Emotion Selling. Embracing Pleasure and Pain.

As a business owner, you already know that people buy for emotional reasons. No matter how great your product or service is, apathetic consumers will simply dismiss it. You need to tap into their emotions if you’re going to convince them that they need your product.

By manipulating the pleasure and pain triggers in your prospect, you will be catching their attention, and encouraging them to act (either to rid themselves of the pain, or to retain feelings of pleasure.)

Here are some tips for injecting pain and pleasure into your marketing messages:

• Tell stories- people immediately connect with stories. If your story relates to an experience your prospect has had, they will immediately be reminded of the feelings they are fighting to avoid, or the feelings they’d love to feel again.

• Make your prospect imagine- the mind is a powerful tool. Asking your prospect to visualize sets a stage for you to present painful / pleasurable situations. Tap into past experiences, or create hypothetical ones. When it comes to emotion, your prospect’s brain will not make a distinction between fact and fiction.

• Be confident in your product- when talking about your product or service, don’t say what it might or could do for them. Explain what it will do. (Remember, your prospect needs to get rid of their pain or acquire pleasure as soon as possible. They need a guaranteed solution!)

• Use the right words- make your message vibrant by using active verbs (example: Jane runs instead of Jane is running.) Also, use words associated with pleasure (babies, soft, relaxing etc.) or pain (dentist, suffering, trauma).

One last point: once you draw out the pain or pleasure, let your audience revel in it. Don’t be too quick to move past the emotion. It’s the emotion that moves people to action. If you can successfully incorporate emotional stimulation in your marketing messages, you will be transporting your prospect to a buying state!