Author Kurt Schauer
Usually, the advantages of online shops are emphasized over the corner shop. They are available 24 hours a day, offer a larger selection and are generally cheaper. However, there is also the other side: brick-and-mortar stores can convince customers who have not yet decided to buy much more effectively. They can appeal to all the senses - an ability that online shops cannot. This must be replaced by the concept of emotional commerce, which can be ideally implemented using the ideas of storytelling.
Brick-and-mortar retail can create atmosphere
To illustrate how emotional commerce works through storytelling, it is advisable to consider what brick-and-mortar retail can do that online shops cannot. It can create atmosphere: for example, you can sit in a new car, smell the classic new car smell and touch the steering wheel. These sensory stimuli trigger a mental movie in your head: What would it be like to own the car and drive it to work?
The atmosphere, which appeals to all the senses, guarantees that the customer's mind is not only occupied with the product, but begins to develop a desire for it. It is a basic human need to realize fantasies or make dreams come true. Over 90 percent of all purchasing decisions are made subconsciously. An online shop must generate precisely this desire impulse through storytelling in the context of emotional commerce. Simply listing product information is therefore not allowed.
How Emotional Commerce Works
Emotional commerce begins on the homepage of the online shop or on the opening page of the app. Visitors should be greeted with large banners. Responsive design - i.e. optimizing the display of the shop for the respective device - is mandatory. Over 50 percent of all purchases are already made via mobile devices - and the trend is rising. Users expect shops to be perfectly tailored to the size of their smartphone or tablet screens.
The products themselves should be marketed through storytelling
Chocolate manufacturers, for example, have had very good experiences with offering clips about the harvesting of cocoa plants. Coffee manufacturers like to use short videos to show how they strive for fair trade. Such films can be used to include specific product information. They are also suitable for cross-selling offers (for example: "Customers who bought product X also bought offer Y"). Technically, the integration of such additional elements is solved using side view or quick view elements. However, they should always be designed in such a way that the customer's engagement with the story that your shop is telling them is uninterrupted.
Advertising without noticeable pressure to buy
Emotional commerce via storytelling is advertising without pressure to buy. Atmospheric images and videos give the customer the opportunity to completely "immerse themselves". Short-term stimuli that could disrupt this process are absent. For example, a touching film about a family that runs its own plantation should never include a flashing notice that "cocoa is particularly cheap here today." Emotional commerce stimulates a customer's affection and interest in certain products and lets the limbic system do the rest of the work. Cross-emotional activations, such as the feeling of being able to get a bargain, should be avoided because they run counter to the original strategy.
Do you need help implementing emotional commerce strategies in your online shop? Are you unable to tell stories that really touch people? We at the kaos agency are happy to help with our know-how, creative ideas and a lot of passion. Just contact us now!
Any questions?
Eliana Gramer
Head of Web/Digital
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