As marketers, we can all acknowledge that email has increasingly become less effective, which is oh-so frustrating! Recently, notorious email expert and consultant Jay Schwedelson's online Guru Conference knocked our socks off with excellent tips and tricks to try in the world of email marketing.
Nancy Harhut, Chief Creative Officer EBT Marketing, ran the session, "7 Human Behavior Hacks that Give You an Unfair Advantage." She began by explaining how humans rely on shortcuts to make innumerable daily decisions and that marketers can tap into psychology to motivate engagement with emails. She then delved into decision science and provided 7 tactics that take advantage of how people unknowingly make decisions when given the right prompt. We have summarized them here because they are so invaluable.
Nancy said you should employ "eye magnet" words that attract the human eye. These are words that have positive connotations and are proven in studies to attract attention amongst other copy on a screen. These words work best at or near the beginning of email subject lines.
Some specific words Nancy shared are "new," "secrets," and "inside look." Additionally, people's names work in this same fashion, meaning personalization in email subject lines and within copy can encourage open rates.
To get a fast response to emails, Nancy says you must create a sense of urgency or exclusivity. When you make people feel time-pressed or special, they are more likely to respond. Subject lines examples employing this include:
Another suggested ploy is to use a countdown clock within the email, which visually conveys urgency:
Nancy explains that according to the Consistency Principle if you can get someone to say "yes" once, a type of momentum builds, and it is easier for them to say "yes" the next time you ask.
With this in mind, try reserving your first ask/commitment to a relatively small item and then escalate from there. And as you do, remind them of their earlier "yes" so that it is fresh on their mind. Some ways to do this include:
Nancy explains that people judge the likelihood of an event happening based on how easily they can think of an example. So if you can create personal relevance that helps them recall or imagine a situation, people are more likely to agree with what you are asking. She says the goal is to stir people's memories/imaginations before you ask them to do anything.
Some examples of this in action are:
Nancy says supplying people with a reason why goes a long way in triggering compliance. In fact, according to research, the actual reason doesn't even matter that much, with compliance rates increasing even when random reasons are provided. Examples include:
Nancy explains that according to cognitive research that has produced the Information Gap Theory if there is a gap between what you know and what you want to know, you will take action. This is why heeding a journalist's toolbelt of the 5Ws + 1H helps people take action. You want to pique interest with the words: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Examples include:
Nancy says holidays and special celebrations tap into people's knack for recognizing days different from other days of the year. And there are many ways to do this. You can leverage:
With third-tier holidays, get creative! You can celebrate people's anniversaries and milestones with your business, birthdays (even if it's your company's), and all the made-up holidays that make sense with your business.
Need more tips to keep your B2B email humming? Check out our ebook, The Truth About B2B Email Deliverability. This ebook shows you how to run better email campaigns that win you more business! Learn best practices, the ins and outs of email metrics, little-known workarounds from marketing experts, and much more!