It’s no secret that people put value on emotional experience. When we like or dislike something, we are assigning a value to it.

At any given moment in time, we are focusing on a trend of thought and experiencing the relevant emotions. Sometimes it’s a conscious choice, sometimes it happens in our subconscious, but the value we place on whatever is before us at that moment determines the emotions we will feel.

When you want to connect with your customers, you cannot downplay the value of emotion. Emotion and decision making are bound together, and successful marketing requires creating an emotional connection between you and your customer.

Making It Personal

It is critical to your success to find out that one thing that your customers really love. Some of the most successful brands in the world have been those that were able to tap into the heart of their customers and establish an emotional connection. Bear in mind, an emotional connection is not about what a product does, for example, maybe this shampoo will give you shiny hair. Rather, a connection is about a feeling – something that makes it personal for the customer. Shiny hair might make a person feel good about themselves, feel more confident, which may help draw people to them – that’s now an emotional connection.

Know Your Audience

Establishing an emotional connection also requires the proper focus.

Not everybody wants shiny hair. Dr, Phil, George Foreman – you can tell them all day how your shampoo will make their hair shiny and they’ll never make an emotional connection because they don’t have hair. Your target market would need to focus more on people who have hair, people who want to feel good about their hair, and people who will feel better if their hair looks better. You’re targeting a specific demographic.

If you can establish that emotional connection by communicating with them in such a way as to create some positive feeling, then you’ve already won half the battle. Words must be chosen selectively to invoke a feeling and a positive response that makes the customer desire what you have to offer.

The Power of Carefully Selected Words

Some companies have had tremendous success by carefully choosing their words. For example, Zappos.com has tapped into our frustration with customer service by placing it front and center. Their tagline “Powered by Service” indicates their model is built on the reputation of good customer service. Customers want to feel they’ll be taken care of, if there’s a problem it will be resolved – building your brand around customer service taps into the positive emotion that’s generated from saying, in essence, we care about you.

Years ago, Apple made significant inroads into the market with their slogan, “Think Different.” Just those two words allowed Apple to appeal to edgy individuals who wanted to be the early adopters of new technology, people who were excited by innovation.

Creating Emotional Content

Emotional content captures the reader’s attention, keeps their interest, and inspires them to take action. This is especially true in direct mail campaigns. Creating emotional copy may seem challenging, but in reality, it’s as simple as understanding the customer’s feelings.

Here are four key elements to creating emotional content:

1. Respect the individuality of your customer. Use the word you.
2. Create a headline that grabs your customer’s attention. Make your emotional connection in the headline.
3. Describe your customer, understand who they are, and identify them. Don’t shy away from direct assertions and bold statements.
4. Focus on feelings. Describe a sensation, a pleasure or some other sort of sensation the customer understands. This is a form of emotional persuasion and can have a significant impact on the customer’s willingness to make a decision.

Creating an emotional connection is indispensable – whether you’re launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign for a large corporation or doing a postcard marketing blitz for a neighborhood shop.

Once you find that emotional selling point, you need to emphasize it with good content. Customers remember less what you actually do and more how you make them feel – tapping into that will bring a wellspring of benefits.

Need help crafting the perfect, attention grabbing message?  We can help.  Call our marketing team today at 877-222-6010 or visit our website www.prospectsplus.com/PEI