How can brands create emotional resonance with their audiences?

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Iris’ 2021 Participation Brand Index finds that indifference towards brands has doubled since 2018, with 8 out of 10 brands not being thought about regularly and 82% of consumers admitting they are not excited by brands.

Emotional resonance has the ability to close this customer experience gap. If something has a resonance for someone, it has a special meaning or is particularly important to them.

Empathy is the key to emotionally resonant campaigns, and emotional connections with consumers have never mattered more, especially since the pandemic started in 2020. Consumers are still in a state of pandemic uncertainty, which is forcing businesses and brands to be more aware of their consumers' emotional state and lead with empathy in all marketing and communication efforts.

Tune into their feelings and emotions

Emotional resonance, or influencing consumers by evoking emotion with your communication, is an important part of all marketing strategies. When you get your target audience to feel deeply, they become more interested in your brand or business, more loyal, and ultimately more likely to buy from you.

Music, books and film are art forms that form deep emotional resonance with listeners, readers and viewers. Every melody, word, or scene can evoke an emotion or create a memory for people.

Words matter and storytelling is the most effective way to achieve emotional resonance. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure that your copy and imagery inspires confidence, joy, or conviction.

In an age where digital dominates, your consumers are equipped with more knowledge than ever before. This has subsequently led to higher expectations with the choices that they are provided with. Your brand or business has to make a concerted effort to tune into their feelings and emotions, to build a connection and to ultimately build loyalty.

Customer empathy

The only way to do so is to grow empathy and to resonate with the emotions you’ve tuned in to - their needs, wants, dislikes and frustrations?

Consumers now remember both positive and negative experiences with greater intensity. That makes it crucial for businesses to exhibit extraordinary levels of emotional resonance to understand the factors that put customers at either end of that spectrum.

The burden has never been greater for businesses to get their campaigns, messages and all their interactions with customers right.

According to Adobe’s 2021 Digital Trends Report: "Empathy is the future of experience. Customer empathy will be used as a differentiator with brands demonstrating knowledge of their customers and the unique ways they can serve them.”

While emotion is a driving force here, the most robust method to achieving emotional resonance lies with science and research.

Neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio stated: “We are not thinking machines that feel, rather we are feeling machines that think.” Along with this statement, he discovered that every human decision depends on emotion — every single one.

Using research, data and neuroscience to find solutions to consumers' problems can enable your team to test multiple ideas and narrow down your focus on what the best solution is. Adding emotional resonance to the research mix can help identify new problems and lead to your brand being the solution.

Qualitative research needs to remain flexible in this instance as you delve into what problems your customers are experiencing.

At the end of the day, conversations trump campaigns. The conversations your consumers are having with you, your competitors and with you need to be careful and constantly monitored in order to keep and gain market share.