Last updated on Sep 17, 2024

How do you use storytelling and visuals to evoke emotions in your communication?

Emotions play a vital role in persuasive communication, whether you are trying to influence your customers, employees, or stakeholders. By understanding how emotions affect decision-making, you can craft more effective messages that appeal to both logic and feelings. In this article, we will explore how to use storytelling and visuals to evoke emotions in your communication, and how to align them with your goals and audience.

1 Storytelling and emotions

Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience and make your message more memorable and relatable. Stories can trigger emotions such as empathy, curiosity, excitement, or anger, depending on how you structure and deliver them. To create emotional stories, you need to have a clear purpose, a compelling plot, a relatable character, and a meaningful takeaway. You also need to use descriptive language, vivid details, and rhetorical devices to engage your audience's senses and imagination.

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Aline Moassab Geraidine

Head of Marketing | Communications | Branding | Digital Marketing | CMO | Director | Manager | Social Media | Team Leadership | Diversity & Inclusion | Mentor ! Consultant | Speaker | Top Voice
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One of the most common storytelling techniques for involving and engaging audiences is Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. It is used in many films, series, books, short stories, articles and can be applied to support the structuring of corporate communication. The monomyth-based narrative currently consists of 12 steps that take the hero from a familiar place to an unknown world for his own growth. The methodology creates empathy and connection between the character and the audience, who identify with and become emotionally involved in the journey.

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Jorge Lozada

Brand Strategist
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En 2023, we carried out a campaign to increase the sense of belonging and pride in an animal production company with over 15,000 employees. Our campaign idea was to tell the story from the workers' perspective of how the company has collaborated in their personal and professional growth through training, education for their children, entrepreneurship programs, and community impact. These stories were impregnated with very intimate moments of these people that managed to move everyone, stories of life within that corporate family.

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2 Visuals and emotions

Visuals are another effective tool to evoke emotions in your communication, as they can convey complex information in a simple and appealing way. Visuals can also influence your audience's mood, attention, and perception, depending on the colors, shapes, fonts, and images you use. To create emotional visuals, you need to consider the context, the message, and the emotion you want to elicit. You also need to balance the elements of design, such as contrast, alignment, hierarchy, and whitespace, to create a clear and coherent visual.

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3 Aligning emotions with goals

Emotions are not enough to persuade your audience, unless they are aligned with your goals and your audience's needs and values. You need to know what you want to achieve with your communication, and what emotions will help you get there. For example, if you want to inspire action, you might use emotions such as urgency, fear, or hope. If you want to build trust, you might use emotions such as credibility, authenticity, or gratitude. If you want to educate, you might use emotions such as curiosity, surprise, or satisfaction.

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4 Aligning emotions with audience

Emotions are also not enough to persuade your audience, unless they are tailored to your audience's preferences and expectations. You need to know who you are communicating with, and what emotions will resonate with them. For example, if you are communicating with customers, you might use emotions such as delight, satisfaction, or loyalty. If you are communicating with employees, you might use emotions such as recognition, appreciation, or motivation. If you are communicating with stakeholders, you might use emotions such as confidence, reliability, or partnership.

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Tammy Nienaber, SCMP

Global Communication Leader | Change Management | Franchise Industry Expert
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As our team works on change communications in a franchise brand, the franchisee perspective is critical. Showcasing the excitement and success stories of early adopters helps engage other owners to make the shift. Turning detractors into supporters is also an excellent way to build confidence. Listening to your audience is a great place to start.

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5 Testing and measuring emotions

Finally, you need to test and measure the impact of emotions in your communication, and adjust your strategy accordingly. You can use various methods and tools to evaluate how your audience reacts to your messages, such as surveys, feedback forms, analytics, or biometrics. You can also use techniques such as A/B testing, split testing, or multivariate testing to compare different versions of your messages and see which ones generate more emotional responses. By testing and measuring emotions, you can optimize your communication and achieve better results.

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Tatiana Sendin

Linkedin Top Voice | Business journalist, focused on people management and career | Founder of Think Work Lab
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Have you ever read a story that left you feeling disconnected from the characters, even though the writer tried to describe their emotions? That's because simply telling readers about emotions can be monotonous and ineffective. The key is to show emotions through vivid descriptions and tangible examples. For instance, instead of saying 'he was happy,' you could describe the way he beamed with pride after getting a promotion. By showing rather than telling, you can deeply connect with your audience and bring your story to life.

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How do you use storytelling and visuals to evoke emotions in your communication?

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1 Storytelling and emotions

2 Visuals and emotions

3 Aligning emotions with goals

4 Aligning emotions with audience

5 Testing and measuring emotions

Internal & External Communications

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