Human emotions are powerful.
Our emotions are responsible for the majority of the decisions we make. Knowing how to capitalise on our emotional decision-making could help your bottom line.
Connecting from an emotional place
Humans are hard-wired to make decisions based on emotions. That's why it can be challenging to get a person to change their mind, even when what you say makes logical sense.
When it comes to buying power, it is no different.
Good salespeople have developed the ability to connect with customers from an emotional place. And a product that can make an emotional connection will be the one taken to the checkout.
When a consumer looks at the multitude of skincare offers in any given store, the product they choose may be different from the one that will be most beneficial to them. Their purchase might have nothing to do with the ingredients and everything to do with something that played on their emotions – think the shape and colour of the bottle, brand, celebrity endorsement, scent, or perhaps the texture.
Logic v emotional
Understanding our brain's complexity will help you appreciate how we process information.
Our brain is composed of three systems, each developed at a different time in our evolution.
The first system is our reptilian brain, our most primitive brain. This system controls our essential functions: breathing, heartbeat, and fight-or-flight instincts.
The second system is our limbic brain, which forms the seat of human emotions. It allows us to learn and plays a significant role in our memory. It also draws us towards things that make us feel good and away from things that don't.
The third system is the neocortex, and this system is responsible for speech, planning, visualisation and intelligent control.
We process ideas first from our reptilian brain, in survival mode, then from our emotional brain, and lastly, intellectual. We are not thinking machines; we are feeling machines that think. And that's why pointing out all the facts, figures and benefits of plain-packaged Product A over fancy-packaged-but-inferior-quality Product B won't necessarily mean that Product A will be the one that's bought.
The power is not in the convincing but in the connecting.
Cosmetics: Emotions by textures
SEPPIC, a specialty ingredients company for the health and beauty industry, has developed a cosmetic texture wheel with four concepts built around four different emotions.
The minimalist concept
Emotion: need to be reassured.
Texture: simplicity, frugality of ingredients, back to basics, chic and fresh
The nude skin concept
Emotion: natural beauty.
Texture: purity, simplicity, transparency, velvety, matte
Cocooning concept
Emotion: comfort and protection, feeling unique
Texture: softness, shine, richness, freshness and light
Oxymoron concept
Emotion: harmony of paradoxes
Texture: transparent gel, rich emulsion, sparkling foam – surfaces with opposite effects to stimulate emotions.
Trulux offers private-label products like BB cream, Anti-Pollution serum, etc.
More Trulux products are available here.
Main image courtesy of www.freedomrc.org