Mental And Emotional Triggers in email: A Quick Guide

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Email marketing is a crucial part of your business, regardless of its small or large scale. 

Well-marketing depends on psychology and emotions; the right balance can help in your email marketing too. 

Anyone who wants to build an email list and convert leads into potential customers requires an understanding of using mental and emotional triggers,

To understand how you can use it in your favor, here is a quick guide for help.

What To Know About Mental Triggers? 

Before you jump to learn how you can use mental triggers, it’s important you know what it is and how it helps. 

Imagine what you would think when you make the purchase. 

You might not have decided, but consider the products you want. During the research, you get an email that includes words like ‘ Last units’, this creates a valuable opportunity, and this leads you to purchase the product. 

Brands use mental triggers in order to get their customers to purchase. 

Mental trigger, it’s a psychological term, it’s an essential cognitive stimulus, and it’s related to the senses. 

This can activate which leads to arousal emotions, and it influences decision-making and attracts people.

Mental triggers also put the mind on autopilot, also help in avoiding the exhaustion of making the purchase. 

Why Should You Use Mental Triggers In Your Email Marketing? 

Email marketers are competing with a lot of brands out there; everyone wants the attention of their targeted audience. 

Your ideal customers might be consuming a lot of offers and various content throughout their day, and it causes fatigue and avoidance of the brand. 

Using mental triggers can help you in getting attention and also stand you out from the crowd. 

Not just that, but there are different reasons that make sense why you should be using mental triggers in your email marketing. 

It includes : 

Benefits of using mental triggers in an email:

benefits of using mental triggers in email

Make First Impression Effective 

The first impression forms within a matter of seconds; the same goes for creating the first impression when you are using an email marketing campaign. 

For example, if there is an email A listing the skills a customer will get to learn after they take courses online, email B is about who they will be once they get the courses. 

Here email A attempts to prove it using facts and stats; this appeals to the rational side of the brain. Email B taps into emotion, including hope and inspiration, as they focus on transformation.

However, when it comes to marketing, emotion takes importance and wins. 

Make Your Content Easy To Shareable 

Think about the recent times when you opened an email message; what makes you stay longer on the email? Read it or even share it with someone else. 

People tend to share the content when they feel something while reading or interacting with it, so having the emotional pull, there are high chances that your recipient will share it. 

Helps In Inspiring To Take Action 

Mental triggers can help in incite actions, they can be shared or double-tap, subscribe button, replay, etc.

The mental centers of what actions and decisions an individual take, so if you want someone to take actions, make sure you are tying it with using the mental triggers. 

List of Mental triggers To Use In Your Email Marketing.

Even after you have created the target list, segmentation, and set up the workflow which appeals to contacts to be at the right step in their journey. 

The only thing left here is to make your email marketing personal and use the mental triggers to make it more approachable. 

List of mental triggers that you can consider using in your email marketing. 

list of mental triggers to use in your email marketing

Authority 

There are a lot of brands that pay a lot to famous celebrities and well-known figures to promote their brands and commercials. 

The idea of using famous faces is to take the leverage of a sense of authority by casting such people and awakening the thoughts like if such a famous person is recommending something like this, then it means it must be good. 

However, you can create authority by showcasing product and service popularity and curating in email marketing. 

Well, the logic behind this is consumers tend to trust that if a product is popular, there must be a good reason. 

You can use different ways that can help you in building authority in your email, it includes: 

  • Promoting the bestsellers 
  • Mentioning the favorites of your customers
  • Collaborating with other partners 
  • Getting the celebrity endorsement
  • Adding media mentions to emails such as blogs, podcasts, and local newspapers.

Novelty 

In addition to estimating this, novelty acts as a psychological trigger that leads people to take action. It happens due to the excitement of using the product and being the first to try new things. 

According to scientists, exposure to something unknown and new can help in increasing the dopamine level in the brain, which helps in boosting motivation and concentration. 

This is why giant brands like Microsoft and Apple invest huge when they do launch their products and services. 

Reciprocity 

Considered one of the basic principles when it comes to human psychology, when someone is offered something, they get a sense of obligation to do something in return.

This is why it’s essential to add value to the customers before you consider them for earning profit. 

No matter what you are asking them to do, it can be a click of a link, sign up, etc.

You are required to offer some kind of gift in return; this can be a free download, form of discount, free webinar, free shipping, etc. 

No matter what you choose, it should add value to it in order to be more effective. 

Bringing reciprocity to email can be started by including the following: 

  • Offering the readers to get something for free before you ask them to do anything in return.
  • Sharing the resources such as guides, blogs, helpful infographics, etc., for free. 
  • Offering a special discount and exclusive trial for free. 

Trust

Trust is one of the potential triggers when it comes to considering marketing activity. If your people are not trusting you, they are not going to make a purchase.

