It’s not enough to just convey a message through an email; the key behind successful email marketing is the fostering of relationships that compel future action. Emotion is a key factor in the decision-making process, and those marketers who have the power to manipulate emotional triggers via their email marketing campaigns see vast increases in subscriber engagement and conversion rates. Therefore, by understanding how to effectively trigger certain emotions, brands can foster the relationships they desire with their target audiences on a deeper scale. This article will highlight crucial emotional triggers that promote action and how best to implement them into your email marketing campaigns.
What are Emotional Triggers in Email Marketing?
Emotional triggers are certain feelings used by marketers to promote action. These emotions affect how a subscriber emotionally and cognitively processes a brand to inspire more positive action. Yet, they do so through creative connections by using emotional triggers. When emotional triggers resonate with a campaign, it extends beyond simple marketing attempts and allows brands to have deeper connections from standard emails to sincere opportunities. An email deliverability tool ensures that these emotionally driven messages actually reach inboxes, maximizing their impact. When these specific emotions are deployed successfully, email open rates and success levels increase as subscribers not only open their emails but want to act based on what’s seen within. Those emotions include excitement, curiosity, trust, urgency, and belonging.
Urgency As an Emotional Trigger
Urgency is one of the strongest emotional triggers used in email marketing. When people feel like they have to act now or forever lose a special opportunity, they’re more likely to engage sooner than later. The best ways to trigger urgency include timestamps and countdowns, as well as words and phrases like “ending soon,” “don’t miss out,” or depending on social proof like “limited availability.” However, urgency works only when it’s genuine. If a brand sends out time-sensitive offers on a routine basis and they’re not really time-sensitive, subscribers can see through this ruse and no longer trust the brand. Therefore, it’s important to set limits and boundaries when situations are urgent so brands can earn trust while motivating action.
Curiosity and Anticipation as Emotional Triggers
Curiosity is the first emotion that comes to mind when thinking about implications for success in email marketing. Humans are inherently curious creatures, and the desire to seek out and learn more is an internal drive that can work wonders for engagement. From subject lines that include curiosity-inducing phrases to the promise that opening the email will reveal something “much cooler” than not opening it, curiosity drives subscribers to engage based on their emotional feelings of achievement through resolution. Similarly, teasers and cliffhangers coincide directly with the next emotional trigger: anticipation. When there is a clear understanding that the next email will deliver on prior promises, just giving a taste of what’s to come encourages repeat opens and sustained engagement. When marketers learn how to effectively control these emotions over time, they not only establish successful engagement but also motivate a need for more in the future.
Trust via Transparency
Trust is an integral part of any subscriber relationship. Any email that promotes transparency, honesty, and integrity will be well-received no matter the audience. Here are the honest answers to subscriber questions, the anticipated benefits that the product will bring the subscriber, and the expectations of the brand so that the needs of the subscriber and your company exist in harmony. One transaction does not necessarily foster trust, but transparency over time makes subscribers comfortable enough with you to start talking to you and purchasing from you. When trust is incrementally based on agreed-upon expectations, it’s no wonder that subscribers become loyal to your brand and even advocate for your brand, bringing additional success to your campaign.
The Value of Exclusivity
Exclusivity makes people feel special. Every subscriber wants to feel like what they’re doing is unique and exclusive to them; therefore, exclusive content or early access makes them feel good about participating.
Associated emotional triggers via exclusivity elevate additional motivation; the more they realize that they are part of something special, and the more you acknowledge this, the more they’ll become more than one-time readers they’ll be engaged, excited repeat loyalists simply because they have access to something special that others may not.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
Fear of missing out is real, and it’s something we all experience at one time or another. No one wants to be left behind especially when something great is offered to certain others. When things are limited, when spots are capped, when there’s only a certain amount left, acknowledge it. Use FOMO gently to your advantage and let them know that so many others feel the same; let them know what other subscribers had to say about how they got on board or involved to create urgency and legitimacy for your cause. When FOMO is real and not some cheap marketing scheme made up out of thin air people are compelled to act for fear that if they don’t, they’ll be sorry they missed the opportunity later. Ultimately, this bolsters the success of your entire campaign.
Creates Excitement and Happiness
Emails that instill excitement and happiness give people positive feelings about your brand. Whether you’re promoting an inspiring article, good news, company milestones, product releases, etc., use fun images, passionate language, and a positive tone when promoting these good things and you will go a long way to making a subscriber’s first impression. Over time, feel-good vibes keep subscribers engaged because each time they open the email, they think they’ll be brought to happiness or excitement, which in turn makes them love your brand even more.
Promotes Emotion and Empathy
Empathy humanizes brands, creating emotional connections to brands. If you’re sending an email to promote something that’s related to emotional, anecdotal experiences like a story or a transformation beyond your product, you help your subscribers understand how trustworthy your brand can be. Empathy not only persuades but also compels subscribers to act upon what you’re requesting because they’re emotionally invested; they want to help (i.e., donate to your campaign). This increases loyalty and engagement tremendously when your branded communications are more than branding requests but emotional overhauls that connect.
Appeal to Emotional Confidence Through Social Proof
There’s nothing better than knowing other customers love what you have to offer. When you incorporate social proof into your emails, testimonials, social media pictures or feedback you provide credible sources of emotional satisfaction that encourage similar action from others. If one subscriber loved the product so much they gave you a five-star testimonial and you shared it in your email, another person who was on the fence about buying the same item is now emotionally compelled to do so. Using social proof as an emotional source increases excitement, loyalty, and action for all.
