Fear and Greed are NOT….

… the only emotions that make people tick.

Most people believe – and some copywriting gurus will tell you – that the two emotions a copywriter needs to appeal to are Fear and Greed because they are the two most powerful ones.
WRONG!

Are you driven by just two emotions? Do you make every decision through the lens of fear or the compulsion of greed? Of course you don’t. And if you try to appeal to your prospects just through these two emotions, you will only reach a handful. Your results will be disappointing. And you will develop a reputation that you probably won’t want to have.

Human beings are motivated by many emotions. We all experience happiness, anger, boredom, vanity, embarrassment, guilt, love, hate – the list is nearly endless.

So what does this have to do with writing sales copy?

EVERYTHING.

Emotions move people to action. So you need to target the right emotion for what it is you are trying to sell so that people will act by purchasing your product. For instance, if you are selling a diet product, you will want to use words that appeal to vanity and confidence. If you’re promoting a life insurance product, you want to use words that hit the emotion of insecurity and even fear of what might happen without it.

Curiosity is a great emotion to target. When you read a headline that piques your curiosity about something that might interest you – or might not – but it is so compelling that you just have to read more…

Get the picture?

So here is a list of a few emotions that will lead a person to desire to read more and, hopefully, purchase your product or service:

Curiosity, benevolence, exhaustion, insecurity, optimism, embarrassment, guilt, fear, greed, vanity, confusion, loneliness, surprise, envy, sympathy, shyness, pride, love, passion.

Before I go – weren’t you CURIOUS about that subject line in this post? :~)