Talia Wolf's emotional targeting framework

[00:00:00] The Role of Emotions in Purchase Decisions: An Interview with Talia Wolf

Ramli John: Emotions, the invisible strings behind every purchase decision we make. Maybe it's buying the latest iPhone, not because it's the best phone, because you want to just fit in. Emotions can be the difference between people buying your product or not at all. To help with that, Talia Wolf has dedicated more than a decade of her career@Muddy.com conversioner and now at Getuplift to increasing conversion rates using emotional triggers. In this market trading pops episode, you learn first why most buying purchases are emotional, including and the price deals. Second, common emotional triggers that drive purchases. Third, Talia's emotional targeting framework and fourth career prop that has been a game changer in Talia's 15 year marketing career. Now, before we start, I created a free power cheat sheet you can download, fill in and apply Talia's emotional targeting framework in your marketing. Just head over to MarketingPowerups.com or find that link in the show notes and description. Are you ready? Let's go. Marketing power ups ready, go.

[00:01:02] B2B Decisions Are Based on Emotion

Ramli John: Here's your host, Ramli John, before we dig into your framework around emotional targeting, I've heard it said to me many times, and I'm sure you've heard it said to you as well. Where hey Talia. Hey Ramley. I get it. My B to C consumer side. People are emotional when they purchase. I'm not sure, chocolates of flowers, that's an emotional purchase. But B, two B when I'm buying software, it's not. It's logical. There's a process. What do you say to those people? I'm sure you have some strong words that you want to share to those clue about that.

Talia Wolf: Ultimately, emotional targeting is all about the fact that we human beings make decisions based on our emotions. Every decision that we make in life is based on emotion. Meaning it's not just ecommerce decisions. When we're buying a dog collar, if we're buying a milk for the house, it is every decision we make in life. And B to B, consumers aren't robots or machines. We also have emotions. When you're purchasing something for yourself or your significant other, you have to think about yourself, the budget that you have, and maybe what your significant other is going to say. When you're purchasing something as a consumer for a company, there's so many more levers and challenges and criteria involved. You're worried about what your manager is going to say. You're worried about if the team is actually going to adopt this rule and take it on. What if there's a freak accident that deletes everything? There's so many things that can happen. And really it's not just me saying this. So Google A while ago ran a really incredible study that showed that 50% of B two B purchases will actually are much likely more to buy a product based on the emotional outcome if they see a personal outcome. So maybe it's a job, maybe they're going to get a career advancement, maybe they're going to feel more proud of their work and so on. So, yeah, B to B emotion, it works together. It's not A B to C thing.

Ramli John: Yeah, right. I think the reason why is people think, hey, when you think about B, two B, I'm targeting a business. A business is not emotional, but what you're really getting at, and I love that stat from Google, is that there's still a person behind that company who needs to make that decision. And that person is not like a robot that has no emotion. They care about a lot of stuff. That might not be the traditional emotion that we think about when we're purchasing chocolate or flowers, but there is still some emotion there involved. Definitely a lot of.

[00:04:06] Emotional Triggers in B2B Purchases Decisions

Ramli John: I'm curious, what are those common emotions maybe on whether that's B, two B or B to C, but what are some common emotions that affect?

Talia Wolf: So I think we do a lot of experiments for both B to C and B to B, and we've actually found that in B two B there's even more complexity involved because really. So let me give you an example. There's two different emotional triggers that come back over and over again that keep coming up with in SAS and in B, two B in general, which are social image and self image. Now, as a reminder, I said What Google found was that if someone in an organization sees personal value, they're far more likely to buy that product. So self image is how I feel about myself when I buy a product. How am I going to feel about myself? Am I going to feel proud? Am I going to feel smarter? Am I going to feel more educated? Is it going to make me feel more confident in what I do at work? Social image is what are people going to think about me? Are they going to think I'm a rock star? Are they going to make me the person they go to when they have a question? All of these are factors that people take into consideration in a B to B purchase. And we've seen this time and time again. So a lot of the times when we're writing conversion copy for comparison page or a home page or product page for SaaS, we're taking these emotional levers into consideration. What does this person behind the screen need to feel about themselves? What do they want other people to think about them when purchasing a product? And that's important.

Ramli John: And those two things I feel like you talked about the self emotion and then the social emotion, they're really key part into any kind of, I guess buying purchases and interesting, you said even more so in B two B where there is a lot of complex stuff that is affected there that we just talked about.

