There
exist one unique human phenomenon that has remained constant throughout the
ages. A natural and an instinctive circumstance that has driven humans into today’s
modern age. No other circumstance has influenced the way we do things, the
actions we take, the choices we make. It is through human emotions that have triggered our every doing, and our every
movement in this world.
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| What's Your Audience Feeling? |
Emotions are the natural and the
instinctive state of mind that distinguishes our reasoning and understanding of
what goes on around us. Emotions are our inner guide it whispers in our ears
and guides us through life.
The Who? the What? the When? the Where?
the Why? and the How? are all questions that must be understood before creating
a message for the intended audiences. Developing the most accurate description
of your intended audience will allow for more favorable outcomes and effects of
influence. The whole idea of creating a message is to stimulate a certain
reaction, preferably in your favor. A well thought out audience analysis should
involve five fundamental characteristics.
1. A precise and accurate description
of audience demographics.
2. An understanding of their values
and lifestyles.
3. An accurate prediction of your
audience’s current emotional
state before your message.
state before your message.
4. An accurate prediction of a
trigger emotion.
5. An accurate prediction of an
influential emotion.
Determining your audience’s
demographics, values and lifestyles really do
not require much effort to determine, we will not be discussing this any
further. However, understanding and accurately predicting your audience’s current,
trigger and influential emotions may require some additional understanding. Provided
below is an example of Outstory PR Group’s message crafting theory. This model is
named: “Influential Emotional Messaging.” It was developed and created by Outstory
PR Group’s owner Shawn Stoffel, 2015. All rights reserved.
To continue, we should understand
that people are constantly under the influence of emotions, at all times.
Everything we do is initiated and controlled by our emotions. Emotions can
change from one to another and then another, and then back again in a beat of
an eyelash. Emotions are never constant for long.
However, we experience emotional recollection
through three major systems. The first is the baseline emotion. The baseline
emotion can be viewed as the starting point emotion after a stimulus, or the
normal, idle emotion we feel. Next, is the trigger emotion. The trigger emotion
is the emotion we transition to when a baseline thought has been realized. And
lastly is the influential emotion. The influential emotion is the emotional
state that we want to feel when an idea may or may not confirm our needs.
A baseline emotion is an emotion
that is felt through the perception of an
experience and thought of the stimulus. Those
baseline emotions are stored in our long-term memories. For example imagine your
friend informing you of a bad experience with a certain product. You receive
that information from your friend’s emotion.
That information/emotion is then stored in your mind as an emotional
baseline. The next time you see or hear
about that product, your mind will retrieve that thought and present that
baseline emotion in your mind. That baseline emotional thought you feel will be
the same emotion your friend imprinted on your mind. You stored it exactly the way you felt it, and
there it will stay in your mind until it
has been recalled for further use. And that is how our mind operates as an
early warning system.
The influential emotion is a bit
trickier. For example; let’s say that you went out shopping and you came across
the product that your friend warned you about. Immediately your baseline
emotion reminds you that your friend was not pleased with the product. But then,
you analyze the product a little closer and your baseline emotion turns into a
trigger emotion because you realized that he may or may not be correct. But, in
the back of your mind, you feel an
influential emotion because of uncertainty. You speculate in your mind if in
the fact that what he was saying could
either be correct or incorrect for you. And you sense an influential emotion by
imagining a better outcome for yourself.
How can all of this emotional
understanding help you craft better messages? In analyzing your audience it is
necessary to determine your audience’s current and reactional emotions to your
message. To determine your audience’s current emotional state you now
understand that the baseline emotion is where you should focus first. Next, to
determine reaction emotions you now have a basic
understanding of the process that trigger and influential emotions play. So
now, let’s dig into this subject deeper and provide the nuts & bolts of
creating better messages that can influence behaviors by your own desires.
To determine the collective
emotional state of your audience all that is required is to determine what
baseline emotion they have at the moment. I say moment
because emotions change rapidly from one instance to the next. It is vital to
continuously analyze your audience’s emotional baseline. To determine baseline
accurately, you must first have an understanding of how the public currently
views whatever it is you are trying to pitch, sell, market, or promote. Emotions
are the essential key element that determines how a message is crafted,
channeled, received, and acknowledged.
Let’s start by saying your audience’s
baseline emotion is perplexed. Perplexed is defined as being completely
baffled; very puzzled. Your audience doesn’t understand what you are selling.
Awareness of your products/services may not be efficient enough to present a
positive perception of the image for them.
How would you use emotions to reach out to and correct any misconceptions of
your product/services?
Understanding a simple concept of
reverse psychology can trigger emotions that help you craft ideal messages. For instance; because your
audience feels the baseline emotion of perplexed already, we do not want to
continue any effort in supporting this emotion. Instead, we use this baseline
emotion to initially trigger an event recollection that already supports their perception.
People react better at first when their
baseline emotions can be brought forward. For this is what was stored initially
and currently in their minds, and we need to unlock that emotional thought to
grab their attention. Then, we want to implant a trigger emotion and create a
reversal event to influence clarity and surety to correct the confusion. We
determine our influential emotion by finding the complete opposite emotion from
the emotion of perplexed. We now have our trigger emotion identified as clarity
and surety. This trigger emotion becomes the influential emotion that your
audience wants to feel, but you need to guide them to it through strategic
message crafting. Here’s an example:
ABC
product/service may be confusing, but that is because it is as complex as it is beneficial. A free booklet
is available that explains just how beneficial our
product/service’s really are.
We begin our messages with the
baseline emotion of our audience because
that is what is stored in their minds. This is what they understand, and it awakens
their emotional state for a new baseline emotion to be implanted. Our audience now
realizes why they were confused, to begin
with, the product /service was complex. This, they can relate to. Providing the
word beneficial supports their influential emotion of clarity and surety. The
end result is that they want to feel clarity and surety. A new baseline emotion
of clarity and surety can also be established through the free booklet that will
help explain what they did not understand about the product/service. This is just a simple example, but it can be reconstructed
using any scenario you may have.
For
more information or to develop your personal public relations campaign plans:
A
Public Relations Theory:
The “Influential
Emotional Messaging” Model. Developed and created by Outstory PR Group’s owner
Shawn Stoffel, 2015. All rights reserved.
Contact:
Outstory
Public Relations Group
A
Modern Public Relations Agency
Solving
Problems, Changing Attitudes, and Creating Understanding
Outstory
PR Group solves business and public relations problems. We serve organizations
of for-profit, non-profit, governmental authority, and well-known persons. We
develop and manage creative problem-solving campaigns for businesses small and
large, both nationally and globally.
Call
Outstory PR Group Today: 704-904-0682
Website:
http://outstoryprgorup.com
Shawn
Stoffel
Shawn@outstoryprgroup.com
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