MARKETING: How to Attack The 5 Human Senses

Sight. Touch. Hearing. Taste. And Smell. All these are called the 5 human senses and together they make possible for any human to have a memorable experience in life. Humans remember things based on those senses, that’s human knowledge 101. Alright. But what does it has to do with Copywriting? Well, as you may know, experiences when strong enough always get remembered as images in our brains which makes us associate them with certain feelings, creating a link between that image and an emotional state. Now, this is where the fun begins for Marketing purposes so pay attention here.

Every niche has at least one human sense which hides one or more shortcuts to one’s brain for persuasion purposes. But let me make things clear from the start. Just imagine yourself having a romantic dinner on a place like a high balcony where you can see a great view of the city…

Or imagine yourself eating nice, tasty food like this while laying on the couch watching Netflix…

Compelling images come to mind, right? But what did you think? What emotions and feelings came to mind? What words or sounds did you whisper instantly? Well, those answers don’t matter for now.
Because what you need to learn is this: Feelings can be translated into images and images can be translated into WORDS. See where this is going? So, in order to upgrade your marketing skills, you must understand how humans work at its core to be able to sell more.

Humans love feeling good about themselves. They love living remarkable moments because that’s what life is all about, after all. We always want to eat the best food, spend time on the most beautiful places of the world and mirror ourselves on the success of others.

That’s what we care about in essence when we buy anything. Because people resonate with ads that remind them of certain feelings (good or bad ones), and feelings come from experiences they had in the past. And experiences come from the 5 human senses. So, if we write copy considering this, then how strong and persuasive can your marketing instantly become? What level of connections can you create with someone unknown within seconds? Time to find out these answers.

Meet another REALLY powerful facet of Marketing.

VISUAL (SIGHT)
The first human sense I’ll talk about is VISUAL (sight). Imagery. For Marketing, images have tremendous persuasion power having the ability to grab people’s mind very quickly. Why? Because we absorb information via images a lot faster than via text. Science has already proven that imagery activate separated cognitive functions in the brain which makes humans process an image 60.000 faster than text.

And since we can transform an image into 1000 words (or is it the other way around?) then we can surely craft great copy based on the images your target audience will likely have in their heads. Get the goal of all this?

But that’s not all. Turning imagery into words like sentences is not the final goal because I want you to dive deeper. I spoke before in a powerful article about speed reading and other fast-learning techniques that THE LAST level of speeding reading is having the ability to read a word and automatically translate it to an image (or to instant information), without having the necessity of sounding it in your head to comprehend a text. So what this means is that YOU CAN PLACE IMAGES inside your prospect’s head to maximize persuasion instantly with JUST ONE word. Let me say this again so you don’t forget that easily:

YOU HAVE THE POWER TO PLANT IMAGES INSIDE YOUR PROSPECT’S HEAD BY USING JUST ONE WORD

That’s when persuasion becomes powerful.
Because persuasion itself truly happens when you actually make a person IMAGINE (visualize) what you’re selling in his/her context. For example, if someone reads your copy and if it doesn’t put pictures in their head and if it doesn’t summon a powerful imagination process of your product being used then it doesn’t persuade a person to buy anything at all. Enhancing a visual perspective of your product produces greater results because imagination brings things to another level regarding sales. So if I can force YOU to imagine yourself using MY product or service then the outcome is
a lot stronger due to the fact that IT IS YOU who is convincing yourself of making the purchase. Not me. That’s what is truly clever to do.

By tapping on the visual side you can take over a person’s mind, placing new thoughts with strong buying intent while eliminating any other line of thinking due to this technique of imagery reinforcement. And those images project in the customer’s head your product being used and the desired result being achieved as well. The sale happens inside the customer’s head without much of your effort (technically, because you still need to write copy that appeals to visual)

And ONE MORE thing……

Regarding all these copy-induced image productions, the more context your images have in the prospect’s mind the better it will be its persuasion power. What does that mean? It means that once an Ad EMBRACES the target audience with more specifics by putting your product inside strong contextualization and case scenarios, the easier it gets to persuade the buyer. Having the prospect picture himself using your product like HE would imagine himself using it, is what will help you closing. Visualization reinforced by the prospect’s mind is what persuades the most. If you didn’t
understand then on the next lines you’ll.

For example, let’s say your target audience is made only by MEN.
And you sell wristwatches. Now think for a moment here. FORGET every Ad you saw before and pay attention for a few seconds. Let’s deconstruct the following Ad of such store I gave as an example.

