Emotion has a lot to do with what we buy and when we buy. We buy things to help us feel good, help us alleviate pain, help us feel more confident about ourselves. But for the most part, we buy when we are feeling happy or to get us to a happy place. In marketing, if you can determine when your target is going to be happy, you will have a better chance of selling to them. When you can predict the general mood of an entire segment of the marketplace, you will be successful in your marketing efforts. There is a right time to take a product or service to market. You can be too early or too late with your marketing. The determining factor many times is the mood of your customers. Here is an example. Do you know one of the best times for car sales? It is in the spring of the year. Do you know why? It is because that is when people get refunds on their tax returns. If they qualify for a refund, they get a lump sum of cash from the government and it makes them feel good. Even though it is their own money, people look at this much like winning the lottery. They are enticed by their own good feelings to go out and make a purchase. Cars are one of those large purchases that people don't make every day. So when they are feeling good and have a little cash in hand, they are in the mood to purchase a new car. Do you know one of the worst times to sell a car? It's in January, when people have just come through the Christmas holiday and have to pay the credit card bill for all of the things they bought in December. January is typically a dreary month outside. People are inclined to be in bad moods in January.

So how do you predict these happy cycles? First, do your customers have an annual routine that they go through? When do they have money in hand? Think of them like farmers. They have a season when they go about different tasks. For farmers, they ready the soil in the early spring, plant in late spring, fertilize in the summer, harvest in the fall. When do they spend money? After the harvest is complete and their grain has been sold. Not before, not after. You may not be in the agricultural business, but you may have customers who follow this same routine. You want to approach them with your marketing as the "harvest" time is coming to a close and sell when they have money in hand.

Other customers may be a little less regimented in the way they do business. For many, this would have to do with recognizing the points when they are in need and resources are low. In that case, the emotion you are looking for is not necessarily happiness, but discontent. You can be the solver of the discontent by fixing their problems, thus bringing them happiness. Mood still plays into your marketing efforts. This is just a solution to a pain point that brings happiness to the customer.

Here is a practical little experiment you can do with your customers. The next time they buy from you, take note of their mood. Are they happy or discontent? Are they expressing joy when they buy your product or service? Are you making a connection with them emotionally? Don't short change the theory of mood based buying. There are many instances where this works. You would be smart to incorporate it into your marketing efforts.

As in politics, it really doesn't matter how the person was feeling about you three months ago. If you can make them feel good about you right now - if you can make them happy - they will buy from you. Test the mood, market to happiness.

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Photo by Stepan Popov