The email list and newsletter can be extremely useful in order to build trust. 

Not doing it for one time will be difficult to trust, but you can do it long-term and help in building more trust over time. 

Also, make sure you are sharing accurate information and advice which your customers can trust.

Community 

One of the triggers that you can consider is a community; as humans, everyone looks for connection and to be a part of the community. 

Humans are species that organize themselves into groups in order to find food, develop personalities, fight against enemies, etc. 

Communities not just give the feeling of happiness and security but motivate others to take action too. 

It’s not easy to get engagement in an online community, for this email is an effective way. 

With this, you can be on top of your mind as well as build the participation of quality users. 

Curiosity 

The gap between what people know and what they desire to know, humans get the strong aspiration in order to fill the gap. 

This feels like a mental itch on the brain and leads to curiosity to know more about it, 

Curiosity is a trigger that makes your audience feel more and get information regarding the products and services, open emails, watch videos, or subscribe to a newsletter.

Not just it inspires them to take action, but it connects to the feeling of pleasure.

Using the Curiosity mental trigger can help in getting your audience to feel interested in what you are offering and what you do. 

For example, you can use the curiosity-driven subject line, so it can make them click on an email to read. 

Anticipation 

One of the prime examples of anticipation mental triggers is the Apple product launch. 

Whenever they launch the products, people will line up in front of the Apple stores and wait long hours, even days. 

The answer is Apple successfully manages the anticipation in their audiences. And it’s strong enough that audiences don’t even wait for a day as they want to have it right now, even if it’s expensive. 

It’s considered the fourth stage of happiness, so when you are looking forward to doing something,  it makes you feel good and even builds anticipation. 

So if you want to build anticipation through emails, you can use something as bait, this will help in getting the attention as well as intrigue to explore.

Social Proof 

It is related to following the block’s tendency of people; the social proof is an effective mental trigger that you can use in email. 

People tend to do their own research, checking reviews and seeing what other customers are talking about. 

It is the same concept that applies to suits. More than 90% of consumers check the reviews online before they purchase, try services, or switch to the new one. 

When you add positive feedback and reviews from your satisfied customers of yours. You can prove that you are offering something really good, and you can start with : 

Share The Reviews 

You can build credibility by adding reviews; it can be sharing the star rating or lengthy reviews of customers who purchased earlier from your brand.

Share The Stats Or Numbers 

You can add the numbers or stats in your email and add the new signups that you have the last week or month. 

This gives an idea of how many numbers you have gotten since the last time you encountered a customer. 

Use Rewards 

If you have any rewards, you can use this in your email. Rewards also boost the chances of getting more people to purchase your goods and try the services. 

Drop Names 

It can help in building excitement, but if you are collaborating with some major brands, you can add their name, logo, and information in the email as it will show you are working with others, and it helps in credibility. 

Events And Ritual

Another example of success using the trigger of an event and ritual is Oreo. 

Even though they are the world’s best-selling cookies, they created a ritual for eating the cookie. 

So regardless of where you are or place, in order to eat Oreos the right way, it requires following the ritual: First, you need to twist it, lick and then dunk it in milk. 

You can use this mental trigger in an email marketing campaign; you require to explore the elements which can help you in creating a ritual. 

Or you can find a way that your audience can add your product or services to their daily lives. 

Don’t forget to read the Request for Participation in An Event Email: 4 Templates.

Scarcity 

The mental trigger helps in creating the value of things through limitation; it happens because the subconscious associates it with difficult purchasing. 

When the product or service is scarce, it creates urgency as the thing is extremely valuable that it will end soon.

Brands like Amazon and Booking use such triggers.  When you do purchase, you see the items which are left; this creates the urgency in customers to take action, in this case, place their order fast, 

Scarcity is an extremely strong mental trigger; it can make people purchase right now instead of postponing. 

However, it should be real and hold actual value; it loses its effect if you are doing it way too often.

You can use this in your email marketing, too, including ways like : 

  • You can add products and services that will only be available for a couple of days or times, and they won’t appear again.
  • Reduce the price on items or offer a low price that will last for a few days and will go back to normal.
  • An exclusive offer, including bonuses with high prices.
  • The number of products and services is restricted to numbers.

Likeability 

People tend to spend money and invest time in what they actually like.  It’s much more difficult to make them purchase things they dislike. 

So you can create likeability and use this trigger to show who you are instead of being faceless. 

You can create email signatures; this helps in making likability triggers work much more effectively.

Fear Of Missing Out or FOMO 

People have a strong aversion to loss; the fear of missing is another strong trigger as it encourages people to take action. 

FOMO describes social and general anxiety.  The fear is connected to the idea of missing out on the event, occasion, and experiences. 

Add the counter timer to your email when you are offering discounts. 

