Emotional marketing helps boost customer trust, loyalty and feelings of friendship
By Donna Shryer
Emotional marketing speaks to you on a personal level. From a REALTOR®’s perspective, it’s less about stacking facts and more like storytelling. Instead of “large family room with fireplace,” create an image of the warm memories to be shared in a grand open space where family can enjoy the original wood burning fireplace and a welcoming view into a beautifully landscaped backyard. Are you listing a property with the latest smart home technology? For just a moment, set aside the techno-talk and explain from your heart how this home is where those you love most will be safely protected.
In short, emotional marketing tugs at your heartstrings or pings your ego rather than appealing to your rational brain. When done right, it can elevate a brand from mere product status to trusted friend.
Here’s an abbreviated snapshot of how Crest evolved from rational to emotional marketing.
In the early ’60s, the toothpaste’s ads reported that those using Crest with fluoristan had at least 34 percent fewer cavities. In 2018, an ad for Crest 3D White features a woman who wants to impress her boyfriend’s parents. It’s implied that using this toothpaste will “win them over.”
Was the move to emotional marketing a smart tactic for Crest? As of 2017, several reports cite Crest 3D White as the leading toothpaste brand in the United States.
Graeme Newell, president of 602 Communications, which specializes in emotional marketing, says using emotions to drive brand awareness and a customer connection is particularly effective when trying to influence big-ticket decisions.
“Convincing people to give up a gigantic sum of money for something they know nothing about—like real estate, cars or financial investments—can be a very emotional experience. It turns out that emotional marketing is quite effective in emotionally charged categories,” Newell says.
Proving the point
Ironically, it’s objective science that proves emotional marketing’s power. “We put people inside an MRI and monitor brain activity as they review different marketing materials,” Newell says. “We pay special attention to emotions that light up the part of the brain that processes trust—since trust is essential when it comes to turning prospects into big ticket customers.”
In another analysis, conducted by the IPA dataBANK, which includes 1,400 case studies of successful ad campaigns, purely emotional campaigns performed about twice as well as those with only rational content—and emotional campaigns did marginally better than those with a mix of emotional and rational content.
Honestly … you can trust me
According to a survey conducted by the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute,
a company that studies digital transformation, the leading emotional motivators when it
comes to igniting an emotional connection with customers are honesty, integrity and trust. But what’s the real estate agent’s best strategy to demonstrate these qualities?
Go Ahead! Have a Laugh
Emotions are so pervasive in our daily communications—from marketing campaigns to coffee talk—that we humans created emotional codes called emojis. In fact, emojis’ emotional strength is so internationally powerful that the 2015 Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was:
?
For the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was a pictograph, often called the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji.
Is there any better proof that decisions are often driven primarily by emotions, whether deciding on a dinner menu or a new home?
According to research by 602 Communications, when someone is “terrified” about making a poor decision—like buying the wrong house or selling their home too quickly—MRI analyses suggest that talking about this fear is a turn off. “People don’t want a problem/solution approach; they know what the problem is,” Newell says. “And they don’t want to hear about how great you are. The more you tell them to trust you, the less they will.”
So what does work? With big-ticket purchases, it’s all about telling a story that demonstrates a trustworthy relationship. As Newell says, “Tell a story about how you work with real people with real hopes and dreams—just like me. Be transparent. Be a human instead of a pile of awards and sales figures. Show how you empathize with others. This all tells me that you understand who I am; you’ve got my back. Just like that, we’ve made an emotional connection.”
It’s precisely how Sasha Farmer, CRS, does it. As broker/owner of Story House Real Estate, serving Charlottesville and Central Virginia, Farmer’s website gets up close and personal with clients and their story. Clients, she says, get star billing. Story House Real Estate is the supporting cast.
After she closes a sale, she sends a professional photographer to capture her buyer clients enjoying their new home. Then she posts a story about the clients’ experience—complete with names and faces.
“When people vet us online, they see real clients,” Farmer says. “Usually the response is, ‘I want that family’s experience.’ It’s a marketing approach that builds a much deeper emotional connection than we could ever achieve with anonymous testimonials, a headline that says ‘Trust us!’ and 20 pictures of houses with sold signs,” Farmer says.
