Brands that tap into our emotions are far more powerful than brands that don’t. Connecting with human emotions is an inexact science at best – it’s more of an art. Yet it’s the main thrust of consumer marketing.

For many consumer products, the emotional component is obvious. Fitness, beauty and fashion product marketers almost always focus on overt emotional benefits.

With B2B products and services, it’s not always so obvious.

If you’re a B2B brand, there’s good news: studies have shown that business brands can stimulate the human mind and emotions in the same manner as do consumer brands. And you may be able to accomplish this if you develop your brand architecture around the emotional benefits your customers experience from using your product or service.

A good place to start with designing your brand architecture is by exploring the features and benefits of your product or service. Features and benefits selling is a relic from previous decades, but for marketers, there’s still something valuable to gain by evaluating the features and benefits of your brand.

How?

Evaluating them can help you uncover the emotional benefits that your customers experience from your product or service. These are what drive behavior changes, causing your buyers to take action.

It’s not about the new “whiz bang” feature in your software; it’s about how that feature (and entire offering) makes your user feel – when it frees up time, eliminates worry or makes them happy.

Top advertisers understand the power of focusing on emotional benefits. Look at Corona beer – now one of the top selling beers in the United States. How’d it get there?

Not by focusing on the beer.

In blind taste tests, Corona regularly ranks near the bottom – it’s rated as one of the worst tasting beers! “Awful.” “Smells horrible — it’s hard to get past the odor.” “Mostly tastes like seltzer.” “Tastes a bit metallic.” “Unpleasant taste and smell.”

Constellation Brands sells Corona by focusing on selling relaxation and vacations. Who doesn’t yearn for a Mexican beach vacation when it’s 15 degrees outside or after a grinding work week?

“Find Your Beach.”

That’s not just Corona’s slogan. It’s your task, too. Your brand has a “beach” – that is, an emotional benefit that will attract buyers. What is it?

A boring “features / benefits / emotional benefits” exercise might just help you uncover it.

Here are some plans that include instructions for this task:

• Create an Entire Brand Strategy
• Create a Positioning and Brand Strategy for a New Product or Service
• Take a New Product or Service to Market from a New Company