Why did my best email flop?
Because I followed the best *gooroo* advice.
I’m sitting on my ugly desk, with a mediocre coffee… writing an email.
The email is written with some of the best gooroo email tips in the world.
Subject line formula. Short email. Blah Blah Blah.
I hit the send button hoping I’d be a millionaire by tomorrow morning, sipping a Piña Colada on a beautiful beach in Costa Rica.
I wake up with shiny eyes, and the first thing I do?
Open my laptop. Check my stats.
Nada.
The email flopped.
- The subscribers didn’t relate to the message
- They didn’t take any action
- I made zero sales
Why do you think that happened?
I wasn’t aware of the emotional journey of my customers.
I wasn’t aware of which end of the emotional spectrum to target.
And you know the result.
That’s the case with 80% of marketing.
Not knowing your customer’s emotional journey that dictates their buying decision = you cannot address their emotions in your messaging or in your emails.
So, what do you do?
If this is the first time you’re reading an article by me…
Hi, I’m Rahul Choudhary and I’m the founder of Beef Up Media, the go-to email marketing agency for Solopreneurs & SaaS businesses.
🧠 Understand Your Audience’s Emotional Starting Point
During any buying decision, people are always on an emotional journey. From one emotion to another.
You have to find out the starting point of their journey.
What does that mean?
Where are they now before taking your offer?
There are primarily two possibilities for this:
→ They have a negative emotion: Frustration, overwhelm, disappointment, etc.
→ They have a positive emotion: Optimism, excitement, joy, etc.
There’s no right or wrong answer.
Your solution can be right for both of these people.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll target both of them simultaneously. That’ll just cause confusion for both audiences leading to minimum to no action.
You need to be crystal clear on whether your message will target people who are starting from a place of negative emotion or a place of positive emotion.
That’s how you get precision with your targeting. That’s how you get people to relate to your message (and act).
And for that, you’ll have to conduct thorough customer research to find out their emotional starting point.
Don’t know how to do a thorough customer research? I cover that in detail in the Free Customer Clarity Kit. It also comes with customer persona workbook + template.
🚸 Crafting The Emotional Pathway
Once you’re clear on which emotion you need to start with, you have to create an emotional pathway.
This is the emotional path your target audience will take from the primary emotion you decided to the final emotion that’ll feel after taking (and applying/using) your offer.
Again, there are two ways you can do this depending on your primary emotion:
😢 Negative to Positive Transition
This journey will help the audience transition from negative emotions to positive outcomes.
Initial emotion: Frustration or overwhelm
- Your audience may initially feel overwhelmed or disappointed because of past failures or whatever reasons that you’ll find in your customer research.
Transition: Seeking solutions
- This frustration leads to a proactive search for solutions, marked by a mix of hope and cautiousness. They start exploring external solutions that can solve their problems.
Discovery and relief
- Upon finding a solution that aligns with their needs, they experience relief. This brings a sense of optimism about future possibilities.
Satisfaction and confidence
- As the solution begins to deliver results, there’s a transformation to satisfaction and increased confidence. This improves their overall morale and optimism.
Here are two examples for this journey:
▻ A social media management tool targets content creators who are overwhelmed by the need to produce consistent, high-quality content. By highlighting features like easy-to-use templates, AI-generated drafts and automated posting schedules, the tool addresses the fear of not keeping up with content demands. And then they reinforce this transition from fear to relief and confidence by customer testimonials showcasing significant time savings and improved content quality.
▻ A life coach notices that many clients come with a sense of disappointment from past failures. To address this, she develops personalised coaching programs that start with acknowledging these disappointments and then focus on small, achievable goals. Success stories shared in newsletters and social media showcase clients who have moved from a state of disappointment to one of accomplishment and satisfaction. (This is a real example from one of my clients)
🤩 Positive Reinforcement
This journey helps the audience to enhance and maintain positive emotions throughout the funnel.
Initial emotion: Optimism or excitement
- This audience might start from a position of optimism, possibly because they’re doing good and are excited to do better.
Exploration and anticipation
- With positive energy, they explore different solutions, feeling anticipatory about the potential of these solutions to amplify their results.
Enthusiasm
- When they start using the solution and start to see positive outcomes, their enthusiasm grows. There’s a sense of achievement in making a decision that’s making a positive impact.
Pride and empowerment
- Continued success leads to feelings of pride and empowerment. They feel more in control and confident.
Here are two examples for this journey:
▻ A fitness app uses gamification to turn the exercise routine into an exciting challenge. Users receive rewards and badges for achieving milestones, and they can participate in virtual competitions with friends. This approach keeps the users’ excitement high, as they not only see physical results but also enjoy the fun and competitive aspects of the app. This leads to higher engagement and retention rates.
▻ A graphic design service provider recognises that clients are excited about seeing their ideas come to life. To enhance this joy, they provide a highly personalised design process and regular sneak peeks of the work in progress.
Get it Now? 🤔
Once you understand the emotional journey, the game shifts entirely in your favour.
Because then you know which emotion to tap into for any particular stage of your audience’s buying decision process.
Meaning?
- Messaging that resonates better with your audience
- More engagement, clicks, and sales
- A filled bank account
So, go ahead and map out your audience’s emotional journey.
Found this article helpful?
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