Think: WHY do you think advertising for those type of businesses is like the one below?

A MAN. And He wearing A WATCH. The answer is simple: Because MEN (the target audience) will envision themselves using it. So in ESSENCE what this image in your head says subjectively to the prospect is this:

YOU ARE THE MAN WITH THIS WATCH!!!

Makes more sense now to you?
That’s why having your advertising as SPECIFIC as possible and putting the customer in the “vision” you created will obviously generate much more powerful results. You always need to fit the prospect in that EXACT context you know your prospect will put himself but using what you want him to use. The goal is to reinforce the VISUAL EXPERIENCE of your product being used by a man in the ad.

And since we spoke about visualization so much, here’s a nice curiosity: For those who aren’t aware, men prefer to see MEN models (not women!) using clothes, watches, cars or whatever product they’re thinking of buying for themselves. ALWAYS. Did you noticed my “explanation Ad” of the original one? I let it explicit “YOU ARE THE MAN” for you.

Why? Because that’s what men will read from that original mental image and that’s why the opposite sex cannot be used to sell such products to men (and the same goes for women). Because a man/woman just exchange places with the model on the Ad itself, making it a lot easier to picture themselves wearing or using the promoted product. Alright? Good enough so far? Awesome.

Now let’s get back to Copywriting and approach it from a more practical example so you understand why I gave you all this fluffy talk on Ad imagery. I’ll explain in what level of detail your copy has to strike in order to maximize persuasion.

The points that reinforce imagery in the customer’s mind are all in bold and you can see that I produce scenarios of power, elegance, style and manhood. All points men love have in life.

So by empowering the vision of the product being used and its results in one’s life, I’m able to “induce” the RIGHT emotions that will generate stronger buying intent on the prospect, just by placing more persuasive images inside his head to ultimately cause that inevitable urge to take action. And having associations with role models (like James Bond in this case) also helps a lot when selling visuals because you FORCE the customer to visualize himself as another James Bond version, who is wearing your product.

Powerful words create powerful images.
And powerful images sell. So sell the vision.
OK. Next human sense.

AUDITORY (SOUND)
The way words “speak” through written format can transform conversion rates for ANY company. Why? Because words are actually sounds, right? You read some sentence or a single word and you instantly sound it inside your head, that’s how we usually read a piece of text. So the more you enhance and bring to life an auditory experience, the easier it will be for people to connect it to a past experience and therefore, buy more of your stuff.

Now, I’m not talking here about putting rhythm in your copy. This is another subject. Although having a natural conversation pace with your copy will definitely maximize conversions for sure.

But that’s not the goal since we’re talking about Human Senses.
Instead, the lesson to learn here is to make you understand that the way you use WORDS can remind the customer of a SOUND that’s attached to an experience, and that’s another powerful weapon in your copywriting arsenal. Sounds remind past experiences, and experiences bring emotions to the surface.

YOU CAN MAKE PEOPLE IMAGINE/REMEMBER EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES BY SIMULATING SOUNDS THROUGH TEXT

This approach can also boost conversion rates a lot because we associate many experiences to sounds. Didn’t you ever have a “couple’s music” with someone in a past relationship? What happens when you hear it today? You remember that person, right?

Or maybe you remember that annoying water tap constantly dripping drops of water late at night, for instance. These are a few auditory examples we usually connect to experiences.

So why not using it to our advantage in sales?
Why not stimulate a few sounds in the customer’s head just to inflate the urge to kill/solve that particular problem that’s haunting the customer’s life?

Well, let’s get that part covered now.
Here’s how to apply it to your favor.

Again, the text in bold strikes the auditory sense of the customer, making him relive those horrible bad nights of sleep due to a water leak (which is probably the most common demand of such service) and reinforcing the OBVIOUS necessity of hiring a plumber service right away to solve his problem.

The BIGGER PAIN of that kind of customer will likely be that “tic…tic….tic” every night and that’s why I tackled it. Because certain sounds such as the one above are directly connected to emotions in humans, making them connect faster to the value proposition your product/service offers. And since you may know by now, emotions are game-changing for maximizing conversions in sales content.

That’s why you must bring back to life those sounds from past experiences that instantly invoke on the customer’s mind a reminder of the problem because that will cause a natural and deep desire for buying. After you accomplish this, persuasion will take place by itself and your words will create imagery (visual appeal, remember?) that will persuade the customer faster, making that very customer potentialize the problem himself.

