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Introduction What is the essence of low emotional intelligence? What are the 'low-EQ' behaviors in marketing? Starting today, let's explore high-EQ marketing with Lao Miao.

Lao Miao is a typical engineering guy, who often has a major flaw: being too rigid and not paying attention to people's emotions, commonly known as 'low EQ'. The biggest loss was in young love—like telling someone with a cold to drink more water, or sending them home when it's cold, only to be given a 'good guy' card and then nothing more.

A former colleague, Xiao G, went on a blind date and struggled to find topics with the girl, so he asked office colleagues for advice. Someone told him to talk about zodiac signs, a topic most girls like. Xiao G looked down on this 'low-IQ' topic. Someone explained that zodiac signs are quite accurate because people easily accept a general personality description and label themselves, which is called the 'Barnum effect' in psychology.

Xiao G found it interesting, searched online, and thought it was indeed fascinating and high-IQ. He was excited and went to the date with sparkling eyes. It's said the girl was really into zodiac signs (maybe pretending), and then he talked about the Barnum effect for two hours.

And then, of course, there was no 'then'! It shouldn't have had a 'then'!

When someone talks about zodiac signs, they want emotional resonance. Telling them it's just psychological suggestion makes them feel intellectually crushed—that's truly stupid.

Okay, I admit, the 'someone' who told Xiao G about the Barnum effect was Lao Miao. Sorry, buddy, I owe you a girlfriend. We'll settle it when we conquer the Hu Family Village.

In marketing, many companies also have this 'engineering guy' mentality that ignores market emotions, and 'low-EQ' marketing is everywhere.

Many industry analysis reports claim that after years of impetuous and immature development, the market has become rational;

Many marketers claim their products are 'typical' of 'rational consumption';

Many believe consumers seek cost-effectiveness, and middlemen seek profit and money;

A large number of sales training materials teach salespeople how to calculate accounts with store owners and distributors;

Some food companies believe their products should be nutritious, healthy, and delicious;

Positioning theory tells us that occupying the first place in consumers' minds most easily triggers purchases;

Some product people advocating 'internet thinking' pursue ultimate products; ......

In reality, the market has never been and will never be rational. Le Bon's conclusion in 'The Crowd', a foundational work of social psychology, is: Emotionality is the basis of group behavior.

The market will not be rational; it will only replace old sensibilities with new ones. Just like the stock market, it is always an alternation of greed and fear.

Calculating profit margins for distributors is far less effective than winning their trust; calculating accounts with store owners is far less important than making them feel you're not fooling them. Consumers have never truly engaged in rational consumption; even if you occupy the first place in their minds, you can easily be set aside at the moment of purchase.

The greatest rationality for marketers is to recognize the market's irrationality.

In the internet age, because connections between people are easier and more frequent, the group characteristics of the market are more pronounced, meaning the internet makes the market even more irrational.

No calm and objective content can be virally spread on the internet. A 'ultimate product' without the support of 'sentiment' is just a high-cost product outcome. If its 'sentiment' cannot resonate emotionally with customers, it's just the company talking to itself.

Take internet content dissemination as an example: a viral piece of content, whether video, article, or other form, goes through content seeding, fission, diffusion, and trending stages, and it must be full of emotion to achieve such effect. Content without emotion will die in the seeding stage.

Mi Meng's rise to fame was because her scathing attacks on male chauvinists and masochistic women triggered a religious-like resonance.

The Luo Yang case evoked public panic and fear of government power; people feared being 'arrested for prostitution' while walking down the street and dying without knowing why.

Earlier this year, Sister Feng became popular. Supporters saw a story of overcoming adversity, with underlying emotions of hope for change and fear of narrowing upward mobility; critics saw her 'shameless self-degradation' and 'unscrupulous immigration', with underlying emotions of anger at rule-breakers and fear of broken rules.

They all seem to be talking about Sister Feng, and the arguments seem fierce, but they are actually talking about two completely different things with no overlap.

This is like two young mothers chatting about their kids. They talk enthusiastically, but if you listen carefully, you find it's like this:

'My son just signed up for a training class... he loves it.'

'Yeah, yeah, my daughter has passed level 8 in piano, and last time she took the exam...'

'Hmm, right, there's a classmate in my son's class...' ......

They start with their own kids, then move to training classes, grades, talents, classmates, teachers, then meals, clothing, then their own figure maintenance, and various gossip.

At first glance, they seem to be happily chatting, but if you listen closely, they are each talking about their own things with no intersection. They can talk for hours, and afterward, neither remembers what the other said. But that doesn't matter; what matters is that both have released their emotions and feel great.

This might be a bit extreme, but in reality, similar conversations are our most common communication scenarios.

