Do you think it's honest to use emotional appeals to sell products? Or as an honest marketer, you should stick strictly to the facts?

While lies and deception are clearly out of bounds, opinions differ on where the line is between an honest emotional appeal and manipulation. If you shy away from emotional appeals to ensure that you don't cross the line, consider what Clayton Makepeace posted yesterday :

...some people who suffer minimal brain damage retain their cognitive ability "“ their ability to reason "“ but lose their ability to feel any emotion. And when a major medical institution studied these poor souls, they found something fascinating "¦

When deprived of their ability to feel emotion, these still-intelligent, rational, thinking people were incapable of making ANY decision. They couldn't even decide which shirt to wear "¦ what to order in a restaurant "¦ or how to manage their money!

While this study doesn't mean that customers can't make decisions unless the sales pitch contains an emotional appeal, it does shed light on the importance of emotion in a customer's decision process.

Their emotions are going to be involved, and those emotions are going to be based on something. If you're not at least nudging the customer toward recognizing the emotional benefits your customers typically enjoy, there's no telling what's going to be triggering their emotions.

One person may not like the color of your headline. Another may have had a bad experience with someone who resembles the person who's photo you have on your sales page. The next may have had an argument with their spouse earlier that day.

Even something trivial, or something that has nothing to do with your product could be souring your prospect's emotions. When your sales letter paints an honest picture of the emotional benefits of owning your product, you help customers make their purchase decision based on factors relevant to your product.

If your product really will benefit people, you're doing them a disservice if you leave the emotional environment in which they make their purchasing decision up to random chance.