Crafting An Emotional Connection In Ecommerce Offers

In Mad Men, Don Draper NEVER justified prices. Instead, he used emotional buy-in to sell identity and status. Here's the Don Draper strategy that makes price irrelevant: Most salespeople destroy their own value before a customer experiences it. They apologize for prices or explain costs upfront. They get defensive before anyone objects. What if price justification is killing your sales? This is where Don Draper's genius comes into play... In client meetings, Draper focuses on one thing: emotional transformation. He never says: • "Our prices are competitive" • "Let me explain our pricing" • "We can work something out" Instead, he does something revolutionary that research now validates. Remember the Kodak Carousel pitch? Draper transformed a slide projector into a time machine: "It takes us to a place where we ache to go again." He never discussed price. At all. When you justify price, you tell customers: 1. My product isn't worth what I'm charging 2. I expect you to object 3. I'm worried you'll walk away Their brain searches for cheaper options—even if yours is superior. Harvard researchers discovered something fascinating about this: When salespeople focused on emotional value—not price—customer lifetime value increased by 52%. Some industries saw over 100% increases. Why? Emotions drive decisions. Logic justifies them. How you frame the conversation from the start that matters. In the Lucky Strike meeting, when regulations threatened advertising, he reframed everything with one sentence. "Advertising is based on one thing: happiness." With those words, focus shifted from the problems to emotional transformation. This technique isn't just clever—it's scientifically proven. It's called "customer-centric framing." Here's how it works: 1. Start with THEIR situation, not yours Don't open with product features or pricing. Begin by understanding their current situation and emotions. This activates their emotional brain—exactly where you want them during pricing talks. 2. Create emotional contrast After establishing their reality, paint a picture of life with your product. Focus on transformation—the before and after. This creates emotional investment that makes price secondary in their mind. 3. Use storytelling to anchor value Draper never listed features. He told stories. Storytelling activates multiple brain areas, including those for sensory processing and emotions. This makes your value more memorable than any price discussion. 4. Position yourself as the guide, not the hero In every sales conversation, your customer is the hero. Be their trusted advisor helping them achieve goals—not someone "selling" something. This changes the power dynamic in pricing conversations. 5. Wait for THEM to bring up price If you've done the first four steps correctly: Either they bring up price from interest (not objection), or they're sold before the price becomes relevant. This is when value truly transcends cost.

Let me spill the tea on one of my biggest marketing wake-up calls. A few years ago, I worked on a campaign for a DTC skincare brand. We went all-in on the “rational” playbook—dermatologist-approved ingredients, clinical results, blah blah blah. Guess what? The moment the ads stopped, so did the sales. Ouch. Round two? Completely different story. We scrapped the boring stats and built a campaign around a real customer—a mom who’d been too self-conscious to take family photos for years. Her transformation wasn’t just skin-deep; it was life-changing. When we shared her story, the internet blew up. The takeaway? Emotional campaigns are more likely to generate buzz and shareability, driving more impressions and ultimately, sales. Tracksuit found that ads that elicit highly positive emotions are 27% more likely to go viral and generate word of mouth. What’s more, emotional ads are 40% more likely to reduce price sensitivity than all other ads. People will pay more for your brand if you make them truly FEEL something. At the crux of it all: Emotional ads stick in your mind and help you form positive brand associations. At any given time 95% of your target consumers aren’t ready to buy, but by creating an emotional connection with them, they are far more likely to remember you when they are. If you’re still leaning on rational, product-focused campaigns, I get it—I’ve been there! But it’s time to pivot. Tracksuit’s new report, The Emotion Effect, breaks down the “Seven Deadly Sins” of emotionless campaigns and shows you how to create ads that stick through plenty of real life examples. ✨ Ready to make every dollar work harder? Download the report 👉 https://hubs.li/Q02Zg_Bw0 Because when you tap into emotion, you’re not just selling—you’re connecting. ❤️

People value what they create 63% more. Yet most digital experiences treat customers as passive recipients instead of co-creators. This psychological principle, known as the "Ikea Effect", is shockingly underutilized in digital journeys. When someone builds a piece of Ikea furniture, they develop an emotional attachment that transcends its objective value. The same phenomenon happens in digital experiences. After optimizing digital journeys for companies like Adobe and Nike for over a decade, I've discovered this pattern consistently: 👉 Those who customize or personalize a product before purchase are dramatically more likely to convert and remain loyal. One enterprise client implemented a product configurator that increased conversions by 31% and reduced returns by 24%. Users weren't getting a different product... they were getting the same product they helped create. The psychology is simple but powerful: ↳ Customization creates psychological ownership before financial ownership ↳ The effort invested creates value attribution ↳ Co-creation builds emotional connection Three ways to implement this today: 1️⃣ Replace dropdown options with visual configurators 2️⃣ Create personalization quizzes that guide product selection 3️⃣ Allow users to save and revisit their customized selections Most importantly: shift your mindset from selling products to facilitating creation. When customers feel like co-creators rather than consumers, they don't just buy more... they become advocates. How are you letting your customers build rather than just buy?

Being rational with your advertising is killing your brand. Here’s how the top 5% of marketers use emotion to triple their results. First, here's the uncomfortable truth about modern marketing: Your audience only considers 2-3 brands when making a purchase. Getting your brand into that 2-3 isn't about shouting about features or dropping prices. The data is clear from this report from Tracksuit: ➝ Emotional campaigns double profit growth vs rational ads ➝ Brands with emotional connections maintain premium pricing ➝ Emotional content gets 27% more organic sharing So what does this mean for you? ➝ Stop chasing immediate buyers with your marketing (they're only 5% of your market) ➝ Build an emotional connection through personal brand/meaningful stories (drives 61% higher brand differentiation) ➝ Plant memory seeds in your customers minds (hint: emotions last longer than facts) The proof? Just ask Volvo Trucks. They ignored the obvious route of showcasing steering precision and technical specs. Instead, they filmed Jean-Claude Van Damme doing splits between two reversing trucks. The marketing team probably faced resistance: ➝ "But our audience is B2B" ➝ "Truckers don't care about fancy ads" ➝ "We need to talk about our product features" But their emotional gamble paid off spectacularly with: ➝ Zero media spend ➝ 100 million organic views ➝ 24% sales increase ➝ Cannes Grand Prix winner (not so marketing related, but a nice touch) Think about the last ad that made you feel something… Now think about the last ad that listed product features. Which one do you remember? That’s the choice your customers make every day. TLDR? Next time you make an ad ask yourself: "Will someone remember how this made them feel in 6 months?" If the answer is no, you're not building a brand. You're just making noise.

Before someone buys, there's a tiny window of emotional readiness. They’re in the mood. They're ready to say “yes.” And that window closes fast. So what happens when they click your ad and land on a page with: • Zero context for what they saw • No emotional reinforcement • Just “Buy Now” You’ve already lost. The Fix: Message Matching + Emotional Bridging Instead of “cool ad → cold landing page”, do this: • Mirror the ad's language and emotion at the top of the page • Restate the benefit they just saw in a deeper, more personal way • Ask yourself: “If the ad was the promise, does the page feel like the payoff?” Example: Ad says: “You’re not lazy. Your planner just isn’t designed for ADHD brains” Page should open with: “Welcome. You’re not broken. This planner was built for how your brain actually works” Small change. Massive impact. You didn’t lose the customer. You lost the moment.