If you think buying is not an emotional experience, you are
mistaken! Every word in sales copy is amplified when it
triggers an emotional response and can be the difference
between copy that excites the imagination of the potential
buyer and that which deadens it. When you engage the
buyer’s imagination they can even begin to imagine what
it’s like to own the product you are selling and it stirs
up the flames of desire for possessing it.
It is true that if you want to sell, you want to sell by
impacting the emotions of your potential buyer. Even though
you know that the final decision may be justified through
logic, the initial way to get by the mind that will think
up all sorts of objections to the sale is to appeal to the
emotions.
The Technique
When you are advertising your products or services you will
want to pay close attention to the words you choose. Words
are powerful tools on the Internet that you can use to
frame the way a person perceives not only the value of your
product, but also the experience of possible ownership.
Words tell stories that inform your readers about how this
product or service solved a problem for some other buyer.
Stories can pull a buyer into identifying with the other
buyers and help them to visualize their own problems being
solved, their lives getting easier or better for having
made the purchase.
You will want to pick words that not only tell a vivid
story, however, you will also want to use words that
influence the buyer’s feelings and gives them favorable
impressions. It’s really not that hard to do. People have a
variety of automatic emotional responses to different
words. All you have to do is find out which words create
the best results and implement them in your sales copy.
You want to create a sales environment that puts people
into an emotional mindset. Why? The simple reason is to
bypass the logical mind long enough to make the sale. Sure,
the final decision to buy will need to be justified with
solid benefits, but that’s not typically the reason a
person ends up making the decision to buy. They may not
even be aware that many of their buying decisions are based
on how they feel about a product rather than what they
think about it. People actually feel thrills when they buy
and that thrill acts as a beacon to get them to buy again.
Yet, when they are asked why they buy a particular product,
they don’t talk about how they feel ñ that’s rather
personal! Instead, they list the benefits. That’s because
when people are asked to justify a purchase, the mind
automatically kicks in, even if they made the decision
based solely on how they felt at the time of purchase.
The Secret
The brain has two halves and one deals with logic and the
other is more intuitive and feeling. The two halves
generally don’t communicate at the same time in most
people. If you have very strong emotions, you’re reason is
usually blocked from functioning at its highest potential
and vice-versa. This can be really useful information in
your marketing efforts because if you can get someone to
get emotional about your products, you can sell without
even really having to work too hard at it.
Not only that, but once an impression is made on the
emotional mind, it tends to have a longer memory than the
logical mind. It is even well known that feelings can be
associated to various stimuli that bring back powerful
memories, complete with the emotions, sometimes just by
smelling something that reminds you of your childhood.
Words aren’t just letters strung together that have a
logical meaning. They also have a personal meaning. If you
can tap into that emotional intelligence and bypass the
logical critic most people have standing ready to say no,
you will find that you can sell things much faster and
retain customers with a higher sense of satisfaction after
the sale.
You don’t just have to focus on invoking pleasant emotions,
because negative emotions can also be powerful motivators
to close a sale. Think of people who are in the market to
buy GPS systems for their cars. Why would they want to buy
that? On an emotional basis, they may be trying to avoid
getting lost. So, the feeling you want to invoke is
precisely that confused and lost feeling that they dread.
And, then offer the GPS system as a solution to never
having to feel that way again!
How to Make it Work
The way to implement this strategy is to start making a
list of alternative, emotion-packed words, that influence
your potential buyer in subtle, but powerful, ways. Review
your copy for opportunities where you can reach out and
literally touch the buyer and comfort or assure them that
they are making the right decision to buy.
One word that is very powerful and should be used more in
copy is the word “invest” instead of buy. When you buy
something it almost has the connotation of being taken for
a ride. For instance, when you “buy into” something it
means you’ve been convinced, maybe even despite your
feeling it may not be such a good idea. However, the word
“invest” has the opposite feeling. It gives you a feeling
of security and reaping returns, even if you don’t have a
logical explanation for why that is so. It’s just a good
investment.
People in the real estate industry are masters at this
game. When a house is small, they call it “cozy.” When the
walls are painted in odd colors, they call it “custom
paint.” If it is falling apart at the seams, they call it a
“handyman special.” These are euphemisms that don’t
completely hide the meaning, but re-frame it to show off the
positive aspects of it. They plug into the emotional impact
of the words. Cozy gives you the idea of warmth and being
hugged by your mother.