Talia Wolf: We've been doing a lot of user testing lately for some of our clients. One of our clients is a project management solution product and we recently are doing some user testing for another SaaS company. And what we find is usual behavior when someone is trying to figure out if a product is right for them is they'll land on the homepage and they'll see the offer, the one true offer that what is the end result that we're promising them? And then what will happen is they will jump into the pricing page, they'll check out. Okay, is it the same as the competitors? It's more or less the same. That's fine. Let's move back. And then they'll see, does it have most of the features? Yeah, that's fine. And then they need to make a decision so that are they going to start a trial with you? Are they not? And most if not all consumers then start diving into, is this for me? Now you could say to me, Vitalia, they just said it's for them. They've seen the pricing, they've got all the features. Isn't that enough? No. Now they're looking for a personal, emotional connection and that's where emotional targeting comes in.

Ramli John: Can you give examples of that? Personal emotional targeting. I'm imagining images that look like them or words that they use that resonates with them. Yeah. I would love to just hear what are some ways that as marketers we can now connect with them on a personal, emotional level so that they complete that purchase.

Talia Wolf: There's testimonials, there's the stories that we tell. It's also the big promise. Right?

[00:07:59] Carving Out A Niche In A Crowded Market

Talia Wolf: So let's take the project management solution platform, Teamwork. Teamwork, our client is up against many big competitors in the market. There's clickup, there's rank, there's Monday. Teamwork has carved out a beautiful space for themselves because they really do understand their target audience and their emotional triggers. They have built a product that to a naked eye could seem like all the rest. But when you zero in on the stories, who's giving the testimonials what are we highlighting on the homepage? What we're talking about on the solution pages, on the comparison pages. If you are a service provider, if you run retainers, if you do projects for clients, if you run client work, teamwork is for you. And we've done everything on the website throughout the customer journey to show that to people because otherwise they could use a different competitor. Because the features are the same, more or less, and the pricing is the same, more or less. But what people are looking for is that. So the testimonials are from people that do client work. The features that we highlight and the results that we highlight are to do with what a client facing company will want to achieve. And that is the key to emotional targeting. And that's how you also stand out in a crowded market.

[00:09:29] Emotional Connection as Key to Winning Customers

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Talia Wolf: And I think know the threat of AI, as everyone likes to call it. We leverage AI all the time at Getuplift. We use it for our research and we use it for many things. But ultimately what people are looking for is connection we're bombarded with thousands of messages a day and people are advertising to us all the time. How do you choose? You choose the ones that you most connect with. Because if you as a company are going to try to go for the best price or the best features, ultimately, if not now, at some point, as you said, some new technology will come in, some new AI will come in and they will win because they will beat you. But if you have a strong connection with your prospects and you connect with them on an emotional level, then the entire customer journey is built around that. That means every single ad that you write, email that you send, landing page that you create, everything is geared towards connection. And that connection is what increases your lifetime value. It reduces churn. That really is what helps you.

[00:12:09] Discussing Emotional Connection with Product Brands

Ramli John: Yeah, I was just about to say that it's harder to leave a product when you are so emotionally invested into it and maybe the community behind it and the people behind it and how it relates to you so much that for me, it's like trying to leave Apple. I know some people are starting to get hate from Apple haters right now when I said that, but when I'm so integrated into their system and it just works and I have an emotional connection with them, it's harder for me to separate from it. Because would you say in some sense that when you get emotionally connected with a product and how it's relating with you, their identity starts becoming attached to that? Where Apple is fun and things like that, but for teamwork, they might be listening and emotion and they've kind of associated a part of their emotional identity. Maybe I'm reaching too far here, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

Talia Wolf: I use an accounting software that I love. I'm not going to name any names, but I love it. And the reason I love it isn't because it has better features. I love it because they've taken the time to create different prompts within the customer journey that I feel they understand my business and what I need. And it's incredible because every email that they send or even the login page, everything is around me and my business. And I feel like they've got me, they have me. And if I need anything, any question, I'll get answered. And I'm sure that if I went to a different product, I could probably get the same service and I could probably do the same. But as you're saying with Apple, it's the same with an accounting software. I mean, how boring is an accounting software? And yet they've made it somehow know the colors that they're using, the words that they're using, the way they connect with me and many thousands and thousands of businesses is what keeps people with them. And I think that is the key to everything.

Ramli John: Especially in SAS, we're really getting into what the end goal looks like.

[00:14:29] Applying Emotional Targeting in Marketing with Talia Wolf from GetUplift

Ramli John: I'm curious what the process is for marketers who are tuning in. Talia, I want that. I don't know what you're talking about. I want to build an emotional connection with prospects and customers. Where would you suggest marketers start? What would be some kind of steps that you would suggest for them to take to start implementing emotional targeting into their content, into their copy, into their website and their marketing?