Drilling deeper
The overarching emotion REALTORS® should cultivate in their clients is trust. Here are three ways to foster greater trust:
Be positive. More than two-thirds of social media shares have a positive tone and a lowly 7.7 percent of shares are negative, according to a study conducted by Fractl, a content marketing agency, and BuzzSumo, creators of a content monitoring tool.
Tapping into the happy factor is how Kelly Catallo, CRS, broker/owner of Cosmopolitan Real Estate Inc., serving Greater Boston, managed to sell a ho-hum home for $100,000 over asking price.
“It was a plain, six-room, two-bedroom home on the Mystic River in Medford, Massachusetts, outside Boston,” Catallo recalls. “So there I was, standing on the home’s dock, watching the river and wondering how I could possibly market this home—then it hit me! I wrote an ad that said, ‘Boat dock for sale. Comes with a six-room house.’ I posted the ad digitally, targeting environmentalists, boat owners, fishermen and anyone who would find special happiness in this home on the river.”
The ad went viral, both online and word-of-mouth, attracting almost 6,000 views and 145 showings within 48 hours, and it was sold within the week. “Real estate advertising is about telling a story that makes someone smile. You may have to dig to find the story, but it’s there,” Catallo says.
Be socially responsible. According to the Cone Communications Millennial CSR Study, more than 91 percent of millennials prefer brands dedicated to corporate social responsibility and tend to loyally stand by companies going beyond environmental and social well-being expectations.
Paul Pastore, CRS, associate broker with RE/MAX Infinity Realty, serving the greater Phoenix market, has multiple millennial clients, and he sees firsthand how much “giving back” means to these 18- to 35-year-olds.
As Pastore explains, RE/MAX Affiliates have a 26-year affiliation with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and during that time has raised more than $157 million for the 170 Children’s Miracle Network member hospitals throughout the U.S. and Canada. “In our office, it’s a choice to deduct a donation from every commission check, which is sent to the Children’s Miracle Network. I do it because I want to, but it’s also been the deciding factor when someone’s considering several listing agents. Marketing this emotional message—provided it’s done for the right reasons—is a win for everyone,” Pastore says.
Listen to clients. A study conducted by Capgemini, an international business-consulting corporation, reports that 80 percent of executives feel their brand speaks to their consumers’ emotional desires. The same study reports that only 15 percent of consumers say brands do a good job of emotionally bonding with them beyond a functional, rational relationship. Apparently, the majority of executives don’t know what they don’t know.
The point is that emotional marketing isn’t easy. Cutting through emotional clutter and tapping into what customers dream about, wish for and aspire to isn’t always a given. As Catallo explains, it’s a challenge to know the difference between what you as a REALTOR® want to say versus what the client needs to hear. “You have to listen,” Catallo says. “Those who seek to understand before they seek to be understood are the ones who succeed in our business.”
Do you have a successful emotional marketing real estate story to share with fellow CRSs? Post your comments in the We are CRS Facebook group. Not a member? Join today.
Think Small to Win Big
According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.
Most communicators apply this definition to groups, although many REALTORS® see it on a smaller scale, since much of the real estate process is done one-on-one.
Consider a story from Paul Pastore, CRS, associate broker with RE/MAX Infinity Realty, serving the greater Phoenix market. Pastore had a buyer who was a veteran—a former marine looking in the entry-level price range, which typically meant multiple offers in Phoenix. “I asked the listing agent if I could personally present my client’s offer to the seller—which I did,” Pastore says. “After explaining to Mr. and Mrs. Seller that my client had been in harm’s way protecting our country and now all he wanted was to return to the United States and a home, his offer was accepted—even though his offer was not the highest. It’s a wonderful ending to a great story.”
Pastore adds a caveat. “Some listing agents and sellers don’t want anything to do with emotional storytelling. They see this tactic as manipulative.” Pastore’s advice is to use personal emotional storytelling judiciously and always ask permission, so you’re sure that everyone wants to listen.
