Using emotional triggers in copywriting can be the key to making your content more human and authentic, building brand loyalty and ultimately boosting conversions. Using storytelling techniques and specific words and phrases can evoke certain emotions in your readers, prompting them to take action.
Emotional triggers tap into the fundamental human emotions – like fear, joy, trust, happiness and urgency – that influence decision-making, often more powerfully than logic. By appealing to these emotions in your copywriting, you can create deeper connections with your audience, making messages feel more personal and impactful.
So what emotional triggers can be powerful in copywriting?
Fear and Urgency in Copywriting
The sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) can be a really powerful marketing tool. FOMO is often perpetuated through popularity and copy choices that encourage audiences to take action and quick
Focusing your copy around limited time offers, scarcity and exclusivity, as well as fear of regret, are great ways of tapping into the feelings of FOMO in your audience. Fear should be finely balanced though. You don’t want to scare your customers away, do you?!
However, it is not enough to simply centre a campaign around FOMO. Integrating your copywriting techniques into wider marketing campaigns is essential in creating the sense of popularity and exclusivity. Without this, will your audience feel the sense of fear?
Desire and Aspiration
Popularised by the growth of influencers, feelings of desire and aspiration have become useful copywriting tools. The sky’s the limit with your audience’s aspirations nowadays!
Aspirations can be centred around personal/brand growth, luxury, or recognition, and all tap into your audience’s desires to elevate their life and achieve personal fulfilment.
Notice the use of punctuation in comparison to the examples shown for fear – exclamation marks often indicate more informal copy, as well as promoting a sense of urgency, where full stops are usually considered more professional and sincere.
Trust and Reliability
Social proof, guarantees and warranties, expertise, and transparency are all great methods of encouraging trust and reliability. Cementing yourself as a trustworthy brand, with reliable results (or products) can be a factor in securing new and repeated sales.
Once you’ve built up an element of trust with your audience, you can use copywriting techniques, such as the above, to showcase facts, statistics and other examples of social proof to communicate with your audiences.
Happiness in Copywriting
One of the most important emotional triggers to tap into in copywriting is the sense of happiness and joy that you can provide. People want to know what you can do for them. How can you solve their problems? How can you help them build connections, and foster a sense of belonging?
When using happiness in copywriting, you want to really target your audience’s problems, and give them personalised solutions. They’ll get the dopamine hit, feel a sense of joy, and celebrate the small wins that promote feelings of fulfilment. And when they feel happy and satisfied, they’re more likely to form positive associations with your brand.
Anger in Copywriting
Anger can be a fine emotion to balance. Most commonly, you want to tap into your audience’s sense of injustice, highlighting hidden problems, and empowering change and action. However, it’s not relevant for everyone!
When using anger as an emotional trigger, you don’t want to annoy your audience. You want to highlight an issue, and immediately solve it for them. Motivate your audience to take action against their source of dissatisfaction. Don’t leave them feeling more frustrated!
How can I use emotional triggers in copywriting?
- Words and imagery
- Ensure your copy aligns with your images. If you want to evoke happiness, choose appropriate images.
- Authenticity
- Build trust. Make this the first step of any of your marketing campaigns. Ensure your audience wants to listen to what you have to say.
- Know your audience. Know their problems. Know their emotional triggers.
- Storytelling
- Consider using storytelling in your copy, placing your audience at the centre.
- A/B Testing
- Perhaps try A/B testing to see what works best for your audience. You’ll likely see more engagement and conversions if you’ve tested and made data-driven insights.
- Track your results
- Track your actions, measure your results, and utilise feedback!
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