Alexa, the owner of Thynktank Coaching, is an award-winning digital marketer optimizing marketing for SMBs.
Luis Alvarez
We are all familiar with joy. And of course, we all love to experience it. I mean, who doesn’t love to feel good? However, the paradox with joy is that many don’t see it as something feasible in today’s business world. We have glorified this idea of being a lone wolf and working nonstop to get just a little back and hoping for a day where it all pays off and we become uber-successful. In my experience, this perspective has completely erased room for feeling joy in a business and even a work setting. Joy has become something many of us strictly hear about in stories. However, business is storytelling. It is our job to educate our customers about our product and our brand. By highlighting the emotion of joy rather than the gloomy and dismal idea of being a lone wolf working from the bottom to the top, you can create room for a lot of the benefits that joy has and associate them with your product. Take a look at what marketing with joy can do for your business.
You associate your brand with joy.
When you market with joy, whether that involves using a photo that shows customers smiling or even putting a cute animal in an ad, you are helping people associate your brand with feelings of joy. Highlighting the joy that your product will bring to others connects that emotion and feeling of joy to what you are selling. When people think of your brand, they are going to be brought back to the memory of the ad or marketing campaigns that they saw and the joy that they brought them. You are beginning their journey with your brand by bringing them joy. This is a really great place to start. Think about it: When was the last time that you bought a product that made you feel sad?
Joy can translate to the internal operations of your company.
By marketing with joy, you aren’t only marketing joy externally to your customers, but you are also creating an atmosphere of joy within your company. The golden rule of good sales is not just to know what you’re selling but also to believe in what you are selling. When you really love the product you are promoting and the brand that you are working for, your joy assists in creating a positive work environment. The values that you market tend to carry over into the values of the company. Hence, a company that markets themselves as practical and sustainable tends to operate in a very practical, methodical and efficient manner. Companies that market themselves as innovators and game changers typically operate in a very collaborative and atypical environment and focus on cutting-edge and unpredictable work. The same goes for joy. A company that champions the value of joy and feeling good is likely to hold that same standard for the people who represent the company.
Joy is a great buzzword.
There are certain words that instantly grab a consumer’s attention. I’ve found that joy is actually one of the best ones to use. Joy is a great emotion to convey in your marketing that makes an unspoken promise to the consumer. Although you shouldn’t explicitly say “this product is guaranteed to make you happy,” conveying joy allows the consumer to make that jump themselves. Consumers purchase something to fill a need. Happiness or joy is a need. Incorporating the word “joy” into your marketing can compel the consumer to fill that need without any broken promises on the company’s part.
Joy is a differentiator.
Joy is not typically top of mind when teams are marketing a product. Most marketers promote products as practical, efficient, faster, stronger, the most high-tech and so on. We don’t typically see marketers promote products for the joy they bring. Sure, that is definitely a result the product can create. But it is not typically the forefront of a marketing campaign. Marketing with joy separates your product from the rest on the shelf. Of course your product is also efficient, high-tech and innovative. But what your product does that others don’t is bring joy.
Joy shows that the consumer is the first priority.
To piggyback off the last point, marketing with joy doesn’t just separate your product from the rest. It also shows that you had the customer in mind when you were making the product. Marketing the joy that the product is going to bring, and that joy is something your company values when it’s making products for the consumer, shows that they are the top priority. Marketing with joy shows that the product is made for the consumer, not to beat out another competitor. When consumers recognize and understand that they are the priority and motivation for the product, this can create a level of respect for and connection to the product. It can help consumers feel heard and cared about.
Joy is not just for the fairy tales. Joy is a feeling that your brand can cultivate and that can bring about many benefits for your consumers and your company. Next time you are beginning a new marketing campaign for your product, think “joy.”
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