By Nancy Harhut (Chief Creative Officer)
As a marketer, what’s your favorite holiday?
Would you say Christmas, because of all the sales associated with it? Or maybe you’d come down on the side Halloween, which prompts plenty of commerce yet remains “blessedly” nondenominational?
They’re both fine choices in my opinion.
However, I would argue that the holiday every marketer should love most is Valentine’s Day. And to support my position I turn to scientific research.
Yes, there’s a science-based reason Valentine’s Day should hold a special place in your marketing heart. (Tweet this!)
But first, what do you immediately think of when you hear the word Valentine? I’ll bet many of you just answered “love”. And that makes perfect sense. Because Valentine’s Day is the day that celebrates love and romance.
And here’s the thing – love is a very powerful emotion.
As a marketer, you have to appreciate the role of emotion in decision-making. Numerous scientific studies show that people make decisions for emotional reasons, and then justify those decisions to themselves and others based on rational reasons.
In fact, neuroscientist Antonio Dimasio took things a step further. He found that people who had sustained injury to the part of their brain that controls emotion found it virtually impossible to make decisions.
That’s right. No emotion. No decision.
Of course as marketers, we need people to make decisions. We want them to try, to buy, and to buy again. We want them to recommend us to their friends. We want them to give us information about themselves. In short, we want them to make all kinds of decisions.
Which means that basically, as marketers, our world depends on emotion.
And it turns out emotions don’t just help people to decide. They also make a more lasting imprint than rational thought, which is terrific for building brands. And they help us to create a connection with our customers and prospects.
What’s so great about that? If we manage to connect with people, they trust us more and become more open to responding to us.
In short, it puts us in a better position to persuade them.
However, it turns out that not all emotions are worth the same to us.
Studies show, for example, that social posts that prompt anxiety, awe, wonder, and fear get more shares. Other studies indicate headlines using negative superlatives (think “worst” over “best”) also attract greater readership.
This could be why the behavioral science principles of Loss Aversion, Social Proof and Scarcity drive so many decisions.
Behavioral economists have found that people are twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss as they are to achieve the pleasure of gain. Essentially, people fear losses more.
Social scientists have also documented the power of Social Proof – that common decision-making shortcut that prompts people to “follow the crowd”. No one wants to miss out on what everyone else is buying or doing.
Finally, scientific research – not to mention our own various in-market tests – shows that Scarcity motivates buying behavior. The idea that a product or service may not be available much longer automatically makes it more attractive.
Clearly, there’s a whole lot of emotion going on behind the decisions people make. And savvy marketers know this is true in both the B2C and B2B arenas. People are people. And emotions drive a considerable amount of human behavior.
Of course every holiday stirs up its own emotions – which is a good thing for us marketers. But the next time you’re asked what your favorite holiday is, you might want to move February 14 to the front of the list.
Because if there’s one holiday that’s devoted solely to emotion, it’s Valentine’s Day. And as a marketer, you just gotta love that.
Nancy Harhut is the Chief Creative Officer for Wilde Agency. She has previously written about visual marketing hacks, pricing strategies and the importance of decision defaults.
For additional behavioral science tips, follow Nancy on Twitter or check out her hit session from the INBOUND 2016 conference, “10 Human Behavior Hacks That Will Change The Way You Create Email“.
The post Why Marketers Should Love Valentine’s Day Most: A Behavioral Science Based Argument appeared first on Wilde Agency.
