An emotional appeal is used to sway the emotions of an audience to make them support the speaker’s argument. It uses the manipulation of the emotions rather than valid logic to influence an audience. Emotional appeals require tapping into the subconscious as opposed to the conscious mind. In #business, emotions drive buying decisions while logic justifies buying decisions. As a business owner trying to sell a product or service, rational persuasion using logical arguments and credible evidence is important but you also have to realize that people they tend to buy with their hearts. So you need to learn how to tug at those heart strings.

Emotions play a huge role in how consumers act and react. Brands that develop distinct personas in people’s minds project an image that people want to buy into. Someone may buy a product because it makes them feel smart, affluent or sophisticated. Generally people buy products that are consistent with their positive or inspirational image of themselves.

Here are three must-dos to start building emotional bonds with your target market:

1. Use Real Words: words that resonates with people at a level that goes beyond the functionality, features and benefits of your products or services. Offer a perspective and share a philosophy through words on websites, social media, packaging, videos and more.

2. Create Something Others Want To Be Part Of: make your content interesting without industry jargon or boring lingo, and show that you really ‘get’ who you’re speaking to and what they need.

3. Stay True To Your Mission: and be fearless about what your brand really represents.

Let’s also examine how you can use the four major emotions namely: Happiness, Sadness, Fear and Anger in your content marketing:

Happiness

Happiness is contagious. In marketing terms, happiness makes us want to share therefore if your marketing goal is to increase shares and followers, think (and post) happy thoughts and images.

Sadness

We can hardly say there are ‘any’ bad emotions in marketing. Although most of us don’t want to be sad, when we something that makes us sad, empathy often wells up in us. Not only that, but this kind of sadness results in an increase in a chemical called oxytocin, something that motivates us to be more trusting.

Therefore, if your goal is to create a positive, humanitarian persona for your company, create case studies that showcase how your brand has improved the lives

Fear

Some studies have shown that in the absence of an actual person, audiences will look to a brand or object to alleviate their fears. Therefore, it’s advisable to present a fear-inducing problem your audience face and show how you can help.

Anger

While anger may not be the healthiest of emotions on which to bind a strong relationship, it does have its place. For example, you may think that a blog post that presents an extreme view would alienate some of your audience. However, one study showed that comments in a blog post that were expressed as extreme and arrogant made readers dig their heels to fight for what they already held to be true. The point is a piece of content that might seem strongly expressive is not necessarily bad. It may help to firm up relationships with those that share your view, as well as get a dialogue going, even with those who disagree. Therefore, if your goal is to increase brand loyalty, go ahead and start a pointed discussion and see where it leads.

If you’re developing marketing content for social media, it’s important to connect with consumers. Here are four social media ideas you can implement to create an emotional appeal that ultimately inspire targeted audience members to take purchasing action or remain loyal to the brand.

1. Appeal to people’s identities

There is no way you can get to know every one of your followers personally, but you can appeal to their identities with emotional content. People want to feel like the brands and products they support reflect their identities, so this should be reinforced with your social media posts.

2. Avoid logical thinking

If you want to reach people’s emotions, you need to forget about logic and try not to make your followers think too hard. There’s no logic in purchasing a certain brand because of a puppy featured in the commercials, after all, but these ads still work. The same can work for social media if you focus on content that makes people happy, or sad, or even afraid, depending on the campaign; just make sure as a general rule you avoid making consumers angry.

3. Be repetitive in your posts

The more people hear or read something, the more it feels like the truth. So, if you’re starting a social media campaign, be repetitive. The same theme can be replicated across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms.

4. Consider wants vs. needs

People need functional things like food, cleaning products, and website development services. People want things that serve emotional needs, such as a relaxing vacation or a specific type of food or cleaning product that make them feel a certain way. Try to hit your customers’ emotional wants while making them feel like they need your offerings to be happy and complete.

In conclusion, with deep market saturation and growing consumer apathy, it is more important than ever to connect honestly and intimately with your customer. The successful #entrepreneur will work to master the ongoing interplay of logic and emotion to create the most powerful content to convert the curious into customers and the customers into devoted fans.

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