I've attended many company meetings where a topic is discussed. It might be harmonious with nods of agreement, or it might be a fierce debate, but if you listen carefully, everyone is talking to themselves, and few truly listen to others. What resonates is only what supports their own stance.

So-called support and opposition are often just emotional resonance or opposition.

Even the quarrel between big shots like Jack Ma and Zong Qinghou is the same. If the two sat down to talk, you'd find that Ma's revolutionary 'Five New' and Zong's 'nonsense' 'Five New' are not the same thing at all.

Teacher Liu Chunxiong told Lao Miao: 'So-called content dissemination is actually only spreading emotions, not content.'

Now let's highlight the key points (knock on the blackboard):

1. Most human behavior is natural reaction, without the participation of rational thinking centers;

2. If a rational message enters the emotional center from the thinking center and fails to evoke an emotional response, it cannot enter the instinctive center, and thus cannot influence final behavior.

So, to be a high-EQ marketer, we first need to understand which marketing behaviors easily enter people's emotional centers and directly influence consumption behavior, and which only enter the thinking center, making people think but not substantially changing behavior.

The first keyword is 'you'.

When Lao Miao trains salespeople, he often emphasizes that sales is different from marketing; the core skill of sales is negotiation. Sales negotiation is not about persuading, conquering, or winning a debate, but about winning the other party's trust.

Therefore, empathy and self-motivation are the two most basic qualities for salespeople. Salespeople negotiate business, and marketers communicate with customers; they must always be 100% on the user's side. Of course, 'you' should be replaced with 'we' or 'us' when necessary.

An anecdote Lao Miao vaguely remembers:

Long copy has always been notorious in advertising circles and among clients. Advertising master Ogilvy often wrote long copy and faced client objections. He told the client, 'I can write a long copy of over 3,000 words, and you'll read it word for word. It's simple: I just need to include your name dozens of times in the copy.'

Master O's point: The length of copy has nothing to do with whether it moves customers; it only matters whether you are close to the customer.

'Talking about others is gossip; talking about oneself is tiresome; smart people always care about their conversation partner.' (Lisa Kirk)

The second keyword is 'concreteness'.

We humans are quite pitiful. We evolved a highly developed cerebral cortex that can think, reason, and process charts and data: think of all the math and physics we've done, aren't we proud of ourselves?

Even so, scientists say we only use less than 5% of our brain. If fully utilized, it's unimaginable; everyone has unlimited potential, everyone could be a top student, a genius.

But it doesn't matter. Current research shows that a person with high EQ is more likely to succeed than one with high IQ. Because our behavior is still controlled by the instinctive and emotional centers, we can only be moved by concrete things, while logic, numbers, and reasoning have little influence on us.

So, in marketing elements, video is more effective than images, images are more effective than sound, and sound is more effective than text (text's effectiveness lies in other aspects, to be discussed later).

Stories are more effective than data; a single case is more effective than a large number of facts. The Hope Project's description of how many children are out of school is less effective than a photo of a big-eyed girl.

This is the power of concreteness.

The third keyword is 'comparison'.

A popular saying now is 'No comparison, no harm'.

Humans are social animals; most of our emotions arise from 'comparison'. We are happy because of 'comparison', but more often, we are anxious because of it.

In behavior, our dependence on 'comparison' is even more severe. There's a psychological term called the 'contrast principle': people do not make decisions without comparison. Without comparison, the decision-making centers (i.e., the instinctive and emotional centers) often remain stagnant.

Before and after product use, old products vs. new ones, customers and their neighbors, colleagues, classmates' usage, your product vs. other products...

Price, appearance, experience, performance...

All these can be used to find points of comparison in marketing, allowing marketers to smoothly use the 'comparison' weapon.

The fourth keyword is 'unmet needs'.

Regarding the definition of emotion, Lao Miao finds Professor Ariely's (author of 'Predictably Irrational') statement profound: 'Emotion is energy and motivation trapped in the body by thoughts.'

We all know Maslow's hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization.

The latter four can be called psychological needs. Physiological needs are limited, but psychological needs are unlimited.

In this society with extremely smooth information communication, people's psychological needs are easily stimulated. Once needs arise and are not met, emotions emerge. As Master Ye Maozhong puts it, 'conflict arises'.

Where there is conflict, there is market opportunity. Seize the emotion, and you seize the market opportunity, because human emotion itself is energy. Once released with appropriate marketing methods, it can produce tremendous market effects.

Above, I've briefly introduced the four keywords for 'high-EQ marketing' for you to familiarize yourselves with. Each keyword's application is a huge topic, and Lao Miao will continue to delve deeper with cases in the future.

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