Emotional Persuasion in Marketing: Why It Matters and How to Use It

With the onslaught of sales emails, ads and web banners that surround us daily in our Internet lives, it can be difficult to break through the clutter. However when done right emotional persuasion in marketing can help you drive sales, generate leads, and even make a user want to subscribe to your blog. Emotional persuasion in marketing can also quickly create sales. It has been proven to be one of the top strategies to use, and is something that we should all take advantage of in our advertising. If you want to get more sales and increase revenue, there are easy ways to help you accomplish this with emotional persuasion in marketing.

What is Emotional Persuasion?

Emotional persuasion is the act of appealing to the emotions of your audience.

Emotional persuasion is the act of appealing to the emotions of your audience. This can take the form of images, copy or even design.

For example, if you’re selling a product that helps people save money, you may use images of mothers with small children. Research shows that parents are more likely to be affected by images and stories about their children than they are their own well-being. That’s why this tactic is so effective in marketing campaigns.

Using emotional persuasion in your copy and visuals will have a huge impact on conversions, but it can also help create brand affinity over time as long as you don’t abuse it (i.e., make sure every single piece of content isn't overly sentimental).

Why Emotional Persuasion Works

If you're in the business of marketing, you might be wondering why emotional persuasion works. If you look at it logically, it seems like something that shouldn't work at all. After all, if someone is making a purchase decision based on emotion, why would they need to be persuaded? They should just know what they want and go get it.

The human brain is an amazing thing. When we look at how our brains work, we can see that there are some very good reasons for why emotional persuasion works so well. The first reason is that our brains aren't wired to think logically all the time; instead, they're wired to feel things strongly and make decisions based on those feelings. This means that if you want to convince someone of something—whether it's about politics or the latest new car—it helps if you can appeal to their emotions first. People buy things based on emotion, and justify the decision with logic.

The second reason is that our brains have a hard time distinguishing between facts and opinions. Even though we might think we know the difference between facts and opinions, in practice this is not always true! That's why people often believe things based on how they feel about them instead of on evidence or fact; when someone says "this will make me feel good," we tend to believe them without question.

Types of emotional appeal

• Fear: "For the love of your children, you must buy this product now!"

• Hope: "Buy this product and all your dreams will come true!"

• Anger: "These competitors are out to get you. Fight back with our products!"

• Joy: "You deserve the best, and our products can give that to you."

• Guilt: "If you don't buy this, then you're a bad person."

• Pride: "If you buy this product, everyone will know how successful and intelligent you are."

• Love: "These products were made with love just for you."

• Humor: "This is so funny! Buy it now before it sells out!" (like when Whole Foods played ad on Jimmy Fallon)

How to Use it in Digital Marketing

Now that you have a better grasp on emotional persuasion, where does it fit into digital marketing? Not surprisingly, emotional appeals are widely used by brands in their marketing. However, there are some ways to use the idea of emotional persuasion more effectively than others. Thus, it’s important to consider these tips when incorporating emotion into your campaigns:

• Who should you target?

  This is an essential step before embarking on any type of marketing, let alone emotional marketing. How will you know what kind of content your audience will respond to if you don't know who they are? How will you know which emotion to target in order to elicit the best, most valuable response for both of you?

  Conduct thorough target audience research before deciding which emotion to incorporate into your marketing. You want to elicit an emotion that resonates with their pain points or general desires and dreams, as with any marketing effort. Researching your target audience will help you make better marketing decisions while also saving you time and money.

• What emotion should you target?

  Emotional persuasion works best when used with positive emotions like happiness. Negative emotions may be effective in some cases, but they also run the risk of turning away customers and hurting your brand image. Rather than instilling fear or anger as a motivator for clicking on an ad or purchasing a product, you’re better off inspiring hope and joy with your messaging.

• Tell a Story

  Storytelling is an excellent way to engage your audience. Regardless of your audience's makeup, stories are easily relatable and shareable, whether through sadness, anger, passion, or excitement.

• Make sure you have the right message for your audience.
  If people don't understand what you're trying to say, there's no way for them to follow along.

• Keep it simple.
  You don't want your message getting lost in all of the noise out there today (and trust me—there's a LOT of noise). You need something clear and concise that will stand out without being overly complicated or confusing (which can turn off potential customers).

• Get inspiration from other brands using emotional appeals

  For example, Dove is a beauty brand that has been praised for its authentic messages about self-confidence and female empowerment through their “Real Beauty” campaign. Their video ads often feature women of color and different body types speaking about how society has impacted their self-esteem over the years. These videos garner millions of views because viewers can relate to the emotions expressed by these women beyond just thinking about buying hair products for yourself or someone else—and this universal message can resonate with people regardless of whether they would ever purchase Dove products themselves.

YOUR FIRST STEP: Add Emotional Appeal to your Messaging.

Learn how to use emotional appeal in your messaging. To do this, you need to turn to the inherent emotions and values of your audience, which will help you choose the right words and imagery for your marketing copy. For example, if your target audience is younger, there’s a good chance that they value freedom. So when crafting an email or ad for them, you might include terms such as "liberating," "unleashing" or "empowering" when describing something about your product or service. When you find yourself questioning whether it's worth the effort to craft more evocative marketing messages, remember that the way forward is not to go the rational route alone (or have a 50/50 split), but instead lean heavily on emotion—though it may seem counterintuitive—and sprinkle in a dash of rationality along the way. You’ll be glad you did!

Conclusion

Emotional persuasion is all about people. It's about understanding what motivates each buyer and how to reach them on a deeper level. If you can develop messages that resonate emotionally with buyers and you apply them consistently across multiple touchpoints, sales are bound to increase. The takeaway here should be to identify what type of emotional persuasion you want to incorporate in your marketing strategy, and tailor your content accordingly. Your goal should be an emotional reaction in order to drive sales.