Utilizing Emotional Language in Product Copy

Selling Isn’t Hard. You’re Just Overthinking It. 2.5 years ago, I watched a friend’s startup flop. He had a great product, solid pricing, even ads running on every platform. But here’s the thing—his website? It was absolutely boring… His copy sounded like it was written by a robot. It was all “We’re the leading solution for…” and “Our product offers unparalleled features…” You know what happened? People scrolled right past. No one cared. So, I stepped in. I rewrote his copy to actually speak to people. Instead of “leading solution,” I wrote, “Imagine never stressing over this again.” Instead of listing features, I told a story about how his product solved a real problem for someone like them. And guess what? His sales shot up. Same product, same ads—different words. That’s the power of copywriting. Are You Using Words the Right Way? Do they hit an emotional nerve? Do they make people want to act? If not, here’s how you fix it. ✅ Use words that nudge, not shove. ✅ Speak with people, not at them. ✅ Share stories that make them think, “That’s me!” Let’s break it down. 1️⃣ Words That Trigger Action A client of mine was selling online workshops. Her emails? Crickets. She kept saying things like, “Register today” or “Sign up now.” Meh. So, we added this: “Spots are filling fast—grab yours before it’s gone.” Suddenly, people started clicking. Why? FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. “Buy Now” isn’t just a phrase. It’s a gentle nudge that taps into urgency and scarcity. 2️⃣ Speak Like You’re in Their Head Ever read something and thought, “That’s exactly how I feel”? That’s the goal. One time, I worked with a fitness coach whose copy was all “We’ll help you reach your fitness goals.” Blah. Everyone says that. I changed it to: “Tired of feeling stuck every Monday? Let’s fix that—for good.” It worked because it felt personal, like a friend who gets it. That’s the secret. 3️⃣ Facts Don’t Sell. Stories Do. One of my favorite campaigns was for a skincare brand. Instead of shouting, “We have 5-star reviews!” we shared a customer story: “Emma had tried everything for her acne. Nothing worked—until she found this. Three weeks later, her confidence came back. She even stopped wearing foundation.” That’s what made people buy. Stories make products relatable. Stats don’t. 4️⃣ Scarcity Without the Sleaze Remember when concert tickets would sell out in minutes? That’s scarcity at work. For a small e-commerce brand, I wrote: “Only 5 left in stock. We don’t restock often.” Sales spiked. Why? Because people don’t want to miss out. But here’s the trick: Be honest. Fake scarcity smells like desperation. Whether it’s benefits, features, or steps—stick to three. Anything else is overkill. So, if your copy isn’t selling, maybe it’s not the product. Maybe your words just aren’t doing their job. Fix that, and you’ll see the magic. P.S. Need a hand? I’m right here. DM me if you need help with content writing or copywriting. #copywriting #marketing

This 66 year old ad will teach you more about marketing than any of your favorite course slingers.   It's a masterclass in persuasion, consumer psychology and brand positioning.   Imagine trying to sell a soap alternative, but nobody cares.   That’s what Dove faced in 1957.   And to no surprise, David Ogilvy crushed it with this ad.   Let’s break down the science and how ecom brands can apply these tactics today 👇🏻   1. The Big Idea: From Technical Jargon to Emotional Hook   Ogilvy rejected the “neutral beauty bar” positioning.   It's meaningless to consumers.   Instead, he found a compelling product truth: Dove contains 1/4 cleansing cream, making skin softer than soap.   ✅ Your audience doesn’t care about your product’s science. They care about what it does for them.   2. The Power of Emotional & Sensory Language   💬 “Darling, I’m having the most extraordinary experience. I’m head over heels in Dove.”   The word “Darling” was tested & proven to evoke strong emotional responses.   The phrase “head over heels” implies excitement and romance, making an everyday routine feel luxurious.   ✅ Words trigger emotions. Use powerful words that create desire, trust, and excitement.   Use tested, high-emotion words in your ad copy and make the product experience feel like an emotional transformation (not just a purchase).   3. The Visual Proof & Demonstrations   Magazines ran side-by-side face tests showing Dove vs. regular soap.   TV ads poured cream into a Dove-shaped mold to visually reinforce the benefit.   ✅ People believe what they see more than what they hear. Visual proof builds instant credibility.   4. Market Differentiation & Positioning   Ogilvy positioned Dove as a beauty bar, not just soap.   He refused to advertise it alongside Westerns because “You can’t sell Dove on horseback.”   ✅ Own a unique position in the market. Don’t just compete, reframe the category.   Stop being a “better” version of your competitors.   Create a new lane for your product.   Advertising trends change, but human psychology doesn’t.   Happy Scaling.

