The power of emotional marketing has never been quite so evident. Case in point: how the vast majority of brands recently instinctively abandoned their traditional campaigns in favour of empathetic community minded messaging, delivering campaigns that echoed their audiences’ sentiment and needs to great effect. Yes, some of the campaigns were obvious virtue signalling, but that’s another story.

And now, as consumers tire of the ‘we’re with you’ messages, the focus has turned to creating lighter, more humorous, more hopeful campaigns that are designed to inspire and entertain. It seems the pandemic has awoken the emotional marketer within all of us.

So, now we have experienced the mother of all emotional events – how do we capture what we’ve learnt and apply that in the future? A big part of the answer is emotional intelligence.

What is emotional intelligence?

At its simplest, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as the emotions of others, and to use this knowledge to make decisions or shape actions. It’s generally accepted that there are five characteristics of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, empathy, social skills, motivation, and self-regulation.

For brands, it’s ultimately about connecting authentically with an audience. It’s about communicating the brand’s purpose or ethos and finding shared values that bring the two groups together.

How do brands demonstrate emotional intelligence?

Knowing more about the five characteristics of emotional intelligence is the first step. Here’s a top-line summary of each:

Self-awareness: being aware of your brand’s actions, how it makes people feel, and admitting any weaknesses
Empathy: understanding feelings from your audience’s perspective and demonstrating that you know what the world is like for them
Social Skills: knowing how to read a conversation, and how to behave within it
Motivation: giving your audience the motivation to act on something that may go beyond your bottom line
Self-regulation: knowing how to control emotions, impulses and opinions

Putting Emotional Intelligence Into Action

Want to dial up the emotional intelligence of your brand? We’ve put together our five ways to start thinking and acting with greater EI.

1. Understand your audience

Understanding your audience is essential. Only once you know how they think, feel and act does true empathy becomes possible. (Of course, your empathy must be authentic, people can smell a platitude a mile away). If you have customer personas, check that you’ve included their personal and organisational goals; their emotional needs; insights into their personal motivations; and environmental contexts. Workshops, one-on-one interviews and qualitative research are good starting points for enhancing your understanding of your audience.

2. Resonance

Once you have a clear understanding of your audience, your content needs to start reflecting and connecting with their self-image. Bring your messaging into line with how they are feeling, what they value and what they are doing. Does your brand mean something to them that’s more than utilitarian? Does your audience relate to your brand? Are you effectively and clearly communicating who you are for and who you are not for? Creating a deeper psychological connection or bond is the goal.

3. Storytelling

We all know the power of storytelling and how marketers can use this to great effect. But don’t just stop at writing an interesting story, make sure your stories tap into the wide range of emotions available to you, whether it’s on in your social feed, blog, TV ads, podcasts or videos. Pick a core emotion and build your story around that. For example, nostalgia is a powerful emotion that’s proven to drive purchasing action, and of late we’ve seen brands use that to great effect.

4. Stand for something

One deep-commitment way to build emotional connections with your audience is to stand for something that you believe in, or to take a stance on a social issue. Understanding the nuances of cultural shifts is important, and make sure you clearly and consistently explain to your audience why this issue is important to you. This needs to be genuine. Committed. Authentic. Nobody loves a brand for jumping on a bandwagon. Brands can make a difference to societal change, but don’t be opportunistic.

5. Go Long

In all of your communications, think about creating a long-term relationship with your audience. Look to build trust by being consistent and reliable and build affinity by being educational or entertaining. Always provide content of real value. The very foundation of loyalty is emotional engagement. Customers see it as an added value and differentiator of your business. Think of the strength of your emotional connections with your audience as a quantifiable business asset that needs to be nurtured and maintained.

ECS - Emotional Content Score

You might know your IQ, you may know your EQ, but what about your ECS? Introducing our new measure of great emotionally intelligent content, the Emotional Content Score (ECS). Simply give yourself a score marked against each of the criteria and see how your content is performing.

Results

90-100 High: emotional intelligence at its best

70-90 Above Average: excellent emotive connections

50-70 Average: acceptable emotional levels

50 and below Low: less likely to connect

5 Ways Brands Can Improve Their Emotional Intelligence