Digital marketing is evolving, and while metrics guide our decisions, the next frontier is decoding the emotional motivations behind the metrics. .
Emotions drive practically every action a consumer takes from the first click all the way through to the point of purchase. Top marketers are not simply interpreting the numbers, they are also interpreting how one feels in that moment, and generating that feeling into motion.Why Emotion Triumphs over Logic
Decades of behavioral studies have established that people will first make an emotional decision, then rationalize it after the fact. When buyers feel an emotion – trust, excitement, belonging, they are much more likely to act. Digital marketing campaigns that stir an emotion will create a compression of conversion rates far greater than a campaign simply focused on information.
Take Apple’s product launches, for example. Apple does not simply showcase the latest functionality in their products, they are selling an emotion – creativity, empowerment, possibility. They are not informing you, they are inspiring you.
The Fourth Wave of Emotional Data
Artificial intelligence and sentiments analysis are the new currency, and marketers have emotional analytics at their fingertips that can determine the emotional tone or mood of user-generated content; track consumer emotional sentiment toward ads; and categorize audience sentiment across platforms. In fact, social listening tools can scan thousands of posts on external media.