Imagine a Disney movie without a story... No one would watch it. Why? The struggle is the FUN ✨ The transformation. The journey. The hard truth for you? Most B2B marketing is exactly like that. It skips the story → right to the "learning" "Our AI-powered product does..." ✋🛑 /Unsubscribe No one's paying $12 /m to stream that. Your marketing needs BETTER stories. Simon Sinek said it best: Marketing is not the stuff you make. Marketing is the stories you tell. So... How should you tell them? 📌 You should try this: 4 Disney 🤝 B2B tips for you 1️⃣ Name your villain Every story needs conflict. What's your customer fighting? Make this HYPER specific for them. Don't call out "ROI" or "Time Saving." Think about their social / emotional pains like 👇 Walking into a board meeting with bad data. That's a scary feeling as a new VP. (Been there before...) 2️⃣ Make your customer the hero Not your product. Not you. Your customer. ❌ Don't say "We..." ✅ Say "You..." You speaks to your audience. You should use more "quotes in headlines." Some of the best homepage copy I've written? Quotes I pulled from customer interviews. With some zesty copywriting twists. 3️⃣ Show the journey to → transformation Paint your customer's starting point here. Use crunchy words → make them feel it. This is your moment to SHOW them... That you understand their pain. Most B2B copy feels stiff. Make yours emotional. Write their pain. 👀 P.S. A great way to do this? Go find your competitors 1 star G2 reviews. Find their pain language. Use those 😡 words. Channel all of their → Frustration → Anger → Pain It makes for great copy. That feels authentic. It converts btw. 4️⃣ Sprinkle in some humor Disney's got sidekicks. You've got... your wit. Use it. One of my fav examples from Splunk? “We take the SH out of IT” What a 😂 headline. I was hooked. (Crowdstrike could have used that btw) Remember... No one wants: ❌ "Aladdin: Now with 20% More Lamp!" What do they want instead? Street rat to → Prince. Tell THAT story 👇 From [your customer's pain] to [their dream outcome] thanks to [your painkiller] that defeats [enemy they relate to] with [unexpected twist] in a way that shows them you know them. But not in this weird mad libs style. But told in a compelling story. Your story needs: → Highs / lows → Contrast → Emotion ✍️ Marketers should study Disney. Why? There is no “B2B” marketing. There is only H2H. Human to human. So study stories. They are 100% universal ✌️ P.S. What Disney character are you? — 👋 Follow Mark P. Jung for more marketing content. Liked this? ♻️ Repost to share!

The CEO started writing an email while I was mid-slide, walking through our ecommerce wins. I kept talking like nothing was wrong. Like this wasn’t my most important meeting of the quarter. Like he hadn’t already tuned me out. I don’t blame him. The deck was technically correct. Every slide was polished. Every word had been reviewed by at least three people with “brand” in their title. But it was lifeless. The kind of presentation that makes people check their phones out of self-preservation. I accidentally made the deck for the wrong audience. It was made for internal approval. For the brand team. For legal. For that voice in your head that whispers: stay safe. Sound smart. Don’t be weird. We do the same thing to our customers. Our About page reads like a committee with a thesaurus and trust issues wrote it. Our product descriptions sound like they were written by someone afraid to show personality. The whole site feels like it was built to impress the people who work there. Not the people it’s supposed to serve. So I started asking: What would this look like if we were writing for actual humans? Here are a few product copy examples I loved: “The shirt you reach for when you want to look put-together, but feel like you’re still in pajamas.” “You’ll stop noticing the waistband 10 minutes after putting them on. You’ll start noticing how much you hated all your other underwear.” You feel an emotion as you read these. That’s someone who knows their customer and actually gives a damn. Now, I start every meeting with the goal of making this meeting the funnest meeting they'll have all week. The same goes for the websites I optimize. I’m not just hunting for friction. I’m looking for chances to make people feel an emotion. If you’ve figured out how to write with emotion or write a product description that actually makes people want to buy, I want to see it. Let’s build more sites that connect. And fewer decks that put people to sleep.

Here’s the test I use to evaluate brand storytelling: If I remove your logo, could this copy belong to anyone? If yes → You don’t have a story. You have a template. Generic copy sounds like: “We believe everyone deserves great coffee” “Premium beans. Smooth taste. Roasted to perfection” Real copy sounds like: “I started this company because I couldn’t find a coffee that didn’t wreck my stomach” “I wanted a roast strong enough to wake you up, but smooth enough to drink black, even if you’ve been up since 5am” Stories come from why, not what. What you sell matters less than why you built it, who it helps, and what belief system it lives in. If you’re not getting emotional in your copy? Your reader won’t either.

