Council Post: Why You Should Be Targeting Emotional Motivators In Your PR Campaign

Everyone has heard of influencers, but have you heard of emotional motivators? They should be at the top of the radar of your public relations strategy, especially if you’re trying to get more consumers on board with your product or service.

Emotional motivators are a specific group of consumer behavioral patterns — like the need for excitement or attention — that drive decision-making.

I define emotional motivators as those who are not shy about expressing their feelings; when they “feel,” everyone around them feels, too. And when they like something, everyone knows it. Their behavioral traits are extensive, but they tend to include a desire to stand out and be heard; they crave freedom; they’re driven to succeed and are genuinely secure. As the founder of a strategic PR firm, I’ve found these motivators are overwhelmingly positive, excited and have the power to expand your brand.

When a PR strategy taps into emotional motivators, you can earn a brand ambassador better than any celebrity spokesperson. In my experience, these motivators help bring a higher return on investment for any PR campaign and increase the chances that your brand will spread via word-of-mouth.

Despite this impressive ability to persuade others, emotional motivators are frequently overlooked as an audience that can deliver ROI. It’s more difficult to quantify than search analytics, but telling your story to emotional motivators can lead to higher revenue for brands. It’s like having your best customers doing PR for your brand directly to their friends.

How Emotional Motivators Influence PR Campaigns

Here’s a closer look at how targeting emotional motivators can help deliver better returns to your PR campaign.

Let’s say you’re a money manager launching a new industry fund. A story in The Wall Street Journal can tap into emotional motivators with a narrative that details how the fund is helping families achieve freedom based on your higher returns. If your fund is capped with a limited number of investors, you’re also tapping into their fear of missing out.

You can apply this approach to any industry. If you’re promoting a fashion label, a story in People or In Style Magazine can stress how women are standing out with your latest design. Throw in a celebrity wearing your product, and you’ve tapped into a reader’s urge to be different.

This marketing and PR approach might sound nebulous to the analytics-driven COO who needs big data to support their decisions. But the long-tenured, introverted COO who desires security over risk won’t express the same emotional motivators as someone who loves risk and has a fear of missing out. This is important to consider as you’re creating your strategy.

You, yourself, could even be a good PR target: You likely read Forbes because you have a desire to succeed, you want your business to stand out from the crowd and you’re willing to take risks, which are all descriptions for emotional motivators. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance you will share this story with others if I tapped into the right emotions. And that is the power of PR and emotional motivators when combined with the right narrative.

Putting It All Together

The first step in reaching emotional motivators is to be aware of them. If they’re not even on your radar, then your business is not targeting them. Larger companies should also make sure their PR teams have integrated emotional motivators into their strategy.

Because emotional motivators vary by person, there really isn’t a “take this step to reach them.” It’s more nuanced. Someone who wants to stand out in the fashion industry will need a different approach than someone in the finance industry who desires money for security. So ask yourself: “What are the emotional motivators driving me in my industry?” If you want to reach others in your sector, they will likely have the same driving desires.