How to Use Emotions to Turn Your Marketing Materials Into Sales Assets

A contrarian idea. If you market technology solutions like software and SaaS, you may think logic drives the buying decision.

Your marketing materials might highlight the money saved. The time saved. The security features. The technical details.

Yet in the decision-making process that goes on in your prospect’s brain, those technical details play a secondary role.

What’s the real driver behind buying decisions?

I’ll explain in a minute, but first, a little story.

Soft Skills Drive Customer Satisfaction

A few weeks ago I was studying how to deliver a better customer experience. I bought an ebook, “The 29 Secrets of Achieving Outrageous Levels of Customer Satisfaction," from Bob Bly.

Bob Bly is a renowned B2B copywriter. He’s been in the game for four decades, when writing was a seller's market. He has a mega-successful writing and publishing business. I figured he could teach me a few tips about achieving customer satisfaction.

I expected to find some practical, concrete things like improving the technical quality of the product.

So I was surprised to learn that most of his tips for achieving customer satisfaction center around soft skills. Be prompt in response. Prioritize by customer need, not your need. Be enthusiastic. Ask for feedback. Communicate to show appreciation. Invoice slightly less than your original quote.

All these are soft, emotional skills. Few of his tips focused on improving the quality of your product/service. 

In fact, he implied the opposite: product quality isn't the main driver for customer satisfaction. You need to have a solution that works, says Bly. As long as it fits that bare minimum, other factors are key to lasting client satisfaction.

Consider, for example, hiring someone to cut your grass. If you’ve ever hired someone to cut your grass, or do other odd jobs, you know how hard it is to find someone who leaves you satisfied. Someone who shows up on time, does what they promised to do, doesn’t steal anything (a cleaner I hired stole a treasured tool from me last year!), doesn't charge hidden fees, and thanks you for your business.

You can easily find hundreds of lawn service providers on Google or Craigslist. Finding someone who has the machinery to cut grass is easy. But finding someone who leaves you feeling satisfied? Much more difficult. That's why people will re-hire someone even if they don’t do a perfect job, as long as they provide those business basics, those hard-to-find basic skills. People are even willing to overlook slight mistakes if they feel good doing business with a service-person.

Details Tell, Emotions Sell

What’s this got to do with B2B technology marketing? As a professional writer, I’ve noticed many software companies focus on their solution's technical details. Their marketing materials speak in bytes, algorithms, numbers. They neglect the softer side that drives customer satisfaction - and repeat business.

The reality is, people don’t buy based on those technical, logical details. Buying decisions are driven by emotion, and justified by logic. This is true for blue collar services like lawn mowing, and true for six figure software purchases.

To turn a reader into a customer, you’ll need to write to them at the emotional level. You can then justify what you say with technical details.

Three Steps for Addressing Readers at an Emotional Level

To start transforming your marketing materials into sales assets, you'll need to use them to address your prospect's emotional requirements. You'll need to understand your reader's key emotional concerns around your solution (and the problem it addresses). Then you can incorporate that into the structure and messaging of your marketing materials. Here are three steps for doing that:

1) Remember the KLT formula.

People like to do business with companies they Know, Like, and Trust. Help your customers Know, Like, and Trust you by showcasing the people side of your company. Tell the origin story of your company. Highlight the people who work behind-the-scenes. Showcase the customers who benefit from your solution. Doing this will help build an emotional connection, so people feel they Know, Like, and Trust your company.

2) Understand Your Customers' Emotional Drivers

Dig into your readers, prospects, and audience. Talk to them directly. Read forums where they gather. Check out review sites. Read between the lines. Research shows people can experience at least 27 different emotions. List out any emotions they may be experiencing surrounding your solution.

In my experience, common emotions surrounding tech sales include aesthetic appreciation, anxiety, calmness, fear, and satisfaction. Another is “significance.” People like to feel they are significant, that what they are doing is meaningful.

Emotional risk - centered around fear and anxiety - often tips the balance. You may have heard the catch-phrase: “You’ll never get fired for buying IBM.” People trust IBM’s name, so there is little emotional risk in buying from them. Do your customers risk looking like a fool if they buy your solution and it doesn’t work? You’ll need to address this emotional risk in your marketing materials to ensure your reader’s emotions don’t block the sale.

3) Structure your writing to address these emotional drivers

Instead of leading with the technical features, start by considering the emotional aspects of your solution.

Is fear of transitioning to a new software a driving emotion in your prospects? If so, address this emotion using your solution features as a form of logical proof. 

Do readers need to make fast decisions about strategies that will impact the company for years? Help them feel a sense of calmness by showing how your software does the work for them.

Is emotional risk at play? Showcase how your solution works in real life through customer success stories.

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Follow these three steps to transform your marketing materials into sales assets. When you write to a reader's emotions, you'll directly address their brain's decision-making process. You can then use your product's features to justify what you say, so your readers can justify their emotional buying decision with logic.

About Scott McKinney: I’m a mathematician-turned-freelance-writer in the B2B software/SaaS industry. I specialize in writing marketing materials like blog posts and thought leadership pieces to help software companies attract wonderful long-term customers. Need an expert writer? Contact me at [email protected].