There are two main ways to use words in an email marketing campaign: you can convince by logic or you can persuade by emotion. They are not mutually exclusive and this makes it all too easy to become unfocused.

For instance, you might be selling household security devices, such as alarms. You could be logical and mention that if a mob breaks into your house intent on causing mayhem, the alarm will sound in a remote office and the occupants will call the police. Factually correct but not inspiring.

How much better to use words such as deterrent, protected and proven; words that reassure. They produce a positive emotion in the reader.  Whilst they will not believe that by buying the alarm the likelihood of a mass invasion of their home is lowered, they will feel happier with your device.

You have to use words and phrases that customers will find easy to relate to. I heard on the radio a song where the phrase ‘I can read you like a magazine’ was used. The song was meant to appeal to females at college where magazine culture rules. 

That’s not to suggest the more familiar wording, read you like a book, would have been misunderstood, but that magazine would bring to mind relaxing whilst flicking through Hello. This is a fine example of the essential email marketing skill; targeting.
 
The wrong word or phrase will cost you. For instance, you are selling a new design of pram. You’d think that someone with an extra mouth to feed and a new body to clothe would opt for the cheapest suitable pram. But no. They are fashion accessories and there is a refreshing one-upmanship in the pram-pushing community. So what makes yours so much more desirable? 

How about the folding mechanism? A recent attempt at folding a pushchair resulted in me receiving a nasty finger injury so you should be interested in what would I look for. Something described as easy? Not really and whilst safely has a certain attraction, it also has certain negative connotations. 

Slick is more positive, with ease of operation a little in front. Fool-proof might attract someone who, like me, will admit being rather reckless when confronted by the need to fold the thing. 

Think who will be on the segmented email marketing list. A distraught parent struggling to get the child, shopping and pram into a car might appreciate the innovation of ‘one-handed’. This completely ignores the technology and engineering that went into the production but they won’t care. So bypass the technicalities of your invention, despite feeling so proud of them. Go all emotive.   

Motivators for buying are unlikely to be logical. Purchasers might want to feel important, get one step in front of the Joneses, to be apart from the rest, or just to pose. 

The images will show how cool it is, with envious friends struggling with kids, bags and small booted car. You need to convince them with a word or at most a phrase, that you have the answer to their problems.