The Emotional Appeal of Triggered Positives and Negatives
Campaigns induce positive and negative emotions through triggering responses that impact the likelihood of action. For example, successfully triggered emails can lead to anything from longer-term brand loyalty to increased urgency through fear of missing out (FOMO). Triggered positives can cause a level of satisfaction and gratitude that encourages a campaign response, while negatives create an action-oriented emotion that’s not what people would typically do. But in moderation, these elements are effective, even when people don’t always appreciate getting emails. However, as long as they get them in the first place, they’ll appreciate the long-term relationship and responsive actions over time.
The Emotional Appeal of Personalization
Triggering personalization is another way current campaigns appeal to emotion. When companies trigger campaigns based on personalized findings of what someone previously viewed or expressed interest in they resonate positively with the subscriber on a more emotional level. Personalized recommendations or at least a greeting go such a long way, triggering an emotional response that ultimately garners extended engagement and higher response rates. That is, if subscribers see a campaign relevant to them based on historical data over time, they are more likely to respond emotionally as they feel it’s gone from a stranger engagement to a continued meaningful relationship that they want to keep going.
Emotional Impact of Confidence and Assurance vs. Doubt
The emotional sentiment associated with offering trust and assurance trump’s campaigns triggering doubt. Where your campaigns might bring about hesitation include fear of wasting time, scams, regret, and higher than expected pricing. But the positivity of campaigns can involve trust, confidence, assurance, and credibility.
When people feel assured by what’s being sent to them whether it’s guaranteed information, expertise based on background, risk-free trials, or a generally credible source they have more of a reason to believe what’s being sent to them is worthwhile and less of a reason to hesitate doing what the CTA says. Essentially, if I’ve built confidence in what I’m sending to you, why wouldn’t you believe me?
Evoking Nostalgia to Build Connections
Nostalgia works. When subscribers are reminded of past happenings or experiences that they’ve enjoyed, they’re more likely to take action when an email sale is sent or a campaign is offered with nostalgic themes, subjects, and images. Nostalgia is a powerful emotional connector made within an instant. Therefore, if a brand can capitalize on nostalgia, it creates fair responses that support a positive reaction in the now. People want to purchase or engage with a link because they feel comfortable with what the brand provides. Nostalgia allows brands to reinforce the relationship and compel a person to want to replicate the experience or purchase from the brand again since it’s something they enjoyed at one time.
Cultivating Pride and Achievement
Using pride and achievement as a motivator for subscribers is effective through positive emotional reinforcement that enhances not only their experience but their connectedness to your brand. For example, by recognizing subscriber achievements, subscription anniversaries, graduated loyalty tiers, or personal achievements associated with your brand you show that appreciation is rendered to the journey taken by the subscriber, which confirms how valuable they are and how acknowledged you are of such. Conversely, acknowledging the accomplishments of subscribers who have been with you for a while or fan-favorites shows that you recognize the exerted efforts and engagement on their part, allowing for an elevated sense of self and positive emotional connection to your brand.
In addition, recognizing accomplishments as a whole milestones your subscriber base reaches collectively and large achievements within your brand that would not have been possible without subscriber investment allows subscribers the awareness that they’re a piece of a larger puzzle, which fosters an emotionally connected experience as they feel valued as a cog in the wheel of your brand’s foundation and future growth, rendering them more invested from an emotional standpoint as they seek to empower themselves to read and respond to your outreach efforts.
Furthermore, creating such a sense of pride works well when people focus on accomplishments. By emphasizing subscriber achievements over a number of years, you help create a welcoming environment among your subscriber base. Recognizing excellence, be it a singular excellence or one achievement that many subscribers have in common, gives everyone the incentive to either replicate or come together to celebrate others’ achievements, creating a communal space of appreciation and admiration for all. Ultimately, this will foster excitement within the subscription experience and encourage even the least engaged subscribers to step up and participate.
Pride and achievement within email campaigns foster an emotional connection deeper than any other, as they transform subscribers into loyal collaborators on the journey of growth for them and positive growth for you. They love constant reaffirmation and acknowledgment and thus become even more loyal for engagement, retention, and success down the line.
Conclusion: Mastering Emotional Triggers for Email Success
Emotional triggers allow marketers to harness the power of emotions to effectively increase email campaign success from better subscriber engagement and conversion rates to more effective long-term subscriber retention. Emotion is a key factor in decision-making even more so than logic which means the more that marketers utilize the knowledge of emotional triggers urgency, curiosity, trust, exclusivity, empathy, and personalization the more they’re able to effectively relate to their subscribers from a communicative standpoint of genuine understanding.
For example, urgency makes people subscribe because it gets them to act on impulse whether that’s a flash sale or subscribing to an exclusive webinar and it also incites curiosity, encouraging people to click through to find out what they think will be revealed to them in a confined word count. Where trust exists, it’s clear that the brand cares about its subscribers’ well-being and intentions of any obtainment and subsequent results are made clear; exclusivity provides a way to give special treatment which connects the subscriber to the brand on an intimate, emotional level. The more they feel like they’re part of an exclusive inner circle, the better. Empathy appeals to emotional necessity, a human condition with a greater level of awareness; personalization acknowledges the subscriber as more than just a number from the marketing gimmick but someone who deserves special attention and reaction.
Once emails become more than just information-based but opportunity-based with emotionally triggered considerations taken to heart, they no longer become typical pitches but rather persuasive appeals for how to best reach out to an audience on a much deeper level. Therefore, over time, subscribers come to expect such emotional triggers and know what’s good for them and thus, trust and champion your product. Thus, over time, by taking the time to appeal to their emotions in genuine, consistent manners, marketers can enjoy greater engagement, retention, and loyalty because what could start as accurate increases in the effectiveness of marketing email efforts would only be enhanced over time.