OK. Next copywriting move.

KINESTHETIC (FEELINGS/EMOTIONS)
You probably have seen before a woman in the mall walking by holding lots of shopping bags, right? There’s no person on this Earth who doesn’t know such type of person or haven’t seen one before. But think for a moment. Why does that type of person exist? Why women shop like crazy sometimes? Are they always out of control and think credit cards are like monopoly’s money?

Maybe.
But the truth is that you can induce human beings to purchase a product through feelings/emotions, manipulating the emotional state of a person by producing sales content that uses emotional hooks and mental triggers with the goal of closing a deal.

Is that mean?
Well, yes and no. Yes if your intent is to sell a crappy product.
But NO if you have a GREAT product that can truly help lots of people and you don’t know how to sell it right to customers, which leaves you in a tight spot and makes you look kinda like an unfriendly, selfish business owner for not selling “help” to others. It’s like having the cure for cancer and keeping it to yourself, get it?

With that in mind, “manipulating” a person’s emotional state through copy is not a big deal because, in fact, it is YOUR DUTY to do it so people can thank you later for the solution you offered.

By the way, just in case you want to expand more of this knowledge, you can read the 8 human motivations that can boost sales which is covered on the Awesome Book Cashvertising. But here, I won’t get into that other side and I’ll focus on the core of the kinesthetic human sense. Instead, I’ll show you how to touch one’s mind to provoke strong emotional impact with the end goal to guide customer’s actions.

To start, I need you to understand a scene like I describe below:

[ A VERY IN LOVE COUPLE – Both (the man and the woman) holding hands and looking at each other in love. A soft smile from each that simply shouts HAPPINESS to whatever person stops to take a mental picture of both ]

Does it remind you of a past relationship?
Does it encourage you for a future one?

Well, either way, the real intent of showing this picture to you is exactly this: To make you FEEL something as powerful as Love or Sadness (kinesthetic) in an instant moment, as soon as lay your eyes on it.

So just like the mental picture above, the goal of a copy using the kinesthetic approach is to induce a prospect into a deep emotional state by making him awake those heart-striking feelings by his own efforts. And I know. Although having the goal to do this seems mean and manipulative, the real, honest copywriters see this as a tool available to persuade WHEN THE PRODUCT DELIVERS IT. Sure, bad and mean copywriters will generate words to manipulate people while The Great Copywriters will see it as an available item in their pack of marketing weapons.

OK. Now let’s take a practical example.

(If you’re a girl please don’t cry over the keyboard.)
Ok, so the goal here was to invoke such good, powerful feelings through mental imagery in the copy that it would cause a huge STORM of dating thoughts, pushing things to your favor if your product truly delivers.

That’s why in the example above I painted a picture of a couple (the prospect + a man) walking at the part or watching a sunset because those kinds of moments naturally spark good feelings on us, making us associate deep, meaningful, PURE love to them.

A powerful feeling to explore in your copy by the way.

And if you pay closer attention to my example above, you can also see that I played with Sadness and a bit of emotional despair right at the beginning of the copy too. Why? Because it works like a hook to grab the target audience’s attention, making prospects read more just to see what type of value proposition you have and what powerful product can you deliver to reverse all the emotional nightmare he’s living now.

Again, FEELINGS.
We never want to feel sad, do we?
No, we don’t. (if you do, please click here and find out why)

So, in this relationship niche, my clear intent was to “manipulate” the 2 extremes of the dating life just to make people aware of how much I know their pain and what my product can actually deliver.

That was one choice I decide to explore, but you can play with several other emotional resources such as FEAR, JOY, CONFIDENCE and many others to strike someone with your copy, as well. Just see if it FITS your niche’s greatest pain/problems. After all, there’s no point reinforcing an emotional state in your copy if people won’t associate it with that product’s experience. It’s like trying to sell insurance using happiness for example. Just useless. Insurance must reinforce FEAR and LOSS in order to truly persuade people.

Get it? Play with emotions and bring them back to life.
OK! Now next move.

OLFACTORY (SMELL)
If I would ask you what were the TOP 3 smells you hate the most, then what comes to mind? A stinky, moisty, cheese-like feet is your first thought? Yes? Or maybe I have reminded you of those diapers full of smelly, chocolate-like, yummy feces. Or maybe, a memory of that old jar of pasty milk from 9 months ago that you still keep in your fridge is what came to mind.

