Science Proves Why Emotionally Based Advertising Works

There is a story in a recent issue of USA today, which cites scientific research showing that we make our buying decisions based on EMOTIONS not LOGIC.

This is something that good copywriters, and direct response marketing experts have known for over a hundred years.

People in sales have known about this since the first days that humans began to exchange goods for money.

But it’s not unusual for people to resist this style of marketing. There’s a variety of reasons, such as "it’s unprofessional" or "it won’t work for my business". Nonsense. All humans make decisions based on emotions. We might rationalize it with logic, but deep down in the core of what makes us tick, it’s pure raw emotional impulse that says "I WANT IT AND I WANT IT NOW"

It is pure folly to ignore this, unless you like your business to struggle.

Don’t believe me, go read this article now:

Study: Emotion rules the brain’s decisions
USA Today, August 26, 2006

In case you don’t want to bother, here are two quick snippets from the article worth noting:

The study comes amid a burst of research into neuroeconomics, which studies the brain’s role in buying and selling decisions. Economists have embraced the idea in recent years that irrational psychology, rather than cool calculation, plays a role in such decisions. The brain study goes further and suggests that emotions rule decisions almost completely.

In fact, people who lack emotions because of brain injuries often have difficulty making decisions at all, notes Damasio. The brain stores emotional memories of past decisions, and those are what drive people’s choices in life, he suggests. "What makes you and me ‘rational’ is not suppressing our emotions, but tempering them in a positive way," he says.

Now, go get some clients!

Craig