Sensory memory pictures6/17/2023 Customize sensory images to your audience. What hobbies, interests, and experiences of your audience could you draw from? Use word pictures that will resonate with them.However, if you think of a cliche that’s just too appropriate not to use, putting a twist on it can freshen it up. Stay away from cliches. Think beyond the obvious and what first comes to mind.Your sensory images will be most effective if you keep in mind a few tips. How many boring introductions have you read that left you uninspired and unsure if you should continue spending time reading the rest of the article? Using imagery can help you grab readers’ interest and pull them into the body of your post. Imagery is especially useful in blog posts and articles. Any time you can show through a story, rather than simply tell what you have to say, you’ll be a more effective communicator.įor example, you can share anecdotes and personal experience stories, painting a picture of the environment, and describing feelings and emotions associated with the event. Imagery goes hand-in-hand with storytelling. Consider words that will help readers see, feel, hear, what you are talking about. Using imagery is as easy as adding rich description to your writing. Imagery involves the senses of the reader-it engages the reader in a way that simple, straightforward statements can’t. The effect is the same as a simile, but it’s another important tool to have in your communication toolbox.Īn example of a metaphor would be the image that opened this article: “is a pine tree surrounded by an evergreen forest.” I could have just said “doesn’t stand out” - but that’s boring and easily forgettable. Make up your own! MetaphorĪ metaphor compares two different things directly-it states that something is something else. While there are hundreds of familiar similes (“strong as an ox,” brave as a lion,” “bright as the sun”), the real power lies in original similes. They bring an image to the reader’s mind, locking it into memory. Using a simile, you can give your audience a concrete way to think about an abstract concept. SimileĪ simile compares two different things, saying one is “like” the other or shares the same characteristic “as” the other. Here are 3 literary tools you can use to infuse your marketing with sensory images. Using words that involve the senses in marketing can catapult your success in content marketing because you’re enabling your prospects to truly “get a sense” of how you can help them, and they’re better able to remember what you’ve communicated. These are just two examples of myriad studies that demonstrate the power of sensory images. Merrin Oliver, the study’s first author, said: “Creating images improved participants’ memories and helped them commit fewer errors, regardless of what kind of list we gave them.” Those who were told to create mental pictures for the words were better able to remember them. In this study, researchers told one group of participants to use mental pictures to remember a list of words, while they told another group simply to remember the words. When they read neutral words, that region of the brain stayed dark.Īnother study, published this year in The Journal of General Psychology, illustrates the influence of mental imagery on memory. In 2006, researchers in Spain reported in NeuroImage that when subjects’ brains were being scanned while reading words with strong odor associations, the fMRI showed their primary olfactory cortex lighting up. Our brains are wired to respond to sensory images. The answer lies in reconnecting with basic human psychology. So, how are you going to catch your prospects’ attention? How will you make them see your value? Cranking out ever-more content isn’t working. If you’re not doing content differently, your prospects will be lost in the evergreen mass. In today’s content-filled world, a typical content piece is not just a tree surrounded by forest - it’s a pine tree surrounded by an evergreen forest. Content is blending together into a single lump. Your prospects’ inboxes are overflowing, their social media feeds are filled with your competitors’ updates, and the first three pages of their Google searches contain articles that look just like yours.
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