“The emotional part of our brains is able to process sensory information 80% faster than the cognitive section.”

Humans feel first and think later, the above finding in the book How Cool Brands Stay Hot says it all. As a business, we know your main task it to generate better revenue cycle by continuously attracting new and repeat customers.

What are persuasive emotions and how can they help businesses make better sales?

In this article, we will be exploring the persuasive emotions that will help you make better sales and enhance your revenue cycle. So, without further ado, let’s get going!

Source: Tenor

Human Emotion

Human emotion is a major driving force of human behavior. So, for businesses that are planning to make it big in this competitive market, must devise their process and plans around emotion-driven growth.

“Studies in the neuro-imagery show that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences) rather than information (brand attributes, features, and facts).” – Psychology Today

The above image establishes the foundation of driving sales and marketing tactics based on human emotions. Perfectly planned out sales approaches will leverage human emotions and enhance the way you successfully sell your products to your target audience.

“Positive emotional bonds with a brand is more important to consumers than customer satisfaction.” – Harvard Business Review

Persuasive emotion #1: Altruism

Altruism: An act of kindness driven by selflessness

Modern customers are driven by various emotions while following certain brands and the products they offer. Taking altruism on your side, you can tinker your sales and marketing strategies to push modern customers to make their purchases.

Persuasive emotions, such as altruism, allows your buyers to feel happy that their purchase will help create an effect on something.

“People want the companies they do business with to ‘do good’, make the world a better place, and to advocate on their behalf — making them feel as though they belong to a larger community or a grander mission.” – Ethical Corporation

Source: Brand Channel

For example, this Pampers advertisement promotes the concept of making a purchase so that the value of one pack will allow some other person to get their new-born protection against tetanus. Moreover, the buyer will not doubt the intention of the company as it has government collaboration, in this case, UNICEF.

No matter which industry you cater your services to, the modern audience is physically and mentally programmed to respond to persuasive emotions.

This chart tries to explain the similar effect’s emotion has on B2B customers as it has on B2C customers.

We are not saying that businesses are unable to generate profits with data analysis and implementing those data results into their sales and marketing tactics. Businesses will make a lot of money by analyzing the historical customer data, however, adding emotion into the mix will work wonders. It will allow businesses to become industry leaders. If as a business owner you want to build an empire that dominates your industry, combine emotion and data.

Persuasive emotion #2: The F.O.M.O

Source: Tenor

There is a simple scientific reason why massive brands apply FOMO in their sales and marketing strategies. Fear is one of the strongest emotions and it has been helping humanity survive since their cavemen days.

Humans, like every species, are hardwired to keep ourselves safe. Now many of you might wonder how such an emotion gets applied into sales and marketing strategy! The fight or flight response from human being perfectly applies to your business solution. An astonishing 56% of social media users experience the feeling regularly:

Source: 60secondsmarketer

You need to be sure that your FOMO promotions are subtle and make the customer understand the same in a softer tone.

GAP made a blunder with their ad campaign which was deemed insensitive by many around the world. We would suggest you do not follow the suit.

We are talking about creating a FOMO that allows you to engage your customers’ subconscious minds with your promotions.

Let’s see some examples.

1. Gillette: “The Best A Man Can Get”

The fear that if a guy doesn’t shave with Gillette, they are not living up to the mark.

2. L’Oréal: “Because I’m Worth It”

Perfectly aims at the aesthetic insecurities people have.

3. Apple: “Think Different”

Buying an Apple product, makes you think you are better than ‘normal’ people.

4. Nike: “Just Do It”

You will lose if you take too much time thinking over it.

5. FedEx: “Absolutely, Positively Overnight”

The fear of missing a deadline.

Fear pushes your customers towards comfort and hence increases brand loyalty.

Source: MakeAGIF

For any business, the emotion of fear allows them to create the feeling of being left out from the rest of the customers.

FOMO, unquestionably entices people to buy on impulse:

“60% of millennials make reactive purchases because of FOMO.” – Citizen Relations

These are the common FOMO methods designed to increase your business sales via the persuasive emotion of fear.

Limited time offers Countdown timers Displayed stock levels Exclusivity

We would like to help you plan out your FOMO strategy so that it entices your customers without causing any damaging impressions:

Communicate a relatable ‘threat’ in a subtle manner Convince your customers about your product and service being the best solution to their threat Make it easy for your customers in getting converted and becoming repeated customers

Persuasive emotion #3: Greed

The constant exposure to celebs and sales influencers allows the modern customer to feel a little bit envious and simultaneously want more every once in a while in their life. That is the reason brands discreetly use greed as a key persuasive emotion while planning their sales and marketing strategies.

Customers won’t willingly admit to being greedy, who does! However, as a business, you are well aware of the way your customer base reacts to ads that have this persuasive emotion hidden into your brand promotions.

Yes, we are talking about the discount deals, Black Friday sale, those buy one get one free offer and product bundles. Every customer has one motto; get the best offer without much investment.

Greed, like FOMO, is clever marketing and advertising tool.

FOMO and greed can be used by businesses smartly. These two emotions often go hand-in-hand if merged with enough social proof, scarcity of the product and urgency to grab the best deal.

Businesses often throw the term ‘free’ into the mix. We would like to highlight a few cautions that will help you stay aware not to overdo it. Why? Simply because this magical word can create moments that will work wonders for you, and some time creates blunders that will repel your customers away from your brand.

Let’s take this scenario for instance.

Many customers do not want to sound cheap while talking about a certain product or service they are using. The word ‘free’ often pushes the thought toward ‘not so premium’. The way modern buyers interact with their peers regarding their purchases decide how your ‘free’ promotion will be received by the target audience.

Many businesses overuse ‘free’, especially those in the enterprise B2B space. We would like to tell you that instead of doing your sales and marketing strategies any kind of favor, it will damage the trust factor. Yet, on the other hand, a customer buying a product such as an ice-cream or chocolate getting another ‘free’ is quite attractive.

Let’s help you keep the pros and cons in mind:

‘Free’ dramatically increases conversions and sales. It can lower them too!

For SaaS businesses, free trials and freemium offers work wonders

Freemium and free trial may result in decreased loyalty

They can also lower customer lifetime value

‘Free’ drastically surges the number of irrelevant leads

Businesses end up spending unwanted resources with no end result

Like any other marketing campaign, businesses must make sure that they continuously split test a range of call-to-action. Here is another example of a greed-oriented method that SaaS businesses apply. The comparative, visual placements of ‘free’ and ‘paid’ plans.

Source: Mailchimp

The greed-oriented method applied by SaaS (Software as a Service) companies

Wrapping it up

Applying persuasive emotions successfully into your sales and marketing strategies is not going to help the sales figures soar. Nor is it going to give you the revenue you desire to stay competitive in the market. Most important factor this article wants to help you understand is finding the context. Your target audience is varied, so are their needs. Understand that need perfectly, know their level of tolerance, and create a strategy that doesn’t expose your use of such persuasive emotions.

Businesses must understand that customers hate it when they feel like a number in your spreadsheet. They are not amused to be your piggy bank. They want to build a lasting bond with the brands they use. Optimize your approach and you earn their loyalty, for life.

We hope this article was able to shed some light on how you can mix persuasive emotions into your sales and marketing mix. Do share your opinion, it will be our pleasure to hear your thoughts.