Well, regardless of all the crappy smells you brought to life, the one point you need to open your eyes for when the subject is Copywriting is this:

YOUR COPY HAS THE POWER TO INVOKE THE FEELINGS ATTACHED TO SMELLS AS LONG AS YOU CREATE THE RIGHT PICTURES INTO THE CUSTOMER’S MIND

Yes. You CANNOT bring smells to life (obviously).
But smells are directly related to good or bad feelings, and as you may know by now, a feeling is the copywriter’s greatest weapon for influencing people to buy more. We paint certain pictures in the head of a customer that reminds him of a bad smell and this instantly brings to surface a bad emotion that’s associated with it. Next, we play with that summoned emotion to power up our persuasion and reinforce the necessity of our product.

Now that I’ve defined this, time to get practical again.

Right at the start of the copy, I painted that horrible experience every mother and father lives of opening a dirty, smelly and moisty diaper. I use it as a resource to maximize the power of my copy to grab customer’s attention and explain why the “Hero Diapers” is a practical solution that suits for two main problems at once: (1) Checking for dirty diaper and (2) Neutralizing bad smells.

For the target audience, those particular points are incredibly appealing since these are the two main issues a brand of such niche must resolve with its product. But most of all, I used the smell factor to enhance my copy. That’s what you could also do when you see an opening in a niche where smells are a problem.

OK. Time to finish this huge article once and for all.

GUSTATORY (TASTE)
Ok, let’s open this with some interesting questions: Why do you think Coca-cola does their propaganda using an image of a sweaty coke? Or why do you think Mc Donalds use images of hamburgers with melted, tasteful cheese and giant fat meats? That’s simple to answer: because those images awaken the gustatory side of you. A sweaty, red coke has the intention to make your thirsty and a fat hamburger mixed with melted, tasteful cheese has the intent to make you hungry. That’s the objective in such advertising.

Take a look for yourself:
IMAGE – Coca-cola Bottle

Got the idea?
Now THAT’S why coke has that “ice cold” appearance on Ads, to make you salivate like crazy and force you to go buy one as soon as possible wherever you are. Its intent is to create that URGE for a few glasses of that heaven-like drink whether you’re thirsty or not.

Coca-cola also makes marketing deals with other brands just to be able to put a coke along with their partner’s food, because everybody loves a little bit of coke with a meal once in a while, for example. They play with the several “pains” customers may have at the moment: Thirst, Hunger, Social situation etc.

Killing the customer’s thirsty moments is just ONE option for Coca-cola. But sure, if the customer is already thirsty then the coke’s persuasion power goes over 500% (I just made that up).

So, if one image is what’s necessary to remind us of how it would be good to kill our thirsty moment with a coke, then it is only logical to assume that we can reverse this image back to words, right? That’s when copywriting comes in. To make people thirsty, hungry or to awake that out-of-control fat kid who lives inside of each and every one of us.

That said, let’s play.

See what I did there? I reinforced the EXPERIENCE along with the product itself. The bold part is what makes the pizza a special food to eat because it highlights those awesome sensations we have once we put it into our mouths. So, by activating the memories of tasting great food it gets easier to help you to make the sale.

That’s how you should write copy for food.
Activate hunger. Activate thirst. Activate bulimia (ok that was a joke). Just remember to trade shoes with the customer and imagine what good sensations you would like to experience as soon as you put the product in your mouth. Then, translate all those great sensations back to words, no matter what words they are (avoid bad words of course). Use the words people use when talking to friends because that’s what creates connections and direct links to those emotions. That’s why I used words such as “soft”, “juicy” and “crispy” to describe important pieces of the product which is also what every hungry person will like to eat.

Remember: The best Marketing always uses PRECISE communication. And that includes the best language possible. Talk to the audience using THEIR terms to captivate them faster. Keep that in mind.

CONCLUSION
A powerful copy is not always a lengthy one or a text full of data and statistics. A powerful copy can also strike a customer’s mind exactly in the points that remind him of a necessity that’s triggered by one or more of the 5 human senses.

And in the end, everything converts back to feelings.
So if you know how to use a human sense as a shortcut to the prospect’s mind by exploring with your copy a possible problem he may be experiencing, and playing with the right emotions in your niche, then it will be a lot easier to make the customer reach his wallet and unload his pockets buying from you.

Alright? Clear?
So have fun with your new sales technique.
Take care.