketing Campaigns Stronger With Some of Column A & Columb B?

There are many people in the marketing industry that argue the debate between emotional and rational marketing is a fool’s errand. We are all part rational and part emotional and it is silly to think that we shouldn’t try to appeal to both sides. The most effective marketing campaigns use both to support their products, no matter who the target audience is.

It is sometimes difficult to determine when, where, and how to use the different approaches, however. With tools like the ones from MRP, you will be able to work your way through the swamp much more quickly than you can imagine – and perhaps find your go-to tactics to easily convert more sales.

 

 

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