Left-Brain Vs Right Brain: Engaging Both Sides in Email Marketing

Does your audience segmentation and messaging feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole?

I encourage you to take a step into neuromarketing, and look at how you can guide consumer behaviour in what could be described as a brain-balanced way…

I must make a disclaimer; there’s no definitive statistics showing a universal preference for right-brain or left-brain marketing. However, I’ve recently been fascinated by how marketing speaks to both hemispheres of our brains. There is a such thing as right message right time, and as of late, I’ve been acutely aware of the campaigns I’m served and try to identify why I’m seeing that message at that exact time and what the advertiser wants me to do next.

Starting with segmentation.

If you’re only considering demographic factors like age, gender, industry, or any form of explicit segmentation for that matter, then you might be missing a trick.

We’ve all been there before, and as an automation CEO, I still see this all the time with brands and marketers early on in their journey into automation. It’s a common downfall in the approach to audience segmentation. And it’s easy to do! Maybe this is how you’re building the foundations of your segmentation efforts or the quality of data you have access gives you very little insight into the person.

However, only using this kind of left-brain segmentation forces us into a rigid way of thinking and leaves marketers with almost nowhere to go next. How can your segmentation continue building? How will your creatives and messaging evolve if you don’t go beyond the factual information that you have about your audience?

It’s about the people!

While segmenting based on demographic factors can provide some valuable information, it often fails to capture the full picture. Just because people share the same age, or postcode doesn’t mean they think and feel the same way.

Let’s imagine there are two men are in your database:

• Birth Year: 1948
• Marriages: 2
• Place of Residence: A castle
• Location: UK
• Finances: Let’s say, comfortable…

Maybe this is all you know about them, so you start segmenting on this basis and don’t make any changes. They should probably be in the same audience and receive the same kind of messaging, right?

Maybe for a select few products or service, but overall, I’d say they should be spoken to very differently. Why?

The men in question: King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne.

Let’s be honest, their lifestyles and interests couldn’t be more different. This highlights a key issue with purely demographic segmentation: it oversimplifies and assumes everyone in a category would be spoken to in the same way.

Think of your super-organised friend, they probably love spreadsheets, want to know the facts and maybe ask you to get to the point —logical, analytical, and sequential.

Then there are your creatives… they can be more free-spirited, use their imagination more often and might bring a bit more emotional insight to their stories. It’s all about how people process information. Rarely do we fit perfectly into boxes

Humans are multi-dimensional so it’s our jobs as marketers to grab attention and engage your audience in a variety of ways and at the right times.

By focusing only on explicit segmentation and messaging, we risk missing out on the deeper, more nuanced aspects of human behaviour that drives engagement. And most importantly, makes you stand out!

Which as you know is becoming even more difficult.

The Limitation of Left-Brain Logic in Segmentation 

Explicit segmentation strategies, while useful, primarily appeal to left-brain logic. They rely on analytical and sequential data to classify audiences, which can be beneficial for targeting specific groups with precision. The left brain excels in breaking down and analysing information, but it doesn’t tap into the creativity and emotional resonance that the right brain offers.

A study by the Harvard Business Review found that emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly-satisfied customers. And I agree. In my experience, the marketers who use Force24 that see the best results are the ones who have met the team in real life and know more about our brand than the basics.

To truly captivate our audience, we must go beyond logical classifications and find balance between both hemispheres accommodating all ways of thinking into our strategies.

A Journey Between the Hemispheres

So, when should you use your left brain for segmentation and your right brain for creativity or vice-versa?

There is no one size fits all or one way to do things, but if I were only starting with very simple datasets then it makes sense to use a left-brain way of segmentation. Rather than just sending the same message to everyone and hoping for the best.

However, let your messaging lean to the right- brain. Capture their emotions with a story about your business or the customers lives that your impact. Paint the picture of your journey or tell a story of a customer who you’ve connected with and allow the reader to know more about you than they would from just a simple google search.

Base your next segmentation efforts on their engagement with that email. This is your real starting point… where to next?

A Marriage of Minds: Integrating Creativity with Data

While right-brain strategies are essential, they should not exist in isolation. Integrating a creative approach with left-brain, data-driven insights ensure a comprehensive marketing strategy. For example, you can use data to identify trends and patterns while applying creative techniques to develop compelling narratives and emotional connections.

So, next time you’re crafting a marketing campaign, remember to tickle both sides of the brain. It’s not just about reaching your audience—it’s about engaging them on a level that gets them excited and keeps them coming back for more. Unleashing creativity with right-brain strategies is not just a framework, but an inspiration to think differently and connect deeply with your audience.