3 Ways Emotional Intelligence Drives Success

If you’ve been reading up on articles about marketing, sales, and such all over the interwebs, you’ll notice that most claim that storytelling and emotions play a huge role in your eventual prosperity. Although it sounds simple enough: don’t be fooled into thinking that it's easy. The days of generic one-size-fits-all advertising messages that reach the widest audience possible are over. Focusing on what customers wish for and putting it into a couple of awesomely sounding sentences is a great approach to your campaign, but it's only the beginning of the story.

Nowadays, audiences far and wide respond to personalized storified landing pages, tailored specifically for them. Marketing has gotten way more specific and way more personal than it used to be.

Granted that you want to make it, your content has to make an impact on a rational and emotional level, preferably in one go. That is no easy feat, but it’s not impossible to achieve, especially through quality product storytelling and the right, sensibly sensitive advertising attitude that will propel you straight to the top. You’ll get that “human touch” in your marketing strategy by following closely and sticking to five elements of emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence: A Storified Guide

The basics of EQ are:

• Self-awareness: learn who you are as a brand, what you bring to the table and people’s opinions regarding all that you represent
• Know your motivation: what’s the “why” behind your ultimate marketing goals and what does your audience get if you succeed
• Utilize Empathy: knowing how will people receive what you’re offering, having their interests in mind, not only yours
• Self-regulation: you should filter out insincerity, self-interest, and anything can be interpreted as hostile or alienating
• Social skills: ability to communicate in an appealing, inviting way that will inspire future indications

In case you want a more detailed deep dive into this topic, check out our storified article on EQ. However, if you're all caught up and you’re curious to see why and how emotional intelligence will help you in various areas of your business undertakings, keep on reading.

1) Asses and Adjusts your Narrative

Nowadays customers care deeply about your brand and web stories just as much as they care about the quality of your product.

Remember: your brand’s identity is reflected in everything you do, post, or put out there. Every storified article is a part of your brand’s story and you should treat it as such. Employ social listening to research what people say about you and your company all over the internet. Keep an eye out on the way you’re perceived.

To get the trust and confidence you desire, they have to know you first, right? When people feel acknowledged and understood, loyalty and connection will follow soon after. It’s a two-way street, after all. An emotionally intelligent mindset will help you with navigating both lanes of that road. Being perceptive about how your audience thinks, feels, and behaves will help you adjust your brand’s persona and tone in accordance with what they want.

2) Harmonious Interactions Are the Basis of Everything

It’s not enough to know yourself and your audience, you have to venture out into the world and actually engage with your fans wherever and whenever you have a chance to interact. Authentic connections with your customers require a lot of time and energy to establish, maintain, and manage, but they are incredibly worth it if you do it right!

EQ helps when answering questions, creating posts, solving problems when they do arise. Being empathetic and putting yourself in another person’s shoes is helpful basically in every kind of interaction, whether online or offline. These five steps mentioned above remind us that behind those comments, likes and DMs are humans in search/need of a product/service. They are not conversions waiting to happen, sales quota waiting to be fulfilled or (on the other side of the spectrum) mean words from your haters. The marketing world is sometimes in dire need of a gentle reminder that on both sides of the interactions are actually humans - not machines, numbers, or corporate overlords.

3) Learning From Mistakes of the Past

And do your best not to repeat them in the future. Emotional intelligence will help you make the most of your mistakes and conflicts, by simply dealing with them in the right way, with the correct tone and approach.

Yes, to err is human, so you are bound to say/do/post something wrong at one point in time, whether you like it or not. If you want to see your storified microstore succeed, those mistakes are the perfect time to activate and employ your emotional side. Take responsibility for your wrongful actions and react in a timely and thoughtful manner. Don’t hide them away. In the age of the internet, transparency, and integrity when it comes to your statements or any storified ad is always the smartest move you're going to make. Staying true to your brand’s values is the most prudent move on any occasion.

Person to Person, Human to Human

Many companies appear stuffy and solely profit-hungry because they neglect emotions in their storytelling and don’t present themselves as they should. At the end of the day, you're not dealing with numbers, subscribers, buyers, or any other dehumanizing term we use for the people who matter the most.

For all of this to work, you have to be more than just a logo for your customers. When all is said and done, EQ helps you combine data with creativity in a way that makes your brand human.

We're all humans first and foremost, and it's crucial that we keep that in mind. Give your business a competitive advantage by tapping into your emotional side. And - put your best foot forward with personalized marketing with StorifyMe, of course!

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