In a recent post by Seth Godin ‘Facts Always Win, Right?‘ he raises the challenge of when relying on facts gain be at the peril of your business. As a great advocate of making business decisions based on facts, rather than subjectively filtered personal emotions, I certainly support that different rules apply in marketing functions.
Selling will always involve emotion – even to the most rational, hard headed buyer. All prudent marketers are aware of the decision making profiles of their main market segments. Some buyers make decisions purely on emotions and never really apply any logic. Some buy on emotion, then attempt to rationalize their purchase afterwards with rationale to either support their purchase to others or overcome buyers remorse. And the rationale, intellectual will carefully analyze all the pros and cons, but will always be swayed by an element of emotion – more in terms of fear or ego, rather than pleasure. Businesss Intelligence should lead marketing efforts in terms of segmentation and knowing your customers, then emotion comes into play in carefully crafting advertising copy to entice the desired response.
There is always a role for good judgement in business, even outside the hard data.