A few years ago I read a book called “The 5 Love Languages“, written by well known author Dr. Gary Chapman.
The five love languages describe the way we feel loved and appreciated. Depending on our individual personality types, we may feel loved differently than how our partners do. Understanding and decoding these different ways of showing love will help take the guesswork out of your partner’s expectations and needs.
According to Dr. Chapman, there are five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch.
Today is Valentine’s Day – one of my favorite holidays for marketing because it’s one of the more ‘palatable’ holidays in terms of receiving marketing messages. The theme is “love”, which almost everyone agrees is universal.
But what does love have to do with business?
Are there any correlations between marketing and the 5 love languages?
…come to think of it, love and business have a lot in common.
There are 5 big categories and your business can use them individually or in combination to realize connections with consumers and clients.
Let’s take a look shall we!
Now, at first glance these might seem like a group hug seminar topic list but, in reality, each one of these categories can have a huge impact on your marketing, expand your customer base, and improve relationships. Successful marketing connections with consumers is no exception to the appreciation phenomenon discussed in Dr. Chapman’s book. This is why, for example, loyalty programs are so effective at market penetration if they are designed correctly, regardless of the industry, service or product.
How the categories are applied in your online marketing plan depends on your engagement goals and the amount of resources you’re willing to allocate, but they are all effective regardless of the scale of investment.
Quality Time Improves Connections
You can spend energy and resources generating open-ended content and chatter online as well as in-person, but are you really connecting? In this fast paced technological business age where every day the seems to introduce new ideas, wasting time is the last thing anybody wants to be doing with their marketing efforts. Your consumers and customers don’t want to be inundated with data, and useless information taking up precious hours in the day. They want to connect. Value, yes, but more than value, most want to feel CONNECTED. The way you get connected is with quality time. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care…” This point relates to website design as well. Top web designers appreciate readers’ time by getting them right to the point, clear and simple. Great internet marketing doesn’t take a half hour to read; your message should be understood and acted on in less than five minutes. When you bury your message in big words, endless paragraphs and complex concepts, you lose people. Follow the K.I.S.S. Method. Keep it simple sweetheart.
Words of Affirmation Improves Engagement
Not all of your social media marketing has to be about your next sale, product release or discount. Butter up your accounts and consumers with lots of great messaging about how they are the smartest, savviest with-it people in your industry with your marketing service. What you’re going to see happen is a spike in interaction, involvement, and most importantly, sales. Words of affirmation triggers the “keeping up with the Jones” effect, an age-old marketing behavioral response that involves emotional action on the part of consumers. Showing realistic, funny and positive messages, images and videos about your target audience’s “lifestyle”, they will relate and engagement will increase.
Gift Giving Builds Your Email List
Why do people love Christmas? Gifts of course! The fact is people expect to get gifts. And that’s the time of year when the most gift-giving happens. Have you considered a give to get strategy at your website? For example, “Opt into our newsletter, or check into our Facebook Page, and we will give you XYZ” This will increase reactions, engagements, and expand your customer base. When you start spelling out that gifts are both a reality and solid expectation, your readership will increase. Other common examples of gift-giving that have been used for years with consumers include loyalty point programs, coupons, special surprise prizes, contests and lotteries. People are willing to commit to price points when they perceive there’s an honest chance they could win. And that generates real-time sales and revenue. Your offering becomes equated with an immediate benefit that is unique to the buyer. No one else gets the benefit unless they participate, which of course drives even more interest. It’s a bit of a viral response model that’s been in play since before search marketing and social media were in the marketing mix.
Acts of Service Improves Brand Perception
If you want customers to develop loyalty fast to your brand, consider increasing the number of “acts of service” you are doing for them, and for your community. These are many ways your business can go the extra mile for a customer, expecting nothing in return. Customers expect you to over deliver these days. Especially with the arrival of review websites such as Yelp and Angie’s List. The web is a giant chalkboard and no one is immune to bad reviews. Acts of Service as it relates to marketing means doing something for a customer without any benefit to your company. This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of long term customer relationship. In order to keep customers loyal, it is important to consistently exceed expectations via acts of service. A great example is when car dealership provide free transportation to and from the dealership while the customer’s car is being repaired or serviced. There’s no cost perceived, but the service is extremely beneficial to the customer. The key point here is to make the consumer or customer’s life better and easier. All of these service benefits get remembered and become the reason why retention goes up as well as repeat sales. And don’t forget, community benefits are noticed as acts of service as well. Consumers take note of business reputation management when a company makes a point of giving back to the local community.
