emotional engagement

Are you customers emotional about your brand? your products?

... or are they emotionally unavailable?

Do you know the difference between empathy and sympathy?

And when to use one over the other? Have you been using the terms - and the feelings - correctly?

In a famous essay written in 1996, Bill Gates declared that content is king. He presciently foresaw that faster connection speeds would make content the “killer app” of the Internet, creating a “marketplace of experiences, ideas and products.”

Does your brand or business have an emotional connection with at least some of its customers? If so, that’s a very good thing. A new study of retail chains showed that while just one in five consumers felt they had an emotional connection to a retailer, those that did were far more valuable as customers and as brand evangelists.

Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Seth Godin speak at a LinkedOC event. He was promoting his latest book, Linchpin, Are You Indispensible?

The Brown-Coakley Senate race in Massachusetts, which ended with the hugely unanticipated victory of unheralded newcomer Scott Brown for the Kennedy Senate seat, seems to be one of those "defining political moments" that you always read about in history textbooks. This, after all, was the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Ted Kennedy for over 40 years. The idea that an unknown Republican could win the Senate seat in the "bluest of blue states" -- especially after Barack Obama carried Massachusetts by more than 25 points just over a year ago - is staggering. And not just for political junkies.

The idea that ads that engage us emotionally work better than those that don’t might provoke a, “Well, duhhh!” reaction from Neuromarketing readers. Surprisingly, though, I still encounter business executives who don’t believe they are swayed by emotional factors when buying things, and often doubt that others are either. So, for those uber-rational decision-makers, here’s the hard data…

Years ago, I recall a devout Christian describing her experience in the Holy Land, where she touched the stone on which the body of Jesus reputedly had been placed. She described getting dizzy and weak in the knees from the contact. I don’t doubt that she was indeed deeply affected by touching the relic, although I suppose that the physical sensation she experienced was due to her beliefs about the significance of the stone rather than some kind of miraculous or paranormal happening.

by: Roger Dooley

by: John Caddell