How to Convey Emotion in a Digital World

Many years ago, you would never leave the house without your essentials: typically your keys and your wallet or purse (respectively). You needed these to do just about anything outside of the confines of your home on an adventure of just about any kind.

These days, it is likely you wouldn’t leave the house without your keys, your wallet AND your smartphone either. Let’s face it: the digital age we are in changed everything about how we buy products and services, consume media (think of how you used to watch, read, and listen to TV, News, and Radio today compared to in the past!), and all this has happened in a relatively short amount of time.

I started building websites before the advent of iPhones Android Tablets, back in 1997. We had to code EVERYTHING from scratch back then. Things have certainly come a long way since then. Everything we want is now in the palm of our hand, on-demand, on our own individual terms and styles.

As the most marketed to societies in the history of the world in our present day and this digital age, we have also become a culture that has become numb to the marketing methods that used to work in the past. We are immune to high-pressure sales and phone book ads. Those are not a good use of resources anymore. Most of us now hate to be sold but we LOVE to SHOP and BUY on our own terms. Think of the last time you saw a “carnival barker” shouting at you, trying to sell you something on major online marketplaces Amazon, Walmart, or eBay?

How about… never?

Time to get with it… Times have changed!

Now we live in a mobile-friendly culture where you might start watching a YouTube tutorial on fixing your and before long you are watching video shorts and Instagram reels of English Bulldogs, wearing sunglasses and riding on skateboards… and you are in the rabbit hole for hours on end.

Lesson: “Think Mobile Optimized First”

The goal of having a website in today’s digital age is pretty simple: manage your online reputation and sell your products or services. In other words, CONVERT visitors into CUSTOMERS. Then, rinse and repeat often. But the truth is that most businesses have to dial this in to get it right.

A good website is informative and compelling. A GREAT website converts traffic and helps visitors, your potential future clients, convert to buyers of your business services.

One of the biggest issues I see with most websites I do audits on in my digital marketing agency business is that they neglect to answer three crucial questions that provide the visitor with clarity, a value proposition, and your purpose in your business and compelling them to work with you in any capacity. Those are pretty simple but largely missed more often than not. Here we go:

· Who We Are

· What We Offer

· How to Purchase or Move to Next Steps

In order to do this effectively, you have to be able to make an emotional connection, establish trust and rapport, and build value. There is no need for fluff here.

Be Direct. Be Clear. Be Transparent. Build Trust. Sell more.

I don’t care how good your website might look and feel aesthetically, if you are not being clear with your intention and purpose as well as your invitation for a business relationship with a potential consumer, you risk losing the “opportunity cost” and potentially leaving money on the table. Who wants to make less money when the opportunity to make more is likely in the people visiting your website every day of the year?

The challenge is to answer these three crucial questions “above the fold” or before a visitor ever scrolls down on a desktop or mobile device. Most businesses I start working with usually miss the mark on this goal completely before I start my audit and advisement work on their website.

Lets continue…

The three most important parts of your messaging of your website or any marketing message for that matter is that it has to be relatable, authentic, and engaging to make that emotional connection with the prospective client. Businesses who do this effectively are almost guaranteed to book themselves solid or outsell their competition. Businesses who don’t usually have skinny kids. Most of the businesses I start consulting with don’t really know where to even start.

Keep in mind that humans typically make decisions on an emotional level, not a logic and reasoning level.

Think about this for a moment:

You don’t “think” you have to use the restroom, or eat, or take a drink from your cup… you feel these things emotionally.

Buying decisions are largely based in the heart, not the mind. Let me use an example here:

How have you FELT after you have ever BOUGHT a product or service you DIDN’T TRUST?

My point exactly.

Therefore, you have to convey that message of trust and connection with someone who may have never heard of you or your business and is visiting your website for the first time ever or you will likely lose them to another business that does this better that you.

The cold hard truth is that people have to like you to be able to trust you and trust you before they can ever move forward with the next steps to purchase from you online or pick up the phone to call you. Liking a business first is key here before trust can ever be built. Then there is a better chance of that prospective client making a buying decision.

One of the best ways to do this later in your website is through customer testimonials and reviews from reputable platforms that people are familiar with and know that they trust. Google is one of these main platforms and your reviews on Google matter. You can get a widget on your website that slides your best reviews in a carousel slider and helps establish that you are the one to work with. This is social proof and it works.

Need more reviews? Easy! Send a link to your customers, directly from Google, to your Google Business Profile page. Better yet, if you are seeing your customers in person, get a QR code created (This is Free, too!) and show it on your phone where they can scan it and leave you a review right in front of you, especially after they just had a positive experience! This works!