How To Write Emotional Ads That Make A Crap Load Of Money

It is commonly said, “People buy based on emotion, then rationalise the purchase decision with logic”. Well, it’s not just a saying, it’s backed by science.

All decisions are made emotionally. No matter what a customer tells you or how logical they say they are, it’s been proven time and time again through studies that purchases are bought for emotional reasons. Customers will offer plenty of reasons why it’s a good decision, why they chose the one they did and why they chose the colour they did, but the fact is, they decided with their emotions first and they justified with rationale later.

In fact, the decision to be “logical” and not emotional about something is an emotional decision.

In 1994, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made a groundbreaking discovery. He studied people with damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated. He found that they seemed normal, except that they were not able to feel emotions. But they all had something peculiar in common: they couldn’t make decisions. They could describe what they should be doing in logical terms, yet they found it very difficult to make even simple decisions, such as what to eat. Many decisions have pros and cons on both sides – shall I have the chicken or the turkey? With no rational way to decide, these test subjects were unable to arrive at a decision. So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing. In fact, even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.

The key to a sale is selling to the “lizard brain”

“Lizard brain” refers to the oldest part of the brain, the brain stem, responsible for primitive survival instincts such as aggression and fear (“flight or fight”).

This part of the brain is a real selfish bastard. It only cares about “what’s in it for me”. Avoid telling people what to think or what’s best. Rather try to create a vision for prospects to bring about the decision on their part. Vision creates emotion, which in turn, drives the decision. In the end, people will make the decision because they want to. You help them discover for themselves what feels right and best and most advantageous to them by presenting your case using contrast and simple, tangible language and demonstration. Their ultimate decision is based on self-interest. That’s emotional. “I want this. This is good for me”. Remember, the old lizard brain is selfish.

This underscores the critical importance of knowing your prospect. A lot of advertising is centred on a product but people are not looking for better mousetraps. A better approach is to start with what’s on the prospect’s mind, what they care about, and then connect your product to the prospect’s major need or problem.

The vast majority of products are sold because of the need for love, the fear of shame, the pride of achievement, the drive for recognition, the yearning to feel important, the urge to look attractive, the lust for power, the longing for romance, the need to feel secure, the terror of facing the unknown, the lifelong hunger for self-esteem and so on. Emotions are the fire of human motivation, the combustible force that secretly drives most decisions to buy. When your marketing harnesses those forces correctly you will generate explosive increases in response.Gary Bencivenga

The best way to write any kind of copy is to create a vision of the problem, expand it, make it a horror show, then tell them about your solution. But what do most people do? They come out swinging with benefits and claims and ‘here’s why you should buy’ nonsense. Ben Settle

It will definitely help to have a benefit in the headline of your ad. But you can go a level up on your competitors if this is all they’ve got. If you know the emotions that your prospects are experiencing, especially the negative emotions connected to the problem that your product or service solves, you can speak to them in purely emotional terms and have a much more powerful response. Emotions that can be tapped into include anger, fear, flattery, greed, guilt, salvation and exclusivity.

This is something Clayton Makepeace calls the “dominant resident emotion”. This is the emotions that your reader feels and is resident in their brain before you even get their attention with an ad. Clayton expands on this in his article for AWAI “Kick Your Headlines Up A Notch”. When you set out to create a sales message that connects with prospects’ dominant resident emotions, you have no choice but to begin with the prospect. Specifically, you begin by considering the prospect’s most intense positive and negative feelings about…

Himself or herself relative to the subject at hand …
The benefits your product and premiums promise …
The medium – direct mail, the Internet, print, or any other medium – through which your message is being delivered …
The offer – the product and premiums, price, payment terms, guarantee, and the process of ordering…

And then, you devise ways to deal with each of these dominant resident emotions in ways that leverage them in your favour: Get them working FOR you; never against you. When you get it right, the attention-getting power, readership and response of your promotions skyrockets. When you get your prospect’s emotions working for you. You have to know your prospect. There are no easy shortcuts here. You speak with your customers, you listen to them, you hang out where they hang out, you do your market research… and you write using the same language they do. If you want to create great ads do great research.

Let’s Make It Real

Here are a few examples of some truly successful ad campaigns that connect a product with the prospect’s dominant emotion.

I have come to the conclusion that some of the strongest copy is not the traditional hard sell variety, with superlatives, benefits and how-to. A more seductive, indirect, oblique approach strikes me as being the wave of the future.Don Hauptman

A Checklist Of Emotional Triggers

People buy products for different reasons. One person may buy a car for reliable transportation while another wants a car as a status symbol.

Before you write your Ad copy, it’s a good idea to review the reasons why people may want to buy your product. To help you, here’ a list from Joe Sugarman of 22 motivations people have for making purchases:

To be liked
To be appreciated
To be right
To feel important
To make money
To save money
To save time
To make work easier
To be secure
To be attractive
To be sexy
To be comfortable
To be distinctive
To be happy
To have fun
To gain knowledge
To be healthy
To gratify curiosity
Out of fear
Out of greed
Out of guilt

One of your main goals when trying to acquire customers is to create ads that move people. You can see from the examples above that just a hint at a solution can be more powerful than being explicit about the benefits of a product. Once you understand what makes people buy things, you will know how to how to write ads that sell.

How to Write Emotional Ads That Make A Crap Load Of Money

Let’s Make It Real

A Checklist Of Emotional Triggers

This 4 Question Diagnostic Will Instantly Detect Where You Can Improve Your Marketing

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