Are you tapping into emotional selling?
We like to have the radio on in the office, songs come and songs go, we may like a tune but we really don’t take the time to listen intently to the words. Last week there was a video going around in social media of Kelly Clarkson singing Piece by Piece on the last episode of American Idol. I had heard the song many times and loved the melody and the sense the emotion within the lyrics, but it wasn’t until I watched this video of her performance that they truly struck me. She wrote the song about her childhood and it begins….
And all I remember is your back
Walking towards the airport, leaving us all in your past
I traveled fifteen hundred miles to see you
Begged you to want me, but you didn’t want to
Singing accompanied only by a piano you could hear every word, felt her every emotion and, like many watching it, I began to cry.
Emotional decisions
Every day, we make decisions based on our emotions, the majority of the time we don’t think we just act as thought it was a song playing in the background. But what if we took the time to really listen, to really understand the message behind the words being spoken, would the outcome be the same?
One of the major emotional decisions we make is when we buy a home. We want the ‘feeling’ as we walk through the door that tells us in no certain terms that this is the property for us! Yes, some may argue that it is a decision between the heart and the head, but although we listen to our ‘head’ we know that what the heart wants…. As an estate agent, why wouldn’t you want to tap into this emotion when selling a property.
Warm vs Cold
I always talk about content in terms of it being warm or cold. To me warm content speaks to the reader, it provides an emotional pull no matter how small, it engages you and you want to know more. Let’s take property details for example, why do all (I know there are exceptions) estate agents write the same cold and factual description? Why are you not taking the opportunity to seduce the home buyer not just with the images that you use, but the description?
In home staging, we are encouraging vendors to create a lifestyle to attract potential buyers, this lifestyle allows them to visualize themselves in the property thus making an emotional connection. So imagine the difference you could make by describing this lifestyle before they actually viewed, how you are enabling a potential buyer to already form an emotional connection before they have even entered the property?
Content overload
With so much content being produced you need to take stock of every element of your marketing. According to data last year, it was estimated that Facebook users share 684,478 pieces of content every minute. There is no way we can digest that amount of content so what do we do, we scroll through our timeline until something catches our eye. Now let’s translate this to buyer psychology, they are scrolling through property over property on a portal and will only stop when something catches their eye, but what will make them click through to find out more? The images, the headline, the description or a combination?
Avoid the cold call
One of the pains in my life is the Cold Call. “Hi, is that Andrea Morgan, how are you doing today?” Those dreaded words. Yet written they sound warm and inviting, but spoken by the stranger on the line you know that they want something. Although they may try on the phone to connect and get you talking, we are always suspect and listen with caution – that is if you haven’t already put down the phone! Cold calling is the perfect term for this kind of selling because it is cold, there is no emotional connection and no you haven’t been in an accident over the last 6 months. I often read content that feels like a cold call, it is a hard sell, it feels like the product of service is being shoved down my throat before I have had a chance to digest what they are selling. Don’t sell, tell stories.
“People are attracted to stories because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people.” Keith Quesenberry, HBR
Tell stories
Storytelling allows us to tap into emotional selling, but your stories have to be authentic, honest and true. Not every story is a good one, it is about choosing those scenarios that the majority can relate to. Just like Kelly Clarkson, she told an honest and painful story through her song that captivated people’s emotions, so don’t just tell the story of your business, but also the properties that you sell.
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