As humans, we love to boast about our intelligent, super-evolved brains. It doesn’t feel like we’re primal animals anymore.

Even after millions of years of evolution, we humans still rely heavily on urges, impulses and emotions when making decisions.

That’s right, all of that smart research and planning you did before you bought your last car was largely influenced by the sub-conscious part of your brain.

As business owners, we need to become adept at building emotional connections in our marketing and on our websites.

We need to appeal to our ideal client’s emotional wants and needs.

What types of emotion can we add to our website in a natural way?

Happy – If you’re a financial planner you can highlight information on the uptick of the stock market. If you’re a nutritionist you can talk about a positive, new study that’s just come out.

Sad – It’s no secret that non-profits successfully use sad stories in their marketing.

Funny – Big company or small, if you can get people to laugh they’ll pay attention to you. Look at Old Spice, Geico or any company advertising during the superbowl.

Fear – Use loss aversion to subtlety create fear. People prefer to avoid losing something rather than gaining something of equal value.

Jealousy – People still feel the need to keep up with the Jones’s, can your service help them do that?

Does your marketing resemble an emotionless robot or are you making an effort to build emotional connections with your potential clients?

The Takeaway: Humans heavily rely on emotion when we make purchasing decisions. As business owners, we need to connect with our potential clients on an emotional level.

-Keith