The Human Touch: Get Emotional With Your Marketing

Machines can do a lot of things, but only you can connect with your audience on a human level.

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The machines have taken over.

In many ways, that’s a good thing. New applications and automation have helped credit unions save money, become more efficient, operate in real-time, provide value to members and much more. But, as a consequence of replacing more and more people with machines, credit unions risk losing their humanity.

In-person service at a local branch has been replaced by online self-service. Phone calls are now handled by interactive voice response systems, instead of people. Product recommendations are made by algorithms, rather than a trusted (human) advisor. The interpersonal contact once so essential to member service is now no longer a priority.

In a 2022 study, J.D. Power reported that “most banks are missing the mark when it comes to making their customers feel supported, as increasing numbers of U.S. consumers indicate an increase in their financial stress.”

As the caring, accessible, local alternative to indifferent, remote, global banks, credit unions are already well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity.

But first, you need to rethink your marketing approach. People who are disillusioned by big banks and shopping for an alternative won’t be impressed by your list of financial products. Big banks already have those products (and much more.) What will appeal to them is the human experience you offer, and the best way to communicate this experience is through “emotional marketing.”

The Emotional Marketing Approach

Emotional marketing taps into individual emotions such as joy, empathy or envy to inspire an audience to take notice, share, remember and/or take action, such as making a purchase.

Whether intentional or not, every marketing piece ever created has elicited emotions from its audience. Sadly, most often this emotion is boredom or ambivalence. Sometimes, it’s mild interest. On rare occasions, it is amusement, fascination or inspiration.

Below are some of the emotions people feel when viewing a marketing piece:

Neutral or negative:

Positive:

Statistics show that creative concepts that tap into positive emotions get the greatest audience response, followed by negative and then neutral. In other words, you can make someone happy or mad, just don’t make them bored.

Viral content provides great data on which emotions drive actions in people. For example, the human race’s favorite emotion is amusement. In almost every content form, humor is the most shared category.

Of the 42 most popular viral videos of all time, the top three categories are:

Content research firm BuzzSumo analyzed over 100 million online posts and determined that posts that elicited awe or amusement were shared the most.

A Marketo study found that the content most frequently shared by people is: Amusing, inspiring, amazing, uniting, warning, advising and/or providing discounts/offers.

Organic search specialists from Fractl state that “emotions are at the core of viral content.”

Emotional content overwhelmingly drives sharing, and according to recent studies, it also drives purchasing.

Research cited in Psychology Today showed that a “consumer’s emotional response to an ad has a far greater influence on their reported intent to buy a product than does the ad’s content.”

A Harvard study further supported those findings, identifying 10 emotional motivators that drive all consumer behavior. Among these are the motivations to:

The study’s authors recommended that marketers leverage these emotional motivators to connect with consumers in a more memorable and meaningful way. For credit unions, this would mean demonstrating how your organization, products and/or services can specifically help people be more successful, feel more secure and have confidence in the future. Given credit unions’ people-centric philosophy, this marketing approach is a perfect fit. While “people helping people” may sound old fashioned and outdated, the philosophy still connects with consumers today.

Connecting emotionally with members and prospective members can make your marketing and business development initiatives more effective in a number of ways:

Getting Started

First, make sure that everyone is on board. Emotional marketing can be creative, edgy and outside-the-box. If your leadership prefers to stick to the status quo, this approach might not be for you.

Next, gather your marketing team and conduct some research:

Visa Go World: Dan Jansen

Whitefish Credit Union: EcoChecking Skiing

Golden One Credit Union: Inspired By Our Members

Now that your team is sufficiently amused, inspired and intrigued, schedule collaboration sessions between your copywriter and graphic designer (and if you don’t have a writer or designer, you can get outside help with a marketing agency). Emotional marketing pieces must pack a punch. The copywriter and designer should work closely on these campaigns to ensure that both the copy and imagery evoke the right emotion and are in sync.

Consider creating three to four different concepts and presenting them to the marketing team (or another team within the credit union) to gather feedback and narrow down your final concept.

Once your creative is ready for deployment, be sure that you’re using the right marketing channels to reach the right people. A great campaign can go to waste if it’s not seen by the right people at the right time!

If you need help along the way or could use professional backup to get your leadership team on board, consider speaking with a creative consultant.

The ultimate objective is for you to connect with your audience on a human level, showing them that you understand their emotions, motivations and goals. Machines can do a lot of things, but they’ll never be able to do that.

Mark Arnold

Mark Arnold is founder and president of On the Mark Strategies, a Dallas, Texas-based consulting firm specializing in branding and strategic planning for credit unions.

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