Custom paint is a term that can mean anything from a
personalized mural complete with the kid’s hand prints to a
mural vista of the French Riviera by a local artist. It’s
up to the person reading the ad to fill in the blanks and
normally they will fill them in with whatever appeals to
them. Handyman special gives you an idea that it’s a
property that won’t last long, being special, and that it
only needs a little fixes here and there.
So, paying attention to the choice of words is important to
implement this strategy. That can be done by pure trial and
error or by looking up sales books to find which words
carry a positive impact. There are many such words that you
see in television ads, like the words “new, improved, easy”
and more. Or, you can just start to switch words here and
there in your copy and see what impact it makes on your
bottom line.
The second way to implement this strategy is to bring out
your inner drama queen. You want to be able to exude
emotion and have that pour all over your sales copy. Try to
write up an offer that really engages someone on an
emotional level. Use it in your sales presentations by
trying to bring in an emotional content that people can
quickly identify with and then use it to manipulate people
into a frame of mind that makes them buy.
Especially, you want to focus on framing the benefits in an
emotional framework. This will help your buyer begin to
imagine and experience your product more in their feelings.
Try to describe the product in emotional language that
triggers people into associations that are positive for
them. This is the same idea that real estate people use
when they advise you to bake cookies or simmer cinnamon
sticks in the house before you show it. The scents pull in
memories of mom baking in the kitchen and make the sale for
you through subconscious emotional associations. Well, you
can do the same with words by painting the picture of the
emotional trigger for them to be able to visualize it
better in their mind.
Obviously, depending on your demographics, the emotional
triggers for one group may be different from another. It’s
your job to figure out which emotional triggers will appeal
to the people you are marketing. If you are marketing to
harried, working, moms then triggering the image of a
crying, babies, and the phone ringing, while dinner burns
on the stove, would sell anything that makes this scenario
go away. It might be easy to make microwave meals; it can
be an answering machine that shows you who is calling and
whether it’s important. It’s not always going to be obvious
how to associate the emotion to your product, but it should
be relevant to your demographic.
If you were to use that same imagery to try to sell
microwave meals for single professionals, they would not
relate to it, even if the microwave meal might appeal to
them if it had be framed differently. Do you see how the
emotion is triggered specifically by the advertising and
the target audience? For some, the emotional trigger will
strike them right where they live, and for others, it
simply leaves them cold. You have to know who you are
marketing to, to understand how to trigger the emotions
that you want to associate with your advertising copy.
Some emotions are universal because they relate to our
childhood. We all equate home with feelings of security
(which is good for the real estate market). We all want to
feel included and accepted by our family and friends. We
all want to feel we are achieving or accomplishing
something we can feel proud of. These types of emotions can
also be used to mine a larger audience, when you are unsure
of your demographics. But, the more targeted your emotional
marketing campaign the greater the possibility that it will
be a stronger influence to trigger buying behavior.
The time to use this strategy is when you are first
presenting the product to the public or your website
visitor. Don’t wait to start to bring some familiarity to
the product that the person can begin to identify with it
as the solution to their problems. Try to engage all the
senses so that they can begin to tie into the sensual
aspect of the product ñ this will lead to the emotional
part of their brain and bring forth associated positive
memories. Once that first impression is made in the
emotional part of the brain, it will be very hard to shake
later on.
That’s part of the reason that many expert sales people
will actually take a sample with them to a presentation,
something their potential buyer can touch and experience.
It appeals to the emotional side of all human beings and
gets them to start imagining what it would be like to own
the regular product all to themselves.
Think of how car manufacturers present their advertising
for cars. They typically show a convertible car winding
down a stunning coastal highway, sea breeze flying through
the driver’s hair, as the sun beats down on dazzling water
and sand. You can practically smell the salt air and taste
the spray of sea water in your mouth, and that’s the point.
They evoke the emotional response by getting you to imagine
buying the car. You then become that person with the
perfect life that has the wind wiping through your hair in
a breezy, freeing, experience while everyone else is stuck
in a cubicle hard at work. It’s really quite amusing when
we analyze how easily our emotions are manipulated, but
that’s really the case. There are certain desires that most
human beings will do anything to experience: love, freedom,
joy, and success. Tie those emotions to your product, and
you’ve got a winner.
