Email marketing is undoubtedly a space where creativity befriends emotions. In a digital-centric era, where countless emails knock on the door of subscribers’ inboxes, waiting to be clicked and opened, it is no longer enough to send a vague simple generic email that bores the recipient. The key to capturing the gaze and attention of your audience lies in the power of inspirational and emotional design in your emails.
The logic here is simple: humans are emotional beings. If your email lacks emotion, you miss out on a lot. Emotional designs add a Midas touch to your email marketing campaigns.
Continue reading till the end to explore how emotions, when intricately placed in your emails, can make your emails stand out and foster deeper connections with your subscribers.
Let’s get started!
The prime emotional triggers in an email
Before getting on with how you can impact your subscribers emotionally, look at a few common emotional triggers that you can incorporate into your marketing campaigns.
● Curiosity
You need to trigger your recipients’ curiosity through good subject lines so they are intrigued to click to open the email. The email copy too must be such that it raises the curiosity of your subscriber to click on the CTA.
● Excitement or anticipation
The second important emotion that can push your recipients to take action is the feeling of excitement or anticipation. When your subscribers are excited and look forward to your emails, they will also share the word with their knowns, resulting in word-of-mouth marketing.
● Sense of belonging
If you are looking forward to creating a close community of customers who support and trust you, then you need to evoke a sense of belonging within them through your emails.
Now, let’s jump to what practices you can follow to add that emotional factor to your emails and create long-lasting bonds with your subscribers.
How to add an emotional touch to your emails?
Here are things to keep in mind if you wish to leverage emotional design for creating powerful and effective emails.
1. Know your audience
Before designing your email campaign, make sure you know your audience. Ask yourself these questions –
- What emotions are associated with your brand?
- What are their expectations from your brand?
- What will motivate your subscribers to click on the email?
By getting these insights, you will gain a deeper understanding of your audience that will help you resonate with their emotions. For instance – If you are an athleisure brand, you can tap into emotions of determination, inspiration, and a sense of motivation in your emails.
2. Include engaging visuals
According to Mailjet, 53% of marketers use images or visuals in their email marketing campaigns!
You can include visual elements like images, GIFs, videos, infographics, etc., that align with the emotions you want to convey.
Suppose you send an email to promote your travel agency. In that case, you can include images of Instagram-worthy pictures, beautiful locations, and happy customers to create a sense of excitement within your subscribers. Relatable visuals are pivotal in triggering emotions and creating a good reading experience for your subscribers.
Notice how the famous fitness equipment brand Pelton has compiled impactful visuals in their emailer that give the readers a sense of determination.
Source – Really good emails
3. Craft a compelling copy
Words – they have an unbelievable impact on readers. With emails, make sure you draft copies that resonate with your recipients and convey the emotion.
However, it’s important that you use appropriate language based on the industry you are in. Storytelling is another form of writing that appeals to many.
If you are a nonprofit organization raising funds for a noble cause, you can include motivating stories of the people who benefitted from your work. Using emotive language will evoke empathy and a feeling of compassion within the recipients.
Here is how Charity Water crafted its copy by sharing inspiring stories of children under 11 to push subscribers to donate.
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4. Incorporate interactive elements
Adding interactive elements in emails can create a sense of engagement, triggering positive emotions. For example, while strategizing your email campaigns, consider incorporating quizzes, polls, etc., to encourage more interaction and create a better connection with your subscribers. Doing so triggers emotions and provides valuable insights into their expectations and preferences.
Here is an example of how Email Uplers incorporated a fun and quirky element into one of its holiday emails sent to subscribers.
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5. Choose your colors wisely
Colors have a significant impact on emotions. While designing your email, make sure you choose the color palette wisely. The colors must align with the emotions you are trying to convey.
As per color psychology, cool colors like blue, green, and turquoise can create a sense of trust and calmness, while bright and warm colors like red, yellow, and orange can evoke a feeling of excitement and energy.
6. Embrace personalization and segmentation
Personalization is a crucial element of emotional design. Crafting an email specially tailored to subscribers’ needs and interests creates a sense of relevance and connection within them. For example, you can use data-driven personalization and segmentation to send targeted campaigns.
By leveraging such insights, you can customize subject lines, content, and offers to increase the effectiveness of the email and create an emotional impact at the same time.
7. Include a powerful CTA
Lastly, the call to action is essential in any email as it prompts the subscriber to take action. Once you have conveyed the emotion through your subject line and content, you must add a CTA that pushes them to click and convert.
For instance – If you are raising funds for an individual named John, you can narrate his story and add a CTA button like – ‘Help John now!’ to trigger the impact further.
Have a look at how this coffee brand strategically included CTA as ‘Show me how’ in their email to raise curiosity and gain more clicks.
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Key Takeaways
In a nutshell, when creating emails, you can not underestimate the power of emotions. Understanding the psychology behind emotions and incorporating it into your emails will create an unforgettable reading experience for your subscribers.
Besides the tips mentioned above, continuously iterate and improve your email designs to keep them relevant and fresh, like the morning breeze. So go ahead, infuse your emails with emotions, and watch your email campaigns soar to new heights!
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free responsive HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.
