Do you know what it is like to have a number of elements coming together at the same time that focus on one particular area of interest for you?  This has happened to me recently in the exploration of descriptive prose.

1. It has come up as an exercise in writing creatively in the book The Writer’s Way.  In particular how you can make words sound like they should be part of the story.
2. I have been advised to be more descriptive in my own writing.
3. I have been working with Richard Mack on his Sensory Seduction presentation.

The sensory seduction presentation was given to an audience that mostly comprised of B2B service business people.   Most marketing activities appeal to only two senses; sight and hearing, and for service-orientated business usually only sight.  Yet we recognise people, products, and places using all five of our senses; including touch, smell, and taste.  Whether you’re selling marketing, PR, financial or HR services, your customers react in the same way as they do to products, using their five senses.  The more you are able to connect with them multi- sensually the deeper they will feel about your service. It is easy to identify how you can connect with the senses if you are selling a product but it is less easy when it is a service, still less when it is a business to business service.

The Sixth Sense – whatever marketing material we are using, we are aiming to make an emotional connection; one that stimulates resolute loyalty, and word of mouth recommendations.  Not all media channels are able to connect with the five senses, which is why it needs some thinking about.  However, it is possible to use the sixth sense, that one of gut feeling, kinaesthetic and memory to engage and stimulate the other senses.   This means linking into associations and using memories to stimulate a positive outcome.  This may involve using words to a much greater effect, to stimulate the memory of taste and touch and even sound.

Smell – The pungent pong of cowpat – slightly hardened at the edges but still gloopy at the centre, humming with orange-tinted flies.  Pah!  How empathetic is the P with the smell of pooh?

Touch – The gentle draft of a feather across the nape of the neck sends tremors of sexual intensity and sensitivity; from the tip of the tongue to the deep depths of decadence.

Sound –  suddenly the sound was were more severe, sirens were now seriously piercing the howls and screams of the wind that was whipping through the chimney pots and causing monumental chaos in its wake.

Taste – Whilst this is an example of yet another product do have a look at last year’s M&S Christmas food advert.  Listen to the words that have been used to stimulate the senses other than sight and sound.

PS – Words?  They are pretty powerful eh?

Published by TheHiddenEdge

I love words - they communicate so much or so little depending on how you use them. Come and explore my thoughts with me in this, my learning journal. View all posts by TheHiddenEdge