Talia Wolf: Well, the good news is you don't need an insane budget. So you look at Lego and the apples of the world and you think, yeah, well, they're emotional money, they have. The good news is you don't need deep pockets. The bad news is there's a lot of work involved. So it's not like waking up in the morning and like up, I know this now you need to do foundational work. So to get started, the key to everything is meaningful research. And that means doing customer surveys, doing visitor surveys, running interviews on your customers, doing review, mining many, many different pieces, emotional competitive analysis, really doing in depth research. And what I mean by that is when I ask you who your customers are, telling me their age, geographical location, gender and the browser that they're using is not good. It's not enough. I need a lot more than that. And I don't want your persona that you built in an hour workshop of Jane, 32, lives at home with a white picket fence. I am looking for real, meaningful data. And what that means, those insights are, what are the top three pains and challenges that your prospects are facing? What are the top three emotional outcomes that people want to feel after finding a solution? What's happening in their day to day lives that make them look for a solution. All these questions need answers. And once you know the answers to these questions, it's far easier to look at your landing page and say, oh, I'm talking about this. But no one cares about this at all. They want to hear this. So the good news is that once you do this research and you go deeper into your customers emotional profile, it is so much easier to write copy. It's so much easier to build a funnel because you know what they want. So to get started, do a customer survey. To get started, run a visitor survey. But start going back to the foundation and ask yourself, who am I actually speaking to and what do I want to say to them?

Ramli John: And I love what you said. It's not about the persona, made up stuff that you wish you had. It's really about what words do they use, what emotions do they say they have around certain things. Anything specific you ask in that survey? I'm curious. It doesn't have to be a list, but are there favorite ones that you love? If you have a client, you should have these questions, at least in the survey.

Talia Wolf: We have many different questions that we like to ask, but one of the things that we try to avoid is, why did you sign up? So one of our favorite question is, what key problem would you say? Solution. So your solution eliminates or lessens for you. This is a great real question that helps you understand the value of your product, not asking, why did you choose it? Why did you sign up? Because then they'll just say this feature or that feature or that price. But if you ask them, what problem were you trying to actually solve and what does this product actually lessen for you? It helps them zero in on the problem that led them to you and what they're actually getting out of it. Now, the questions really that you need to think about is how do you frame it around them? For example, can you describe how you use this solution over the last month? How have you been using it? What have you been using it for? You can ask them. One of our favorite questions is, how would you describe this solution to a colleague, a friend of yours, if you were trying to convince them to use our product? It's a great way to get a testimonial, but it's also a great way to understand how people describe your product, what they think about it. Which words, as you were saying, Remley, do they use to describe what you do? All of this stuff can then be leveraged for copy.

Ramli John: That makes a ton of sense. I love how you're really trying to figure out just getting them to describe their problem and how it's helping them, rather than like, why did you buy a product? Which is a knee jerk reaction? Maybe sometimes for some folks and you're really getting that, and then you start taking those.

[00:19:37] Insight Mining Process with Talia Wolf

Ramli John: I'm curious, once you have all this research data, do you have a process to actually mine it for insights, especially if you get a bunch of response? I'm sure maybe you have some tips around that because it could get quite messy with all the responses you've gotten.

Talia Wolf: Definitely. So important thing is that we don't just use one poll of insights, we try and use many. So we're doing customer surveys, as I mentioned, we do visitor surveys. We do customer interviews. We do review mining, where we review thousands of reviews online. We do social listening, where we're looking at different conversations online. And what we're really looking for is common themes. So we have different people poring over spreadsheets to see what are the common themes that are coming up. And you start noticing we're looking for specific things. I mentioned this before. What are the top three pains that people keep mentioning? What's the top three things? What's the one desired outcome that people keep mentioning or the one thing that it solves for them or lessons for them? What is the top three words people use to describe us to their friends or their colleagues? And what we do with this knowledge is once we put it into this slide deck, obviously, but kind of just looking into the data and saying, okay, these are the people wE're speaking to. These are the pains that lead them to our website. This is what convinces them to sign up. This is what convinces them to pay. This is what convinces them to stay. Now we go and we audit the website or the emails or your entire product and say, okay, here's what you're saying. Here's what your customers want to hear. Here's what you're showing. Here's what people want to see. So the goal really is to just go back to foundations, figure out the answers to your most important questions, which how do people feel right now before finding a solution? What do they want to feel? How do they want to feel? And once you have those answers, you can then go to your website and it's suddenly crystal clear to audit it and see what's not working. And that's when we can start suggesting, okay, here's all the experiments we're going to run. We're going to try this strategy and that strategy, and we can start running tests or writing emails and so on. So the process really begins with looking for those common themes that are around pains and desired outcomes. And that's kind of where we start.

