It’s All About Emotion
By Gina Reuscher
In today’s world filled with massive amounts of information and intense competition for consumers’ attention, finding a way to cut through the clutter is critically important. Today’s consumers are largely desensitized to traditional marketing messages; in fact, according to advertising tech firm Unruly, 97% of Internet users don’t trust advertising.
That means for dealerships that are still promoting “blowout sales,” and “monster deals,” your messages are probably being met with healthy skepticism or even being downright ignored.
So what’s the best way to gain a car shopper’s attention and their trust? Develop a video marketing strategy that taps into their emotion. Small, medium and large companies alike can use emotion to create and strengthen bonds between their brands and their customers.
When it comes to buying, emotions matter more than logic and reason. According to a recent Gallup study, “businesses that optimize this (emotional) connection outperform competitors by 26 percent in gross margin and 85 percent in sales growth.” Emotion sells because it happens on a very instinctive level. People may not be aware of why they’re buying–they just know they feel good about it.
According to global marketing research firm Nielsen Holdings, emotion is key for driving purchases. In a recent study, ads that generated above average electroencephalogram (EEG) scores delivered a 23 percent lift in sales volume. Conversely, ads with below average EEG scores were associated with a 16 percent decline in sales volume. In case you’re wondering, EEG is a technology used to track brainwave activity and non-conscious response to communications.
In another report from the UK-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, 1,400 case studies of successful advertising campaigns were analyzed. The an
alysis compared the profitability boost of campaigns that relied primarily on emotional appeal versus campaigns that used rational persuasion and information. The results: campaigns with purely emotional content performed twice as well as those with only rational content, and those that were purely emotional outperformed those with mixed emotional and rational content.
Admittedly, these analyses refer to large-scale advertising campaigns. But the psychology of tapping into emotions can be applied on a smaller scale to your dealership’s video marketing strategy.
Define Emotional Goals
In marketing, we talk a lot about calls-to-action. What do we want the customer to do? Including a call-to-action is important in video marketing as well. For every video that you create, first ask the question “What is the action I want the customer to perform at the end of this video?”
The second question to ask is “What do I want the customer to feel during this video?” Every video should have two ultimate goals: generate an emotion, then tie that high-power feeling to a specific action.
In video marketing, there are basically two actions that customers can take: share and convert. Your dealership’s video marketing strategy should include both types of videos.
Action Goal: Sharing
Social sharing is an effective and important marketing strategy, but it’s not easy to achieve. A recent study conducted by frac.tl digital marketing agency found that videos evoking surprise and anticipation-related emotions were most likely to be shared, and that in general, videos that generate positive emotions get more shares. According to the study, the most impactful emotional responses are:
- Amusement
- Interest
- Surprise
- Happiness
- Delight
- Pleasure
- Joy
- Hope
- Affection
- Excitement
For dealerships, the action goal of sharing is most appropriate for videos designed to promote brand awareness. These include dealership value proposition videos, employee profile videos, and customer testimonial videos.
The easiest way to generate an emotional response in these types of videos is to tell a story. Tell the dealership’s story, tell a customer’s story, tell your employees’ stories. For each video, define its emotional goal and also identify what the social motivation is for sharing. This will help you shape the content of your video.
According to Unruly, the mains reasons why people share videos are:
- To connect with friends about a shared passion or interest
- To help socialize with friends offline
- The sharer believes the product or service could be useful to friends
- The video promotes a good cause
- The video is about a current trend or event
- It demonstrates the sharer’s knowledge and authority about a subject
- The sharer wants to be the first to tell friends about a subject
- To start an online conversation
- Because the video says something about the sharer
- To see what friends think
Action Goal: Conversion
Videos can also produce deeper funnel results. In Barry Feig’s book Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy, he uncovered 16 emotional opportunities that drive conversion:
- Desire for control
- I’m better than you
- Excitement of discovery
- Revaluing
- Family values
- Desire to belong
- Fun is its own reward
- Poverty of time
- Desire to get the best
- Self-achievement
- Sex, love, romance
- Nurturing response
- Reinventing oneself
- Make me smarter
- Power, dominance and influence
- Wish-fulfillment
For dealerships, the action goal of conversion is most appropriate for inventory videos and video emails used in the lead follow-up process. As you sit down to create these types of videos, select the most appropriate emotional opportunity from the above list. Then tie it to a desired call to action, whether that’s making a phone call, sending a text or clicking through to a landing page.
The emotions that you want to generate will most influence the audio or voiceover portion of your videos. Let’s face it, with inventory videos there’s only so much you can play around with lighting or mood effects without getting cheesy.
Focus on How the Vehicle Will Make the Buyer Feel
To generate an emotional response, focus on how the vehicle will make the buyer feel. In most inventory videos, the voiceovers simply recite all the features and data that the consumer can already see on the Vehicle Details Page (VDP). So if you can create a unique voiceover that generates desire, excitement, taps into the sex appeal of a car, appeals to safety issues or family values, you can really differentiate your dealership.
Additionally, you may want to consider adding a music track to your videos. Music is a powerful tool that heightens emotion. Music can be fast-paced and exciting, or slow and gentle. Just Google “royalty free music tracks” and you’ll find plenty of sites out there offering music free of charge. Just be sure that the music volume is low and stays in the background, and doesn’t become a distraction from the data being presented.
Creating a video marketing strategy that ties emotional responses to specific calls-to-action will help your dealership cut through the noise. Videos are the ideal medium for increasing brand awareness, social sharing and conversion rates. Incorporating the power of emotion into your video marketing program will help your dealership strengthen its bond with customers, increase brand loyalty and increase sales.
40 Emotional Responses to Aim For in Your Videos:
Happiness
Exhilaration
Amazement/Awe
Inspiration
Humor
Contempt
Sadness
Sympathy
Fear
Delight
Pleasure
Hope
Affection
Interest
Trust
Passion
Excitement
Greed
Warmth
Nostalgia
Uncertainty
Frustration
Sex Appeal
Desire
Pride
Admiration
Anger
Disgust
Love
Humor
Grumpy
Cranky
Surprise
Knowledge
Shock
Confusion
Serenity
Joy
Optimism
Validation
