Understanding the Role of Emotions in Customer Experience

Stop treating your prospects like calculators. I learned this lesson painfully while leading the launch of a new solution for a healthcare transformation organization. The CEO and SVP of Product Innovation were well-intentioned, but they had biases that fueled their convictions. “Show them the science and ROI. Once they see the data, they’ll switch,” said the CEO. “They’ll switch?” I asked curiously. They rarely switched for the logic. They often resisted because we didn’t understand the emotion that tied them to maintaining the status quo. Most B2B marketers still build journeys on the idea that buyers only care about features, scientific studies, and ROI models. But real people buy with their hearts as much as their heads. LinkedIn's B2B Institute found that emotional factors significantly influence B2B buying decisions, accounting for 66%, while rational factors account for the remaining 34%. When you act like every decision is a math problem, you miss the emotional needs and biases that drive action. Fear of missing out. Desire for security. The endorsement of a trusted referral. Those feelings tip the scales long before spreadsheets ever come out. Three quick shifts to make your GTM more human: 💡 Map emotions, not just touchpoints. Ask: What’s the buyer afraid of at each stage? What small win can calm that fear? Use stories to build trust. 💡 Data is important. But a 2-minute customer story about real struggle and success sticks far longer. 💡 Frame decisions around loss-aversion. “Don’t lose your edge” often lands harder than “gain more efficiency.” When you blend hard facts with a genuine understanding of how people feel, you’ll see faster decisions and deeper loyalty. Takeaway: Your next user journey should start with these questions: ✔️ “How do we show up in our customers' struggles? ✔️ "Do they see us as relevant?” ✔️ Can they see their lives as being better because of our help? Build from there. #businessgrowth #GTM #buyerjourney #CMO

Stop Bombarding People with Data: Here’s Why Emotion Wins Every Time 90% of customer and donor decisions are based on emotion, not logic. While you’re perfecting that slide deck with 47 charts and graphs, people are out there making decisions with their hearts, not their spreadsheets. Most businesses and nonprofits lean too heavily on data. They assume facts, stats, and logic will do the heavy lifting. Data informs, emotion transforms. A study by Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman revealed that emotions drive up to 95% of purchase decisions. Nonprofits: Donors give because they feel connected to your mission. Businesses: Customers buy products that make them feel seen, valued, or inspired not because you’ve got a feature list a mile long. If you want someone to support you, you’ve got to make them feel. What to do about it: 1. Audit your communications: Go through one email, ad, or campaign. Is it all stats and logic? If so, it’s time for a rewrite. 2. Tell a story: Replace those dry facts with a narrative that connects emotionally. For example: Nonprofits: Instead of “80% of kids in X region lack clean water,” share, “Maria, an 8-year-old, walks 3 miles every day for clean water. Here’s how we’re changing that.” Businesses: Replace “Our product is 20% faster than competitors” with, “Meet Alex. She’s saved 3 hours every week since using our tool and now spends those hours with her family.” Stories light up the human brain. They trigger oxytocin (the empathy hormone), making people more likely to trust you, support you, or buy from you. Take 5 minutes today: Revisit one piece of communication. Strip out the excess logic. Inject a powerful, emotional story. With purpose and impact, Mario

Let's talk about the emotional algorithm of B2B decision-making. At the core of every buying decision—whether it's enterprise software or sneakers—lies the same human truth: Logic justifies. Emotion decides. Heartstrings loosen purse strings. We've spent decades pretending B2B decisions are purely rational. The data tells a different story: - Kantar research reveals emotionally-driven digital ads are *4X more likely* to build brand equity than their rational counterparts. - LinkedIn x Magna research shows *39% of B2B buyers* prioritize emotional connection when selecting vendors. (Yes, even for those six-figure contracts!) Yet I see most marketers make one of two fundamental mistakes: 1. They ignore emotion entirely, clinging to sterile "professional" content that feels safe but fails to connect. 2. They treat emotion as a blunt instrument, defaulting to generic inspiration that could apply to any brand in any category. There's a smarter, more nuanced approach. Our Creative Labs team at LinkedIn for Marketing decoded an emotional blueprint that maps precisely to the buyer's journey. I'm breaking it down in today's #PurnasProTip because it's too good not to share. After analyzing top-performing tech brands on our platform, we discovered distinct emotional patterns: - Awareness Stage: Winning content sparks celebration and love, mirroring the optimism of discovery. This is where possibility lives. - Consideration Stage: Reactions shift dramatically to insightful, reflecting the brain's need for evaluation and validation. Depth matters here. - Decision Stage: Top performers blend insightful + love, proving final choices require both confidence and emotional resonance. The head and heart must align. What this means for you: LinkedIn isn't a "suit and tie" network where emotions get checked at the door. It's where professionals come to solve problems, feel understood, and align with brands they genuinely like. The most successful B2B marketers are those who understand the emotional journey behind every seemingly "rational" decision. Infuse the right emotion at the right stage, and watch your impact multiply. Because heartstrings loosen purse strings. #HICM #CreativeLabs #B2BEmotion #HeartstringsLoosenPurseStrings

Traditional approaches to explaining customer behavior are no longer enough to ensure your company remains on the cutting edge. 🫢   Innovative solutions require fresh approaches to penetrating layers of conventional wisdom.   And that begins by acknowledging that the motivations your customers act on are seldom logical, predictable, or even conscious.   Instead, their strongest responses stem from one source: emotion.   Numerous studies, including two conducted by Gallup, have documented that over 70% of all B2B and B2C customer decisions are driven by emotion.   It’s a deceptively simple reality yet one that many companies often resist preferring instead to concentrate exclusively on seemingly quantifiable metrics because they seem safe and reliable.   But whether customers are consumers or other businesses, all customers are people. And people are emotional beings.   That’s why the best data in the world isn’t necessarily indicative of how they’ll respond.   Traditional research techniques are often unproductive because they generate predictable confirmation of a pre-conceived hypothesis.   Old methods are designed to measure rather than inform and therefore may fail to uncover genuine insights.   Frequently they focus on mapping reactions against existing services, products or internally based assumptions.   Emotional Trigger Research is a methodology that exposes the core, unfiltered and spontaneous triggers that drive behavior.   These triggers provide actionable intelligence that will enable your business to convert emotional considerations into winning marketing strategies.   Based on an indirect approach that features provocative open-ended questions paired with in-depth one-on-one conversations, the results are uniquely spontaneous and enlightening.   When asked the unexpected, most customers have no ready answers. Consequently their unplanned responses are more revealing, providing the most authentic window into the emotional triggers that explain their actions.   Emotional Trigger Research transcends the superficiality of what customers say to the far deeper level of what they really mean.   As the Pioneer of Emotional Trigger Research and Author of “Why Customers Really Buy: Uncovering the Emotional Triggers That Drive Sales”, I’ve spent my career helping CEOs and Owners of U.S. based companies leverage customer emotions to generate over $100 million in additional sales.   If you’d like to innovate a competitive marketing strategy that resonates with your customers emotionally, DM me and let’s chat.   Illustration: Your Marketing Rules    Ring the 🔔 on my profile to follow Linda Goodman for marketing strategy and business development content.   #MarketingStrategy #Sales #BusinessDevelopment #EmotionalTriggerResearch #Leadership #CEO #Entrepreneurship