Today, people tend to pride themselves on making “rational” decisions, carefully analyzing all the available information before determining the best choice. But, like it or not, people subconsciously make purchasing decisions based upon emotion and then rationalize the purchase by coming up with explanations for the decision after the fact.

As Douglas van Praet writes in his book, Unconscious Branding, “Influence is born by appealing to the emotions while overcoming rational restraints.” In fact, he claims that according to recent research conducted by Timothy Wilson at the University of Virginia, we make 90% of our decisions without consciously realizing we’re doing it.

So while buyer education about your products or services is important, marketers must focus on engaging consumer emotions. There are a variety of ways this can be done—through the use of images, storytelling, persuasive subject lines, and compelling copy. Once you have persuaded potential buyers emotionally (albeit unconsciously), they will rationalize that choice on their own. However, once an emotional decision not to buy your product has been made, it’s difficult to reverse.

Figure 1: Evocative Language

A good example of this is Figure 1, an email from Hilton’s HHonors program. The text is evocative and persuasive—“Exclusive Travel Specials,” “Escape to Your Paradise,” “Unforgettable Memories,” which then leads to the call-to-action: “Treat Yourself to the Getaway You Deserve.” This email example uses persuasive and compelling text-copy aimed to trigger an emotional response from the reader.

London Pride beer uses emotion-driven marketing in this example that hooks the reader with a memorable story about something Londoners are familiar with and proud of.

People love stories, and the human mind is naturally programmed to remember them. People learn by finding patterns and meanings in things—hence solitary facts and figures are easily forgotten—but if they are incorporated into stories, people experience them, which helps form an emotional connection. This phenomena is called Grounded Cognition, which essentially means that people live the story when they hear or read it.

Figure 2: A Story of a Shared Experience

So in Figure 2, when the viewer reads a lovely story about London Pride’s Wisteria, London Pride is calling upon the viewers past experiences of Wisteria—the feelings of joy in the summer and the beautiful scent of this plant. Stories stimulate both the logical and creative parts of the brain, meaning that viewers understand the information factually, visually and emotionally.

The purple genus has been steadily scaling our brewery walls since 1816. It’s the oldest in England. So when the wisterias at Kew Gardens died, they took a trip across Kew Bridge and up the Great Wall road to knock on our door. We happily obliged them with a cutting and a few crates of London Pride. It seems botanists are fans of our tasty ale too. Or maybe they figured out the secret to England’s oldest wisteria? It’s been fed a drop or two every night since it was a sapling.

By emotionally engaging with your audience— whether it is through storytelling, using compelling text-copy or persuasive imagery— marketers improve their chances of converting buyers emotionally, so that they will rationalize their conscious decisions to meet their subconscious decision.