Physical Touch Keeps It Real
No, we’re not talking about suddenly running out and tackling people to hug them. Physical touch in marketing consulting terms means getting personal with your consumers and customers. The most obvious way to do this is through face to face meetings. But the act is far more than just a lunch meet and greet. You need to interact with customers physically, in person, rather than just via email and screen share. Physical, in person meetings are the best way to build emotional equity with customers and brand ambassadors. By showing you’re actually connecting and conversing on a personal level, you trigger the view in many that your business is highly personalized. When people realize your business isn’t just selling but instead is being involved with them, they engage and stick around. That translates to more leads and more sales as well.
What’s your favorite marketing love language? 😉
About the Author: Taylor Reaume is the founder of Launch 805, a full-service web marketing agency located in Santa Barbara, CA, providing web marketing services, including social media consulting, web design, web programming, and advanced SEO strategy. Call 805-570-1385 for a complimentary Google rank analysis. “Like” the Facebook page for regular insights on website marketing strategy.
Share your thoughts…
132 56 7 1
I think that observing quality time with customers is the best way marketers can show how much they care. There are those who simply cannot spend a few more minutes with a customer because they want to hurry to the next. This is not a good way to ensure brand loyalty.
Physical touch is very vital yet so hard to do these days due to the digital age. Is it just me or the list enumerated above are or can be applied at a universal level Marketing or otherwise. This is why I always go to places. I mean being online is good but it will never beat the old fashion way. Meeting and talking to clients personally.
Gifting or granting incentive to customers is really a good love language with marketing. I hope business owners know this.
I have been reading online articles trying to get tips for successful marketing..marketing is not my forte but I believe that having some skills under my belt will make me exceptional in this area.. expanding my customer base is one of my main objectives and I feel relationship matters..loyalty programs work like magic..one thing I have learnt here is the way my website should be designed.. since customers don’t want to be fed with useless information, its wise to put in content that is clear and straight to the point..the interface should be easy for anybody to navigate through.. spot on
Quality communication and feedback is key to customer satisfaction. Most online businesses forget the feedback aspect.
This is amazing and interesting to to hear. 5 good love language in business. Thanks for this educative post.
There is always something about gifts that people dont understand. It builds a connection even stronger than you can imagine. Also I love the physical contact aspect.
This a very crucial phase in business, impressing customer always is one area where all business owners should deal with and 1 statement I believe should come from a good business person is to say… Thank you for your patronage, I love you.
It is rather difficult to determine which one is my favorite because all of them are actually interrelated and integrated to be implemented in order to obtain tangible results in marketing. For me, marketing will succeed by treating everyone like your life partner with full attention to what they want and need.
Word of Affirmation really gets me no matter what field it is used on. For me it meant a pat on my shoulder and some says ” GOOD JOB or I am proud of you!!! In business I imagine it being a boss recognizing people for all their handwork. In this case a company giving back or providing great services to clients as they acknowledge that without them a company will not prosper.
awesome..I have been browsing the internet for an article that talks a lot about online marketing.. the barebones and all..thanks a bunch for posting this.. you have no idea how pumped up I am…kudos
The 5 language of love is sure the right language that every good business man or woman needs. It will help in the business growth.
Your consumers and customers don’t want to be inundated with data, and useless information taking up precious hours in the day, they want to be in contact and also feel like been important in the company. Let them know their feedback is properly considered.
Of course we may feel loved differently than how our partners do, this makes us normal 🤣🤣. This 5 love language cut across all spheres of life. Make use of it and see things change to your favour.
I like how you’ve been able to tie love and how to apply the concepts to marketing. This is quite unique and refreshing!
Indeed love and business do have a lot in common. I had no idea the two were so intricately intertwined!!
I like the words of affirmation tip. I can totally see myself applying that to my business!
Loyalty point programs and coupons have worked magic for me in the past! I would recommend it for any serious marketer out there.
Getting personal with your consumers and customers really can go a long way. The customer feels more valued when this happens.
This is a great write-up indeed. I love how you have managed to strike a similarity between love and business. Truly genius!
These principles if applied effectively can really transform any business. The idea of loyalty programs is one that I am particularly interested in.
Using gift giving to expand your email list is a stellar idea. That’s one I definitely have to try out 🙂
‘Acts of Service’ especially to the community can really go a long way in building a good brand. Nothing is as valuable as a good brand name!
Building emotional equity with customers and brand ambassadors is a novel idea. The benefits of doing so in the long run can be immense.
I am tempted to read the ‘The 5 Languages of Love’ Book. Looks like there is so much to learn from it. Thanks so much fro the helpful information.
These are not just a love language of business but it is how it should be. However society deems these differently. However this gives me hope that despite what society is today. These still exist. These are concepts that has no expiration date and can be applied daily.
You need to interact with customers physically, in person, rather than just via email and screen share, though might be difficult to practice but we could try. Customers are the life line of our businesses.
The 5 language of love, even an online customer will forever be loyal if this languages can be properly understood and given by a business owner. This will go a long way in helping businesses. Lovely