The best way to appeal to consumers is through emotional marketing. This method of marketing is about connecting your target market to your product or service at their most basic level – the emotional level. Emotion stimulates people’s minds up to 3000 times faster than non-emotional thought. The world is driven by emotions. People make impulse buys based on emotion, not rational thought. If you can play to people’s emotions, you can get that sale when you otherwise would not.

Spence Kramer, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Virgin America in the United States talked about emotional marketing in a recent article. "Emotional marketing does not mean much if the company's people, products and services do not back it up…. Nike succeeds because its core belief – its brand promise, its love of the potential for the athlete inside everyone ….When that love is manifested in their gear, consumers manifest it in their own lives." Nike not only makes an emotional connection, but also connects with the individual. It’s essential to have a one-to-one relationship with consumers through emotions to dominate in the market.

Emotional Marketing Techniques Emotional marketing depends on experience. You cannot really use emotional marketing unless someone has already experienced your product or service. You cannot use poster printing pieces and brochures that talk about how your product has saved a life unless your company has already experienced that.

A few marketing techniques work well in emotional marketing:

Word of mouth – people trust other people that tell them your product works or if it is the best.

Forums – this is basically electronic word of mouth.

Trials – if you have concrete results, and the people who participated in the trials are satisfied, you have proof that your product works, which appeals to people’s skeptical side.

Testimonials – again, people trust other people. If people are willing to take the time to give a testimonial, others will know you have a great product.

Emotional Marketing Copy When you write your brochure copy or flyer copy, use emotional words, such as "pride," "happy" and "confidence." Use feelings you know that your customers want to feel (this should come from your target market research).

Emotional Marketing Colors Everything about your marketing materials, including your choice of colors, affects your customer. Green makes people think of money and greed; turquoise can make people feel tranquil and peaceful; dark blue is generally connected to feeling depressed. You can search for "colors" and "meaning" on the Internet to find lists that will tell you what colors are associated with what feelings.

Emotions Do Not Have to Be Sad When people think of emotional marketing, they most likely think of sappy, cry-worthy long-distance type of commercials. But, that is not the only emotion you can appeal to. Why not make people smile and even laugh? When people laugh they release endorphins, which are compounds that make them feel good. If people feel good while viewing your marketing materials, they’ll in turn feel good about you and your product.