Generic messaging isn’t neutral. It’s invisible. ❌ It gets ignored. ❌ It makes you sound like everyone else. ❌ It speaks to personas, not people. We wanted to see what happens when you flip the script and build your messaging around people's actual emotional struggles, using their own words. We refer to this as Language-Market Fit. So we ran a Synthetic Users Jobs-to-be-Done research study interviewing 10 people across 7 different roles/functions. We listened to their struggling moments, frustrations, and pain points. Then rewrote ClickUp’s messaging around them. 👇 The difference? Night and day. 🧑💼 Project Management Generic: Empower teams with clear project planning. Emotional Truth: “I spend more time chasing updates than leading my team.” JTBD Message: Stop chasing updates. Align your team with one shared source of truth. 🎨 Marketing Generic: Drive outcomes with strategic teamwork. Emotional Truth: “We’re always reorganizing and still missing deadlines.” JTBD Message: One platform to plan, execute, and report—without the last-minute scramble. 📈 Sales Generic: Maximize sales with smarter tools. Emotional Truth: “We spend more time updating tools than selling.” JTBD Message: Focus your reps on closing deals—not filling out fields. 🧪 Product Development Generic: Accelerate innovation for product success. Emotional Truth: “We’re stuck firefighting instead of building.” JTBD Message: From firefighting to forward momentum—focus on building, not babysitting tools. 👉 Here’s what we learned: 🔍 Generic = forgettable 💬 Emotional = memorable 🧠 Struggle-led messaging = Language-Market Fit If your messaging isn’t anchored in real-life tension, it won’t move the needle. Drop a 🔥 and I’ll share more details. DM me if you wish to learn more about running your own 10-Day Customer Intelligence Sprint! #LanguageMarketFit #MessagingMatters #JTBD #SyntheticUserResearch #CustomerVoice #ProductMarketing #ClickUp #GTM #SalesEnablement #Positioning #JobsToBeDone

Facts inform. Features impress. But only feelings inspire action. That’s the power of emotional marketing. It’s not about pushing products. It’s about pulling on heartstrings. Because people don’t remember specs or slide decks. They remember the moment they felt goosebumps. The story that mirrored their own struggle. The heartbeat behind your message. Think about it: 👉 A campaign that makes you laugh. 👉 A story that makes you cry. 👉 A message that makes you believe again. That’s what sticks. That’s what spreads. That’s what sells. Here's how to put it into action: 1. Lead with stories, not stats Data proves. Stories move. Instead of listing features, share the human story behind the product or customer success. 👉 Example: A software company doesn’t just say “we cut costs by 30%.” They tell the story of the small business owner who kept their doors open because of it. 2. Make customers the hero People connect when they see themselves in your brand. Highlight real customers, their struggles, and their transformations with your product. 👉 Example: Nike doesn’t sell shoes. They sell the story of an everyday person becoming an athlete. 3. Design for emotion in every touchpoint Every detail communicates feeling, visuals, words, even follow-up emails. 👉 Example: Instead of a cold “Your order has shipped,” a pet food brand might say: “Good news, your dog’s next tail wag is on the way 🐶.” Because emotional marketing isn’t about making noise. It’s about making people care. 💡 What’s one brand story that moved you enough to remember it years later? _________ ♻️ Repost to help others + Follow Jennelle McGrath for more insights

If your homepage copy feels colder than your ex’s "we need to talk" text, here are 7 fixes to warm it up: 1. Lead with the desired outcome by framing your message around the result your audience wants to achieve. Don’t say: "advanced analytics platform". Say: "find your next $100K revenue opportunity—in under 15 minutes." 2. Write for a human, not a persona. Use conversational language that resonates on an emotional level. Go from "increase employee engagement" to "make Mondays less miserable". Write like a human, not a robot. 3. Don’t sell vitamins, sell a painkiller. Address a deep frustration your audience feels to immediately grab their attention. Don’t say: "streamline your accounting". Say: "Tired of chasing invoices? Automate your payments in minutes." 4. Leverage contrast by painting a vivid picture of life before and after using your solution. "Lost in spreadsheets? Visualize your entire budget in one dashboard." 5. Ask a provocative question to challenge assumptions, pull people in, and make them think. Instead of "your sales team’s new secret weapon", try "what if your sales team could close 2x faster?" 6. Promise a clear transformation. Frame your product as the bridge between where they are and where they want to be. Don’t say: "learn to code". Say: "go from zero to hired as a developer in 12 weeks." 7. Use unexpected comparisons. Make your product more relatable by comparing it to something familiar. Instead of "AI-powered scheduling assistant", go for "like a personal assistant, but smarter—and cheaper." Anything other technique worth sharing?

𝗜 𝗽𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. I've found that when we talk about voice and tone in UX writing, we often get stuck at the “brand voice” level. You know what I mean—broad descriptors that paint a picture of a personality but 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿, 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. That’s why I like to take things a step further. First, I 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 users are likely to experience throughout their journey. Then, I 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 to determine which elements 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻 with the appropriate 𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. This way, whether someone is confused, angry, or delighted, our voice stays consistent—but the tone flexes. This method helps 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹. It keeps us grounded in the brand while also being empathetic, accessible, and attuned to where the user is in the moment. What's your approach? 👇 #UXTips #UXWriting #UserExperience #ContentDesign #ProductWriting #ForTheLoveOfWords #VoiceAndTone