One of the more intriguing questions on yesterday’s post about connecting the dots on emotional benefits in Adwords was “What if there are multiple emotional benefits connected to a particular feature?  How do you make sure you’re targeting the best one?”

Let me first  say this question is the one my million dollar protocol was designed to answer back in the days when I did Fortune 500 consulting.  Because it’s a HARD nut to crack, we had a sophisticated computer algorithm which made the connections via a series of picture sorts and statistics in the background.

Here’s the qualitative 80/20 answer in a nutshell though …

1) There ARE always multiple emotional benefits connected to a desired product  feature.  

 In this week’s posts, we’ve been talking about hiking boots.  We suggested that one of the desired features, the high-rise ankle protection was desirable because it allowed avid hikers to bound forth with CONFIDENCE, leaping from rock to rock, knowing the material was there to support and prevent twisting and straining injuries.

But confidence is also bound up with FEELING SAFE, … and taken together in the context of this market category CONFIDENCE AND SAFETY make it possible for the hiker to enjoy a SENSE OF ADVENTURE as they climb higher and higher.

So the high rise no-twist ankle “ladders up” to feelings of confidence, safety, and a sense of adventure.

Which feeling is best to focus on?

To answer that, you need to understand the RELATIVE STRENGTH of the connections. 

2) To get at the relative strength of the connection between a particular product feature (e.g. no twist high rise ankles on my hiking boots) and each of the multiple emotions the feature is connected to you can 

   a) run a million dollar research protocol — OR —

   b) survey and/or talk to a few dozen consumers using the laddering exercise from yesterday’s post to see how many of them make each connection.  (In other words, if you talk to 20 people and a dozen of them connect the feature with Sense of Adventure but only 6 ladder up to Feeling Safe, you can reasonably assume Sense of Adventure is the more powerful connection)

If these techniques intrigue you, I highly recommend signing up for Dr. Sharon Livingston’s emotional marketing newsletter and free 2 hour MP3