The Power Of 'Emotional Factors'

[Guest guest]

The Power Of 'Emotional Factors'

It's the eternal argument: logic vs. emotion. And many people want to insist

that in their business, this "emotion stuff" is inappropriate or

ineffective. These include people in financial services, high tech businesses,

professional practices, industrial equipment. And they are all, always wrong.

Emotion-neutered marketing is always wrong.

The primary E-FACTORS of selling - anything and everything - are:

Fear

Guilt

Pride

Greed

LoveFEAR:

In his bit "The 2000 Year Old Man", Mel said "Everything

is based on Fear." He may be right. Certainly, fear of loss drives people

in ways no other appeal can. My speaking colleague and friend Cavett -

who made a fortune teaching people how to sell burial plots to people still

very much alive - said "In order to sell insurance, the prospect must see

the hearse backed up to his door, feel the cold breath of the Grim Reaper

raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and hear the death rattle in his

chest." Go ahead: try selling fire alarms without showing pictures of burn

victims, including children. Lotsa luck. I recently saw a survey of 1,000

people, men and women, who were married and stayed married over 20 years. Asked

- anonymously and confidentially - for the #1 reason they had stayed married,

67% said "Fear of growing old alone." American Express sells

traveler's checks by scaring you about being stuck in some foreign locale on

vacation and losing your money. Bottom-line: if you can whip up insecurity and

fear, you can sell.GUILT:

Because most people actually don't behave very well, just about everybody lugs

around some quantity and diversity of guilt. Since humans are, by design,

imperfect, yet every religion I know of sets up standards of perfect behavior

to sin against, guilt is guaranteed. If you stacked up all the children's' toys,

gifts, jewelry, greeting cards, automobiles, etc. purchased because of guilt,

you could climb it to Mars like Jack climbed the beanstalk. Millions of dollars

worth of a mundane product like "stainless steel cookware" have been

sold nose-to-nose, toes-to-toes by direct salesmen skilled in manipulating

husbands' guilt over having their wives do all the kitchen work. (NOT sold

because of the health benefits of the product.) I've read a fairly persuasive

theory that many well-to-do gamblers go to Vegas to lose money, to assuage

guilt over having it in the first place.PRIDE:

People desperately, hungrily want to "be important." People pick

schools they go to or send their kids to, places they go on vacation,

neighborhoods they live in, cars they drive, clothes they wear, even the

friends they have so they can feel "proud", so they can have

"bragging rights." Maybe you've seen these bumper stickers:

"Parent of a Straight A Student Inside." Think that's there to

motivate or reward the kid? Not on your life.GREED:

"Greed", the character in 'Wall Street', said

"is good" and he proceeded to deliver an impassioned defense for this

much-maligned human emotion. Maybe it's not good, maybe it's not healthy, but

let's make no mistake about it: it exists. Why would a super-rich man like

Trump try to win a quick million betting on a fight? Same reason you buy

a lottery ticket. The prospect of getting something for nothing. Greed. Plus,

in his case, Pride; the opportunity to brag about winning.

"Free" is still the most powerful word in advertising, even though

instinctively we all know nothing is truly free. Why? Because GREED overcomes

common sense. LOVE:

It is an interesting contradiction: in real life, people will often do things

for or because of loved ones that they would not do solely for themselves, yet

it is often difficult to sell on this basis - although entire industries,

notably life insurance, are based on this idea. Generally speaking, each human

seems to require the acceptance, approval, respect and even affection of a

number of people, and a long-term love relationship with one other person. And

they will go to extraordinary lengths to facilitate both. Marketers need to be

very aware of our tendency to try and "buy" love; such appeals work

very well for, say, the diamond jewelry industry. Another aspect of this

E-Factor is vanity, for most people link vanity and their ability to get and keep

love; on this basis, weight loss, skin care, hair replacement, etc. is sold.