Should you use emojis in marketing? That depends on what you do and how you’re marketing yourself. Without sitting down and talking to you about your business and your objectives (which we’d love to do, by the way), we can’t possibly give you the sort of tailored expert advice we want to. What we can do, however, is take a whistlestop tour through the differences between B2C & B2B marketing and give some advice on where emojis in marketing can work well (and where they can come back to bite you).
Social media
B2C
When you’re talking to consumers, you have much more freedom to be ‘fun’. In fact, social media can be a very effective way to humanise your brand (just see our article about social media’s benefits for your business). Emojis are all over social media, and it’s a place people go for leisure; not to be sold to. So, emojis definitely won’t feel out of place on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook (a common concern for many brands) and they can be a great way to create an authentic ‘feel’ for your brand among consumers.
Additionally, these platforms are driven by visuals, so a splash of colour is likely to help engagement. That might sound a little obvious, but it is worth noting. And the stats (according to Hubspot) back it up, with emojis increasing engagement with a tweet by more than 25%. In fact, the numbers are even more eye-popping on Facebook; increasing likes by 57% and comments & shares by 33%.
B2B
Emojis can absolutely be used in B2B marketing on social media. The ‘unprofessional’ stigma that was once a given has become almost extinct. Why? Well, almost everybody uses emojis in their daily lives, so emojis in marketing makes the content feel natural and even conversational.
The platforms you’re using will obviously differ quite a bit when marketing for B2B compared to B2C, though. Instagram is a fantastic platform for reaching consumers, but you’re much more likely to reach your target audience on a platform like LinkedIn when marketing to businesses and business-minded people. It’s definitely worth considering this when using emojis in marketing on social media as it will drastically change both the way your posts appear visually and the way they are perceived by your audience.
“Your posts should NOT read like a casual WhatsApp chat.” – Imrana Khan
Email marketing
B2C
This is where emojis in marketing become more of an art form. Whereas emojis are essentially part of the furniture in social media, it’s not the case in emails (although you might’ve noticed a trend in that direction in recent years). When it’s not simply part of the lingo – and in a situation where people expect to be a sold to – using emojis in marketing tells consumers much more about your brand persona.
For example, a brand like Sportsdirect.com aims for a market position as a budget outlet. To emphasise this, it overloads the subject lines of its email marketing with emojis to make offers and deals stand out from the crowd. On the flip side, a brand like Stitch Fix uses emojis very sparingly; the odd pointing emoji guiding your eyes in the direction they want, but generally maintaining a clean, smart persona.
It’s also worth noting the way the emojis – or lack thereof – work harmoniously with the graphic design inside the emails of both brands. For a brand with an upmarket aesthetic (Stitch Fix), you’ll see few emojis and clean, tidy imagery. For a budget brand like Sportsdirect.com, you’ll see an abundance of emojis alongside in-your-face imagery.
B2B
While emojis in marketing within B2B emails is not necessarily off the cards, it goes from the art form of B2C email marketing to an exact science in B2B. Since we’ve already touched on social media marketing, LinkedIn seems like a good place to look. Generally, emojis are kept to a minimum. However, you can clearly see that consistency is key when emojis are used.
This helps the emojis serve as familiar prompts to provoke a specific reaction from the consumer. For example, each email suggesting a new prospective connection leads with a subtle grey speech bubble. There are two key things to consider here: Firstly, the consistency speeds up the thought process for somebody regularly receiving emails from LinkedIn as they know what it’s about before they even read the full subject line. Secondly, by using a subtle grey emoji, they maintain a professional appearance comparatively to a social platform such as Facebook using more colourful, varied emojis.
Which ones should you use?
Given everything we’ve touched on so far, this is clearly dependent on the circumstances: what does your business do? Where are you posting? How do you want to be perceived?
However, before we wrap this up, I’d love to touch on a couple of interesting finds from a Hubspot article. The initial find that caught my attention was the fact that three of the top-10 emojis for increasing engagement on social media are the hands-on-head emoji (ranking top of the pile, in fact), a sad/disappointed emoji and a crying-face emoji. Why? Hubspot’s Daria Marmer’s hypothesis is that it’s because people feel compelled to respond more urgently to a person who’s sad or crying than they do somebody who’s happy. Personally, it makes a lot of sense to me.
The other fascinating discovery in the study that instructed Marmer’s article is the array of seeingly random emojis that rank among the highest for click-through rate. Barring the ‘free’ emoji (I wonder why anybody would click on that…), a pointing emoji and a ticket emoji, the rest all seem either very niche to a target audience or incredibly random. This includes an octopus, a pair of jeans and the Golden Gate Bridge. Perhaps the peculiar nature is exactly what catches the consumer’s eye and gets the desired click-through rate. Either way, it seems a good time to remember that these more niche emojis are much more successful than the most popularly used emojis in marketing. Something to ponder…
How we can guide you
If you’re ever unsure on how to optimise your marketing, whether that’s emojis in your email marketing, redesigning your website or putting together the very best ABM campaign, KAYBE can help. Our team of experts works tirelessly with a passion for finding the very best marketing solutions for our clients. Simply get in touch with us and find out what we can do for you.
