OK!  Here’s the answer to the emotional ppc marketing puzzle I posed in yesterday’s post “emotional marketing wife loses mind” …

In yesterday’s post I told you there was a less than obvious marketing lesson for PPC marketers, and I asked people to guess what it might be. (If you go read the questions and look at the picture, you’ll understand this post better)

The title of the post (and the subject line of the email I sent to drive traffic there) was “Emotional Marketing Wife Loses Mind”.   By the way because of that title I almost had to title TODAY’s POST “Emotional Marketing Wife Files For Divorce”:

Anyway, there were MANY MANY MANY good answers to the question posted on the blog.

But the lesson I wanted you to take away most was PEOPLE WILL TAKE ACTIONS YOU DESIRE IF THEY BELIEVE YOU WILL CHANGE THEIR EMOTIONAL STATE.

You see, there are only really 4 emotions … Mad, Sad, Scared, and Glad. (Everything else is a “shade of grey” built on one or more of these … for example “Elation” is an extreme form of Glad, whereas “Disgusted” is a combination of Sad and Mad)

But the world, for the most part walks around feeling one of the first 3 … Mad, Sad, or Scared.

If you want them to take action, … starting with clicking on your PPC ad, but then also opting in, buying, clicking an email link, etc … you have to convince them you will MOVE THEM FROM Mad, Sad or Scared –> GLAD. (Note: there are 37 very special variations of “Glad” which represent the spectrum of emotional benefits that we’ve found to motivate purchase behavior)

Anytime your prospect does anything you want them to do … ANYTHING which moves them even an inch along the path from your PPC Ad Impression towards taking money out of their wallet and giving money to you, it’s because they believe this action will move them from Mad, Sad, or Scared –> Glad.

The very specific example was in the behavior you took in response to my email and post yesterday  (especially those of you came from the email and left comments).

Knowing that propects will take desired actions in response to a promised change in emotional state, I’m always alert for pictures, stories, events, and other happenings in my life which CHANGE MY OWN EMOTIONAL STATE FOR THE BETTER (move me from Mad/Sad/Scared –> Glad).

Then I ask myself … what’s the most important thing I want my market to do now?

Yesterday, when I got the picture from Sharon, I literally almost peed my pants.  I smiled from ear to ear.  I glowed inside with love for my wife … I was having a VERY hard day, and it really cheered me up.

I asked myself “What’s the most important thing I want my market to do now?”

Turns out I needed COMMENTS ON MY BLOG. (This blog is fairly new and I’m pushing the SEO rankings up slowly … it’s a new endeavor for me, and I’m learning that comments on the blog are particularly important.  By the way … PayPerClickSearchMarketing.com was #1 for “Emotional Marketing Wife” yesterday … not that this is any big accomplishment!)

I came up with an email subject “headline” which encapsulated the picture the best I could … then built the path straight into the picture, and kept the train going to create the comments.

At last count, there were over 50+ comments on that single post.  I’ll bet it reaches 100 by the end of the weekend … which be DOUBLE what it was beforehand.

Now … the subject line could have just as well been a PPC ad … and many of you commenters demonstrated the ability to put the ad into Adwords format.   And your landing page could have used the picture.

The key is to LINK people into your desired action once you’ve got their emotional state changed.

And although it works in Adwords itself, it’s PARTICULARLY POWERFUL with an opt in email list because you already have a relationship with your subscribers.  Relationships = emotional power.

Here’s another example I’ve used in my Rabbit List (note: VERY OLD example web page formatting … but it still works like gangbusters).  It goes something like this:

——————

Subject: my psychotic puppy dog

I can’t believe it.  My dog has finally gone absolutely insane and stolen the discount coupon
codes for my shopping cart, and now he’s just laughing at me like a deranged lunatic.  Here, have a look:

http://www.rabbitsecrets.com/InsanePuppy.htm

Now here’s the thing.  He’s not going to give them back to me unless I feed him steak all weekend, and even then, not until Monday.

But my torture is your gain.  I guess my Rabbit Secrets package is all yours now for X% off if you want to get it on this link before Monday morning.

Crazy dog … he’s really done it this time!

————————–

See what I mean?  People get the email while they’re sitting on their computers, all frustrated with work during the day, etc.  Then I genuinely make them smile, and they’re grateful for it … I’ve PROVEN TO THEM I CAN TAKE THEM FROM MAD/SAD/SCARED –> GLAD …

Once I’ve done that EVERY OTHER BENEFIT I OFFER THEM IS MORE BELIEVABLE.

Let me make this perfectly clear.

Every purchase is an emotional purchase IF you understand that an emotional benefit is only the cognitive “word label” we give to the experience of moving from mad/sad/scared –> glad … AND this movement accompanies the anticipated satisfaction of ALL human needs.  (Every purchase is made to satisfy some human need … every last one)

—————————-

Where might YOU use this strategy this week?  Let me know!