by Ron Meldrum
In part one of this series, I wrote about the two different general types of ads and talked briefly about people's motivations for clicking on an ad. In this article, I'll look more deeply into those motivations as I focus on the "transactional" type of banner ad.
I said previously that the purpose of "branding" types of ads is to created familiarity that leads to the trust people will need to have before they will perform a transaction with you. Trust is important, and without some measure of trust, nobody will ever transact with you. But, there's more to it that just trust.
Once you have laid a foundation of trust with your audience, you need to provide them the motivation to transact with you. Trust, while it is always the precursor to any transaction, is not enough. You have to find some way to motivate the individual seeing your ad to act.
The most important thing to understand is that people do not generally act on an ad based on logic. Instead, they act based on emotion. People will justify their emotional decision later, but they will maker their decision here and now based on emotion. This means that an ad that evokes emotion will motivate many more people to act than will an ad that makes a logical argument.
We are an emotion-based society. Logical, critical thinking is not commonly taught in our culture. We are programmed daily by print ads, fiction, TV ads, television movies and sitcoms, and even TV news shows to respond on an emotional basis, and therefore that is how most of our society responds: make the decision based on emotion, then justify that decision with logic.
What emotional motivations can you use in your ads?
The biggest motivator is fear. We see this used everywhere. Politicians use it to sell themselves and their ideas.
For instance a politician might say, "Healthcare expenses are running wild and soon you won't be able to afford insurance. Therefore, we need to nationalize healthcare and put the government in charge of the healthcare industry."
Or, "Your children won't learn how to read and write because we're not spending enough money on education."
Or, "Don't vote for my opponent. He will raise your taxes."
In advertising, fear is commonly used to motivate transactions in many industries. In the antivirus field, it's "Is you computer infected?" or "Have hackers taken over your computer without you even knowing it?" In life insurance, it's "What will happen to your family if you died today? Would they lose the house?"
If you have never been aware of it before, you'll be surprised how much "fear" is used to sell us products, services, and ideas.
Greed or gain is another motivating emotion. Some marketers lump it all into "greed" but I like to add "gain" to it, because "greed" is negative while "gain" is not always bad.
People like to get "more". It's human nature to be unsatisfied with what we have. How much is enough money? One dollar more. We get another dollar and immediately we want more. This fact does not say anything good about our society, but it's just the way it is. People are never satisfied with what they have, so if you offer them "more" or a way to "save", they respond. This is why "FREE" is the single biggest catch-word for advertising today. Give away something "FREE" -- anything – and you've got the attention of the masses.
We justify the emotion with arguments like "I want to be a good steward of what God has given me" or "I want my kids to have more than I did", but for most people its just a logical justification for an emotional choice.
If we really made our decisions logically, we'd look at two products and think: "This one made in China is $2 cheaper than this one made in the USA, but if I buy the one made in the Chinese sweat-shop I will be enabling the oppressors of the Chinese people by giving them my money AND I will be putting my neighbor out of work. If I pay the extra for the American-made product, then I will be supporting my neighbor and thus strengthen my community and my family." But which product do most people buy? If you have any doubt, go to your local superstore and see.
The ads that tout money savings or offer something for "free" are using this greed/gain emotion to get their hooks into you. Those "business opportunity" advertisements we see all over the Internet are classic examples of the greed/gain motivator.
Ego and pride are also powerful motivators. We often see advertising messages like:
You get the idea. Ego and pride are strong emotions, and advertisers routinely use them to part us from our money. We won't admit it though ... we justify our emotional decision with logic.
There is a large amount of material out there on the emotions that motivate people to make a decision. Just about any good book on copywriting or marketing will address it. You can also find a fair amount of material on the Internet by doing a search for something like "advertising emotions" or variations of that. You'll find that there are many other emotions beyond what I have mentioned, including some (such as "lust" and "jealousy") you may never want to use.
The most important thing to remember from this article is that the vast majority of people respond based upon emotion, not logic. If you design your ad to appeal to a logical argument, it will almost always perform poorly, because that's not the way Americans are wired. Design your ad to evoke an emotion, and people will respond.
Author Information:
Ron Meldrum has been a professional web developer since 1995, working in higher education, healthcare, and e-commerce settings. Today, Ron works as a freelance web developer and consultant. He also pastors a small church in Maine and serves as chairman of the Board of Directors of Hope Haven Gospel Mission, a faith-based homeless shelter/soup kitchen/rehabilitation program in Lewiston, Maine. For more about Ron, see http://www.RonMeldrum.com/
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