I get asked this question at least once a week throughout a variety of conversations with peers, friends, coworkers and family – what is emotional marketing?

Emotional marketing, according to yours truly, is very simply the ability to communicate powerfully through the use of different techniques that evoke emotion.

I read far too many advertisements with marketing copy that incorporates no emotion and as a result are boring, forgettable and really a waste of time and money. The world of advertising is flooded and is very difficult to stand out with an audience. Without incorporating some emotion it becomes almost impossible to grab attention and be memorable. If you were looking for a service provider or a product that could help you and didn’t know where to go, you probably saw an advertisement communicating the answer to you, but it didn’t stand out so you missed it. I find that it happens quite frequently and I have heard this echoed several times within several professional communities.

Emotional marketing has the ability to make your audience laugh, smile, think, feel sad, feel guilty, feel aroused, feel passionate, driven and so on. It should be your goal to get your audience to feel these emotions, but how? There are many ways to do this but I’ll outline a few ways you can start building emotion into your marketing.

1. First, you need to decide what you’re trying to accomplish with your advertisement.

2. Secondly you have to decide what you want to say and how to say it – develop the copy.

3. Thirdly, you have to use your creative side to bring the copy to life. Whether it’s through using music, images, tone or colour. There are a variety of different ways to do this.

4. Test the advertisement with peers, coworkers, friends and family. Ask them what it made them feel and if necessary make adjustments.

If you’re still confused, you need to learn from those who do this best. Watch movie trailers for action films, watch powerful monologues like the one in Braveheart. Listen to the tone, listen to the music, take note of the words being used, these professionals know how to evoke emotion and in their own way are emotional marketing masters! It’s important to remember that emotional marketing is NOT just about advertising, it’s about creating a personal connection with your audience. This, however, is of course for another post.

Follow me on Twitter to learn more about emotional marketing – www.twitter.com/ryancaligiuri