Appeal to the Feelgood Brain - Carney
The Daily Carnage

Appeal to the Feelgood Brain

Because the rational brain does ridiculous things like keep you from eating brownies.

How Copywriters Can Leverage the Power of Feelgood Chemicals

Did you know we all have two brains?

We’re not talking about the ol’ left and right brains. We’re talking about the feelgood brain and the rational brain. Like your annoying younger brother, these two brains fight with each other a lot. You know how it goes…

You walk into the breakroom and notice that someone brought in freshly made brownies. That ooey-gooey, sugary goodness is speaking to you. You’re about to grab a piece when your rational brain tries to talk you out of it. “You’ve already eaten enough today. You don’t need that brownie.”

Then what happens? You might walk away, at first. But you’re eventually gonna come back and eat that brownie. There’s no stopping your feelgood brain when it wants something.

And that’s why your marketing needs to appeal to the feelgood brain. There’s no stopping that brain when you do it right!

Marketers, however, often try to appeal to the rational brain. We throw facts and figures and numbers out there all the time. Those are great, but they don’t move the needle.

Neurologist, Antonio Damasio, put it best when he said, “We are not necessarily thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think.

That’s a really important distinction. It explains exactly why you need to forget about appealing to the rational, thinking side of your audience.

Here’s one caveat though: That feelgood brain can also release feelbad chemicals when it’s feeling threatened. The threat doesn’t have to be a deadly tiger. It could be an overzealous car salesman.

Those feelbad chemicals explain why you need to carefully balance how you appeal to the feelgood brain.

Copyblogger suggests four things to appeal to the feelgood brain:

  1. Use conversational, everyday language.
  2. Speak softly and build trust
  3. Use a ton of positive language. Avoid the scare tactics.
  4. Make your readers feel safe and respected.

The full post from Copyblogger also recommends a few books you’ll want to read to learn more about neuromarketing. Take the jump 👇

Hey there, crew! We gathered three recently published podcasts for ya to listen, learn, and enjoy.

  1. How To Stockpile Potential Customers For Q4 Using Facebook And Instagram with Austin Brawner from EcommerceInfluence.

  2. 5 Proven Growth Strategies You Can Do Today To Grow Your Business with Rick Mulready from The Art of Paid Traffic
  3. 6 Secrets to Finishing What You Start with Amy Porterfield

 

5 Design Solutions That Will Optimize Your Website

We’re pumped to have collaborated with contributing writer and media specialist for Allegra Network, Caryl Anne Crowne for our latest blog! Together, we covered five solutions to help ya optimize your website.

Let’s dig in!

1. It’s all about the users. Amazon is the king delivering on consumer expectation with available search, topic navigation, top picks based on user, recently viewed, daily deals, and so on.

Essentially, understand what your audience expects from you and deliver it.

2. Keep your website simple. Have a developer who can make your logo dance across your site whenever a user hovers over it? Sure, it sounds impressive from a tech standpoint, but resist the urge to add elements that don’t directly help your audience understand your message.

We love using Apple as an example of aclean, minimal site. They artfully display products, immediately tells users what they need to know, and have clearly defined CTAs.

3. Add personality. There are people behind every business, let that shine through on your website. For the love of all things, back away from stock photography on your website.

Why? Because your modern users can spot them like the Karate Kid snatches a fly with chopsticks. Here are some apps that will help you take professional looking photos on your iPhone:

  • TouchRetouch: An app dedicated to removing unwanted elements from your photos
  • ProCamera: Powerful camera app with DSLR-like controls

4. Make connecting easy. People land on your website for a reason. Let users explore your brand through a nonstop journey.

In a single click, users should be able to jump from your homepage, to your facebook page, to your Instagram page, to your products page, then to your youtube account. Be connected! GoPro really embraces this concept.

5. Don’t forget mobile. Don’t give users a reason to leave your site. Not having a mobile-friendly site only frustrates users and will cause your bounce rate to skyrocket.

In 2016 mobile users surpass desktop internet traffic by 52%. If that’s not enough reason to design your website mobile first, we don’t know what is.

There ya have it. Click through for further explanation and visuals to support!

Camping in a Countryman

The Mini Countryman might be a relatively small car, but the brand is claiming that it’s big enough for any adventure.

They’re proving this by creating miniature adventure scenes in the trunk of the car. In this ad, Mini created a tiny romantic camping scene made out of foam, wire, and polymer clay.

The ad features a mini couple roasting hotdogs over a minuscule fire while staring at the moon. As they stare at the moon, the camera zooms in to reveal a teeny camping scene on the moon too.

The moon scene features two astronauts doing the same thing as their counterparts on Earth.

We dig the ad, but our Art Director, Rich, did bring up a good point:

The only thing this ad proves is that the Mini is big enough for miniature adventures. They didn’t prove that it’s big enough for real-life adventures. Psh, whatever, Rich.

“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.” 

Seth Godin

Ads from the Past

Today’s ad is taking us back to childhoods of grilled cheese and tomato soup on a cool autumn day. It might not have been the most flavorful cheese, but it’s a 5-year-old’s fav.

Kraft Cheese introduced this ad in 1925!

Carnage

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