No matter if you’re writing a company blog post, a press release, or Google AdWords copy, it’s crucial to make your content compelling. Ideally, your words will convey to the target reader that you understand their pain points, that you have the solutions needed to make their lives better, and that you can be trusted with their hard-earned money.

To accomplish these tasks, you’ll need to appeal to the reader’s emotions. Exactly which emotions you target is a complicated question. In fact, there are a number of emotional hooks that writers and advertisers use to ensure their content resonates.

Choosing the Right Emotional Hook

1) Create a sense of FOMO.

The “fear of missing out” is one of the most potent tools in the marketer’s emotional toolbox. The principle is simple: You want your target audience to feel like there is a really great deal that could pass them by. This creates a sense of urgency for them to act, or a sense of anxiety about missing something good.

There are a number of ways to leverage this emotion; for example, you can use your email list or your Google AdWords copy to stress that a particular deal is good for a limited time only, or that a certain promo code can only be used for X amount of days. Customer loyalty programs can also leverage FOMO, especially if your customers feel like there are exclusive deals or special offers that they’ll only know about if they’re “insiders.”

2) Provide a sense of belonging

Everyone wants to feel accepted, or like they belong to a family, community, or group. One way in which advertisers can leverage this emotional hook is by presenting their brand not merely as a list of products and services, but as a lifestyle.

There are plenty of major companies that do this really well, from Apple to Lululemon, from airlines to car companies. They don’t present themselves as brands but as lifestyles. For many customers, these brands/lifestyles are a part of their very identity.

You may not have the same resources as Apple or Jeep, of course, but you can certainly position your brand as an exclusive club.

3) Foster a sense of mystery.

Another emotional hook is the allure of the unanswered question. By creating a sense of mystery, you can compel your readers or audience members to read more, researching your brand to uncover the answers.

There are some simple ways to accomplish this: Ask a question in the title of your next blog post. Or create content that’s designed to answer some of the most common questions or concerns that arise in your field.

4) Identify with your customers’ goals.

Everyone has goals and objectives they hope to accomplish, whether in their personal life or in their professional life. Marketers tend to be successful when they show that they understand their customers’ goals and can provide them with the tools or strategies necessary to achieve them. In doing this, brands can position themselves as invaluable allies.

Of course, this will require having access to buyer personas and demographic research that you can use to determine just what it is your customers are trying to achieve, and to properly position your brand as a useful steppingstone toward goal fulfillment.

5) Showcase your sense of humor.

There are a couple of reasons why humor works so well in marketing.

One is that, if you can cause someone to chuckle or to smile, you’ve instantly forged an emotional connection with them.

And two, humor can help you show your audience that you don’t take yourself too seriously, which can in turn foster trust. This can be an especially useful strategy in fields that tend to be a little stuffy or stiff; think law firms, tech companies, etc.

6) Surprise your audience.

Incorporating an element of surprise can help make your content more memorable. This might mean providing a really surprising statistic or fact, or else developing content that challenges people’s idea of your industry or your brand.

Note that it does not mean promising one thing in the title of your content, then delivering something else; this kind of “surprise” will only serve to undermine trust.

Using Emotion to Drive Your Content

No matter which emotional hook you decide to use, it’s important to make sure you’re basing it on sound strategy… and generally, that means drawing from data about your target audience.

To unite emotional appeal with a data-driven approach, consider using the expertise of a digital marketing consultant. At enCOMPASS Agency, we’re more than happy to fill that role, and to help you develop creative collateral that truly engages your audience in a meaningful way. To talk with us further, feel free to reach out at any time.