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Running Some TestsĪt this point, we’ve established that words have power-some more than others. So whenever it makes sense, pepper these types of curiosity-driven power words. The resource I mentioned from SmartBlogger previously also contains a nice list of curiosity words. This is a great place to quickly find potential power words for your emails based on the particular emotion you’re targeting.Īs you go through these lists, I recommend taking some of your favorites and adding them to a spreadsheet for future reference.Īfter seeing how certain power words perform in your email campaign (which we’ll discuss shortly), you’ll eventually end up with a solid list on your hands that you can draw from time and time again. Here are a few examples: Fear Power Words This is a massive list of power words you can use to appeal to a variety of emotions. One of my favorite resources for help with this is SmartBlogger’s 595 Power Words That’ll Instantly Make You a Better Writer. In other words, you need to use power words that target a particular emotion. This list of 108 power words includes some of the classics like “free,” “amazing,” “guaranteed,” and so on.īut for your emails to truly hit their mark, the copy needs to be highly targeted and written with a specific goal in mind. Targeting an Emotionĭo a quick search for “power words” on Google and you’ll find a boatload of examples. So in most cases, these are the two goals that should be in the back of your mind, which brings me to my next points. Since we have a hard time resisting our curiosity, strategic use of powerful words makes it almost impossible for us not to click, share and read. Research published by the Harvard Business Review found curiosity to be one of the most powerful triggers for virality.
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There are two main things you’re going for here. So if you want someone to take action, it’s best to give them a reason to.īy throwing in the word “because” in this experiment, people were much likelier to be persuaded.Īnd although this experiment is 40 years old, it continues to prove the impact that words have.Įven adding just a single word can be a total game changer.Īs an email marketer, you can capitalize on this phenomenon.Īnd this is where power words come into play. The point here is that far more people complied when there was a reason for the request-even if it was bogus.
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In 1978, psychology researchers Ellen Langer, Arthur Blank and Benzion Chanowitz performed a study to determine how people responded to the same request but using different words. 3 Techniques to Avoid The Classic Xerox Mindfulness Experiment
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