Peer Pressure 

The peer pressure trigger is something everyone feels at some point in their life; it can be those famous pairs of Nikes that you wanted to purchase because everyone is doing it. 

The pressure that comes from pear can be immense, especially for kids. And this can help in getting more sales. 

Controversy 

Converstreys is one of the powerful triggers, and it should be used really smartly, and think twice before you do it. 

The best content will get a lot of attention and shares, and it will take the conventional standpoint. 

It is something that not everyone agrees with,  there will be someone who hates it, or some people feel passionate about it. 

The conversation also turns away your buyers as it can help in getting more people.

Consistency 

Consistency is not just worked on one level, but many others. 

So if you have delivery expertise in some specific niche, you can’t switch to a totally different niche and sell things. 

It includes multiple reasons; first of all, you need to be consistent in what you are doing and build expertise as well as perception. Your constant clearing of value helps in building trust and interest. 

Being consistent helps in building up other triggers, too, such as authority, trust, and anticipation. 

Changing the topic too fast or coming up with a totally different face for the audience will not work, and triggers will fail. 

Clustering 

Another trigger that can be helpful,  it works against the idea of giving too many choices. This makes the audience feel confused. 

So when they have a lot of options, they postpone their decision as they need to consider all the factors first.

But you can help the audience by making choices for them. You can cluster the choices, which helps in making an easy decision.

The clustering means helping the audience by taking hardship from customers and providing them with a feeling you can offer the best specification, which leaves no choices of uncertainty. 

There are a lot of times you might notice sellers offering just three versions, so it can be easy and each version fits into one category.

Simplification 

No one likes to have a solution that is too complex; they tend to look for a solution that is simple and easy. 

In marketing, brands tend to make things complex, so the audience knows they are getting something valuable. But this could backfire. 

Don’t try to consider using a complex way in your email marketing when you are trying to sell items; keep it easy and simple. 

Offer the easy steps to find the solution; in today’s era, people look for a simplified version of everything. 

What To Know About Emotional Triggers? 

Well. It’s quite similar to mental triggers; most people respond based on their emotions, and it includes creating opinions and intentional actions. 

With such responses, they can be sensitive, stressed, or unable to act with logic. 

When it comes to marketing, emotional triggers can tug at the heartstrings of customers and affect their purchase-related decisions. 

Some of the positive triggers that can help you in email marketing include: 

The Feeling Of Excitement 

In the stage of happiness, excitement or anti-cant hold the first stage.  When customers look forward to doing something or are interested in something, they tend to feel good about it and share their feelings with people around them. 

Thus, the trigger works on building excitement and happiness eventually.

The Feeling Of Belonging 

The requirement of feeling like belonging or being part of a group is human nature. This feeling also triggers a positive vibe as it’s a great motivator too.

Customers purchase items or participate in events in order to feel like they are part of the community. Using this trigger in email can help in appealing to the community. 

The Feeling Of Curiosity 

Another trigger helps in encouraging people to take action and do a mental activity.  Brands also trigger curiosity through sensationalism. 

However, making unnecessary claims can end up damaging the reputation, and it stays for a really long time. 

The Feeling Of Hope 

This trigger deals with creating expectations and yearning for creating some wholesome and beneficial outcome. 

The other side of this positive trigger can be guilt. It also needs skilled writing, which will create the fine line between hope as well as guilt, especially when you are considering the nonprofit use of particular triggers.

How To Use Emotional Triggers In Your Email? 

When you are using these emotional triggers, this can help when determining the purpose. 

You can’t just pick up the emotion to provoke without having an idea of the end goals of your email marketing.

You need to hone the skills related to emotional marketing, so the subscribers don’t forget the bottom line. 

Here are some of the points that you can use when you are taking emotional triggers and putting them in an email.

Personalization 

When you are considering emotional triggers, it’s very important that you do personalization. Even without this, you need to consider personalization. 

With emails, there are more than 600% jigger chances of click-through rates.

Emotions can be on a surface level for most people, so personalization can cut the barrier and make it feel like you are doing direct to the customers. 

Target Problems 

Any kind of triggers like mental and emotional, you can also use this only if you are actually targeting the problems.

So think of having a purpose; find something that’s a problem for your customers and pain points. 

Getting to know their issues and problems and being helpful can help in recognizing and taking pressure off. 

Find Suitable Emotional Triggers 

Since there are different triggers you find, it’s very important that you choose the suitable emotional trigger that can help in making it more effective. 

When you don’t find the right emotional triggers,  this can backfire on email marketing. 

Find Solutions 

Never bring problems if you don’t have a solution; always make sure you have a solution and focus on solving your customer’s problems. 

Add The CTA 

To make this effective,  you need to get a CTA and add it to your email. 

With skills not enough, your CTA should encourage the audience to know what to do and what actions require them to take. 

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