5 Ways to Boost Your Content Marketing with Emotions

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Why are emotions so important when it comes to content marketing? 

If you scroll through your social media feed at any time, you’ll notice that most content that catches your eye has an emotional aspect to it. 

When done well, emotionally compelling content can result in increased dwell time and heightened levels of user involvement on your website and social media content. And social networks know this, which is why they feature content that triggers emotions in people. 

Some 27% of people wake up and use social media the first thing in the morning. And as much as 40% of Millennials overspend just so they can keep up with peers online. That’s the impact of emotion in content – it can’t be underestimated. Also, creating more engagement and interactions through emotional content impacts your SEO in a positive way. 

Emotion is what gives meaning to your brand or product. Without an emotional spark or connections, your products will look as generic as every other brand or product online. Knowing how to add emotion to your content marketing is a craft that’s well worth learning about.

In this post, we’ll look at some practical ways you can add emotion to your content marketing. 

Share a backstory

Think of movies and series that made an impression on you. The most interesting characters and events of a show have a backstory that reveals motivations. 

You can write blog posts highlighting your own business backstory. Talking about how you developed your product idea is engaging and useful to people. Create behind-the-scenes videos to share how your business works. This creates an opportunity for you to showcase your employees and feature the human side of your business. 

Share such content via social media and on your web pages to create the most impact. 

Personalize your content

Did you know that adding emotional words and phrases to your email content can be one way to avoid getting marked as spam? 

When you write your email content with a personal touch it tells people that a real human being wrote it with care and attention. And when people engage with your email by opening it and reading it, it also tells email service providers that your content comes from a legitimate source.

Another way to personalize your email marketing is to address your newsletter subscribers by their first name in the email subject line. It’s a well-known and effective way to get people to open your emails and read your content.

To do this, you need a smart form tool where people subscribe to your content by entering their name and email. Then the tool will make it easy for you to send emails to thousands of people and address each one of them by their own name.

For your website, be specific with what your product features are and what they can do. If you own an online retail store, you could write about shoes in a general way to target all people. But you’re more likely to see more engagement if you made specific content for hikers, people on a budget, or some other specific target market.

Create emotional copy

Our brains are wired to respond to emotions by matching our feelings with how we speak and write. Happy words tend to come paired with good feelings, while sad words are matched with negative feelings.

Keeping this in mind, use power words across your content marketing – in email copy, blog titles, headlines on web pages, and other places. 

Focus on the benefits of your services and products rather than just features. For example, a car repair business could promote itself as just that – a car repair business. But if you framed this business from a benefits perspective, you’d describe it as a place ‘to bring your beloved family car back on the road.’ 

Which one of these approaches sounds more human and appealing to you? Adding emotion to your copy by telling stories, using the right words, and focusing on customers’ needs will bring more people to your business’s doorstep. 

Leverage numbers

Many people need to know about facts and figures before they decide to invest in a product. But that doesn’t sound like an emotional content marketing tactic, does it? Not so. 

By adding statistics to your marketing material, you build a feeling of trust. Creating infographics, reports, and other data-based content that’s easy to understand showcases your authority and expertise. And an important outcome is that people will trust your business more. 

You can also use numbers by sharing facts and statistics on matters that touch people emotionally. We often see this in content shared by charitable and non-profit organizations. Such content creates awareness, fosters feelings of compassion and altruism, and is generally effective in getting people to take action. 

Unicef uses statistics to make impactful messages on its social media

Use emojis in content marketing

The widespread use of smartphones around the world has made communication more casual and direct. They aren’t just for personal chat messages anymore. Today, using emojis in your content isn’t unusual even when you’re speaking to customers. In fact, it’s encouraged. 

Emojis in email subject lines capture attention

Social media platforms today make it easy to create Stories and videos where you can insert emojis and other interactive elements. 

The next time you create a short video or post a Story, make use of GIFS, emojis, stickers, polls, countdown timers, and much more.

Adding GIFs to your email can educate readers and keep them engaged

Adding a visual icon or element to your content helps separate you from a stream of online information. And your content and brand won’t slip by unnoticed.

Conclusion

If you want to stand out from the competition and increase your sales, you need to add emotion to your content marketing. 

By leveraging the ideas given in this post, you immediately make your email marketing, content creation, and social media outreach far more humanized and appealing. 

Don’t take my word for it though. Start creating posts with an emotional aspect to them. And then compare them with regular content. Collect data to see what works best and you’ll start to grow your audience fast. 

Syed Balkhi
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.

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