Creating an Emotional Connection Increases the Opportunity for Customer Engagement
When you create an emotional connection with your customers and/or prospects, your ability to increase your customer lifetime value (CLV) is higher because emotional connections are a necessary element for having a relationship — and relationships are needed for customer engagement.
In the olden days, when people shopped locally, it was easy to have a relationship and connect with your customers on an emotional level because you knew them and they knew you.
Local marketers who adopt this philosophy today certainly attract more “loyal customers” than those who don’t and they have the ability to win back certain customers who have chosen to shop big-box or online.
B2B marketers are also wise to make the emotional connection with their customers too — after all, it is a person who is making the purchasing decision.
However, what do you do when you are a multi-national consumer brands company?
How do you create an emotional connection to the company that provides toilet paper, diapers, toothpaste, and the like?
I know I’m certainly not emotionally connected to my toilet paper (TP) — unless of course there is one sheet left on the roll — and I cannot think of one consumer product in my home that gives me the warm fuzzy of emotional connection.
This leads me to this video from Proctor and Gamble — which had me in tears this morning.
P&G understands that women are — most often — the decision-makers when it comes to many purchases for the home (unless, of course, there are no women in the home!).
P&G knows we women also tend to be more emotional than men and P&G understands that Moms often feel unappreciated when it comes to their roles while raising children. So, they create videos to pull at our heartstrings with videos like this one.
Will this video results in me buying more P&G products? Likely not, since I am not particularly brand-loyal when it comes to consumer goods. I also couldn’t tell you which brands belong to what company, so is this video useful?
The answer is yes — and no.
Yes, this video is useful because it’s been viewed nearly 20 million times. It’s got over 30,000 “likes” and over 3,000 comments. It’s an engaging video that is increasing the exposure to the company and its brands. … and let’s not forget that I am one of who-knows-how-many who is sharing the video on my website!
2021 Update: The original video referred to in this post is no longer available. Yet P&G continues to use heart-felt messaging as part of their marketing mix, so here’s another video:
And, my understanding of marketing has also evolved in the past years since this original post.
I created Marquee Marketing which is all about connecting with people at an emotional, creative, and engaging level.