Ramli John: You're really sharing this, getting deep into this process here. I'll link some resources that you have available on your site as well as other places with this.

[00:22:27] Exploring the Career Journey of Talia Wolf, from Monday.com to GetUplift

Ramli John: But I do want to shift gears and talk about careers, career power specifically. You've been in tech and marketing for many years. Now you're a marketing director@Monday.com. You are like CMO at Bananasplash. And now you've been for some time like the founder and CEO of Get Uplift. I'm curious what's something that's helped you with your career, whether that's a hard skill in marketing or a soft skill in terms of relating with other people. But I'm curious what's given you a leg up as a marketing leader and a consultant?

Talia Wolf: You know, the funny thing is that my journey started out in a social media agency, and from there, I went to what was then depulse. That wasn't Monday. Three people sitting in a broom closet. That's a whole different story. For about a year, we sat in a broom closet. It was called the Pulse before it rebranded to Monday. And from there, we started conversion out, which was a conversion optimization agency. And we ran that for a few years and then sold it. And then I was the CMO at Banana Splash, and I did that for a few months, and I was like, nope, I just want to do. I want to do emotional new. I don't want to do campaigns. I don't want to run that emotional roller coaster of, I don't know if you know this, Ramley, but I started get uplift when I was six months pregnant with Rio, my first kid. I was not planning, okay, I quit banana splash. I was like, I'm just going know, take some time off and figure out. Maybe I'll write a book or something about emotional marketing, because that's what I love. And my shine crew, who, you know, some of its members, Gia and Claire and Tiffany and Joanna Webb. And they were my strengths because they were the ones to turn around and say, talia, you can do this. You can start a company now. You can launch a course. You can do all this stuff throughout the whole time, not just then, like, throughout whole journey.

Ramli John: Wow.

Talia Wolf: We've been uplifting each other through the hardest times, personally and business wise. And I think if there's anything I can recommend to anyone. I started, as I said, I started to get uplift in 2016. I was six months pregnant. I fooled. I was crazy. But look, I mean, it's a great, and it's successful and it's good, but I couldn't have done it without my support system, women around me that understood me and what I was trying to build and what I needed and were there to help me think things through. So it's not like a marketing tactic that helped me. I'm sure there were many of those that I could think of and books that I could recommend, software, but really surrounding yourself with your own shine crew is the key to everything in my opinion.

Ramli John: That's so good. I think especially it's something that I wish I started much earlier in my career as well, where I just kept to myself. And even people just reaching out online and connecting with other marketers in your industry is helpful, I think for people who are much younger, just say hello, reach out to folks on LinkedIn and just say, hey, we're in the same space, let's connect. And I guess you eventually find your Shine crew. I think I've heard this story from Gia, but is that how the shrine crew found each other? I think it was at a conference or something like that. Or how did that come about? So that people can be like, how do I find my shine crew?

Talia Wolf: It's actually a wonderful story. I don't know if that's how you would form your own shine career because I think today, thankfully, thankfully and regrettably, we have social media, so you can definitely connect with many people. For us, it was at a conference at Ctaconf Unbounces legendary conference where Gia was there, I think, and Joanna was there and Tiffany was there. I don't think I was there. I was the conversation later where know turned around and said to them out of the blue, she doesn't even know them yet. She's like, do anything about impostor syndrome and like, feel like you shouldn't be on stage. And that was it. That was it. That was the key to it all. I think over the years we've added different people and it's been a privilege to know these women. And I think we've know, especially Tiffany De Silva because she speaks about this on stage too, about her shine crew and impostor syndrome. She's incredible and she's helped form many shine crews. I think if you're looking for a shine, know any slack, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, you know, there's so many different places you can find your crew. What I would challenge you to do when you are looking for one is to look for the people you're a little intimidated by. Because I think for me, the idea of being in a Shankaru with Joanna Webb, the OG of copywriting, was intimidating. And April Dunford. But to make yourself better, you need to surround yourself with better people. Exactly. That also helps a lot. So, yeah, I'm not intimidated by them anymore.

Ramli John: You are all friends now. You are in the same shoes as well. I think that's a good way to approach it. Often people that intimidate you, you're like, oh, they'll never respond to my message, but I think that taking your shot and just saying, hey, I'm having this problem, you find out like, hey, I'm also having the same problem. And that builds that emotional connection there and really forms a bond and trying to really help each other out. That's what I'm hearing.

Talia Wolf: Who knew? It's all down to emotion.

[00:29:10] Marketing Powerups Newsletter and Podcast Promotion

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