You have a content calendar. You collect tons of information about your target audience. You do everything in your power to produce content that meets their needs and helps them solve problems. Are you forgetting something? Emotions. That’s what marketing is all about – appealing to people’s emotions.

If you’re targeting businesses instead of individuals, the principle is the same: your marketing campaign is still targeting the people behind those businesses. When you make them feel something, they are more likely to engage with your content and consider your services.

Browse through few blogs and you’ll notice they lack that element of emotional appeal. They fail to awaken sympathy, anger, or any other emotion in the reader. You don’t want to be one of those people who produce lifeless content. You want to be different. You want to be memorable!

You want proof that emotional content makes you more successful at content marketing? No problem. Social Transmission, Emotion and the Virality of Online Content is a study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania. The authors of the study examined how emotions made certain pieces of online content more viral than others. They realized that content that evoked either positive or negative emotions with high intensity (awe, anger or anxiety) had higher chances to become viral. The content that evoked emotion with low arousal (such as sadness) was less viral.

The conclusion is simple: you want to awaken that high emotional arousal in your readers. We’ll give you few tips to help you do that.

Understand the Psychology of Liking and Sharing

Start from yourself. What kind of content do you read/watch, like and share online? We’ll give you some hints:

  • Content that’s entertaining. You laugh, and you share it so it will make others laugh, too.
  • Content that helps you define yourself to others. It’s all about the ego and how it wants other people to see you. That’s why you share all those highly intellectual articles. However, you’ll notice that even that kind of content has some emotion in it. It makes you take a side.
  • Content that motivates. Just check your Pinterest boards and you’ll see what we mean.

Do your own research: understand the emotions that lead you to liking and sharing. Whenever you feel like a certain post has the it factor, analyze it. Analyze your reaction to it. Then, try to awaken the same reaction with your own content.

Target the Most Powerful Emotions

If you want your content to trigger action, target one or more of these emotions: joy, anxiety, or anger. You awaken joy by motivating your readers. Inspire them to make a change! Anxiety? Show the reality in all its seriousness. The issue of global warming, for example, makes the readers anxious. As for the anger, it doesn’t mean making your readers angry with insensitive comments. It means evoking this emotion by presenting strong opinions and facts. Then, you allow the audience to agree or disagree.

 

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Give Them a Shock

Did you know that 795 million people in the world were suffering from chronic undernourishment? That’s how serious the hunger issue is.”

That’s a fact that shocks, right? We know this is an issue, but not all of us know how serious it is. Find shocking or unexpected statistics and use them in your content. Moreover, start the article with them!

You have to be careful with the way you use facts for the sake of promoting a product, service or cause. You’ll turn them to your advantage, but you mustn’t make the content look like a cheap TV commercial. Remember: your audience needs some emotion to resonate with.

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Always Focus on Your Audience

All these tips are great, but how exactly do you make an article emotional? That’s easy: just focus on your audience. If you correctly identified your audience, you know what works for them. Many brands understand their audiences want humor and sarcasm, so that’s what they deliver.

Find out what your target readers like and share. Connect with them on social media and observe their activity. If you notice they mostly share content that made them laugh, then use some humor when you send a special offer via email! Even the recipients are not ready to buy or engage, they will notice your brand when your message causes reaction.

Emotions Always Win!

Virality of content can’t be predicted. However, there are some elements that are common for all content that goes viral. One of those aspect is the emotional appeal. We respond to content because it touched something. We don’t like reading dry articles and lists of facts that mean nothing in context.

We like to imagine ourselves making changes. We instinctively respond to something that makes us angry or anxious. Only great writers can make the readers experience their words. That’s the effect marketers are aiming for.

About the author: Karen Dikson is a blogger and marketing manager at AU BestEssays writing service. She is an intuitive and creative thinker who is able to connect various thoughts into a single theme. Karen enjoys traveling and stay up-to-date on the latest digital marketing trends. Follow her on Twitter.