Emotions make the world go around. Feelings drive the world. And this holds cent per cent true in the world of online businesses, even business in general. People only buy, or invest time in what they feel brings them benefits.
And that is because humans are hard wired to respond to some emotional triggers — think of them as emotional buttons. These are gain, logic, fear, scarcity. You can apply these principles of persuasion anywhere you want your customers to take action, including your promotional email campaigns.
In this case, you will get more clicks from the emails you send. Here is a brief breakdown of these four emotional triggers, with examples:
Gain
The most obvious one on the list, and by that count, the one that probably all online marketers are aware of. What do your users get when they click on your link? Why should they open your email in the first place? Simple. Make them a promise — obvious or subtle, does not matter. Reward them.
Example: See how we get the highest quality traffic that converts.
Logic
People may buy things for emotional reasons, but they justify it with logic. And if you give your email subscribers a practical justification to purchase (or take action), then many of them will. Appeal to their logical side by using statistics, facts, comparisons, even expert opinions.
Example: The secrets behind Black Friday ad copy.
Fear
Now this is a trigger you should use very carefully, with suitable awareness. People want peace of mind when they are dealing with something that is frightening, and if done right, the use of fear is a very effective mechanism for inspiring others to take action.
Example: Seven reasons why your employees hate you.
Gain
Your reader might understand the benefits, logics and concerns of taking the action you require of them, but if there is no urgency, no now, often they will not do it. You need to communicate that what you have for them is limited in quantity in some way, or is ending or closing soon.
Example: Order our new product before we run out. Free shipping through Friday!
The neat thing here is that you can mix and match these emotional triggers in both your email headlines and your body text. Key here is testing — test, test, test. Experiment with a single trigger, or with an order of them one after another, combine them together.
And, of course, keep an eye on how these affect your email clickthrough rates.