Are you feeling good right now? More importantly, are your customers?

I hope so, because it turns out that whether customers are in a good mood or a bad mood can really affect your bottom line. How? Read on….

Good Moods Affect Purchase

Putting consumers in a good mood has many positive implications for increasing the likelihood that they will buy your product. There are many reasons why this is true:

• Positioning and product differentiation. When they are in a good mood, consumers are better able to see similarities as well as differences among products. In other words, consumers who are in a good mood will be quicker at recognizing what kind of brand you are within a product category and how you are different from (or better than) your competitor.
  
  
• Openness to new products. But there's more. People who are in a good mood tend to be more receptive to new products. This fact is really important to marketers who are selling innovations, because it implies that consumers will be more likely to think about and give their products a chance.
  
  
• Risk-taking. Similarly, good moods can encourage purchase because consumes tend to be more willing to take risks (as long as the risks are not too large).
  
  
• Impulsive buying. Even if the product is not new, putting consumers in a good mood can affect purchase. Consumers in a good mood buy more impulsively than consumers in neutral or negative moods. Of course, impulsive buying may be more likely for a small-ticket item (think candy bar or magazine) than a big-ticket item (think computer or vacation). But, even there, good moods can make consumers more inclined to think about a given brand.
  
  
• Favorable brand attitudes. But even if they don't encourage impulse purchase, good moods can have other benefits. Consumers tend to like a whole range of things—products, ads, salespeople, brands—when they are in a good mood. Although mood may create only short-term effects on attitudes toward these things, continuous association of a good mood (e.g., fun) with a given brand (e.g., Pepsi) can create more-lasting brand attitudes. In addition, linking a product with mood-inducing things creates emotional connections to your brand that are harder for competitors to imitate.

Price Sensitivity

Positive moods make buying more likely. What's more, they make consumers more receptive to high prices. When consumers are in a good mood, they tend to be more generous. One clear way in which their generosity is expressed is through their wallets.

Good Moods and Solving Problems

So, you ask, putting consumers in a good mood can make consumers more likely to buy my product, and spend more for it to boot. But do I get any bang for the buck beyond that?

Yes! Let's suppose your product breaks, and your customers have to figure out how to make it work again. Put on your consumer hat for a minute and think about all the technology-based products that seem to fail and how you then have to figure out how to make them work again.

It turns out that people who are in a good mood are more creative problem solvers. They are likely to be better able to diagnose and fix what went wrong, or think creatively about how to solve the problem.

Good Moods and Social Interaction

If you operate in a service area, creating good moods and avoiding bad moods are particularly important. Your salespeople can easily put people in a good mood or tick them off and create a bad mood. The reason doing the former and avoiding the latter is critical is that in a service encounter these feelings directly affect consumers' satisfaction with your product or company.