Intellectually engaging with people is best described as when you’re able to present them with lots of information, allowing them to make an informed decision based on all the facts available.
Next, there is emotionally engaging with people. This is when people’s emotional responses are used to allow their brains to make decisions easily. This is our default brain. Our brain defaults to this state as there are so many choices and decisions that it has to make all day, every day. It would simply be impossible for us to make a fully intellectually informed decision each time; our emotions give us a helping hand so that we can concentrate on more important things.
To put this into the context of email, imagine your inbox: there is so much information flowing around that there is no way we’d be able to digest everything, weigh up the pros and cons of each individual email and decide. Instead, a lot of our responses will be made by our emotions, where we will look at an email for less than a couple of seconds and decide whether to delete it or to continue reading.
The key to making sure that people engage emotionally upon receipt of your messages is not a simple one, but there are a few key areas below that you can look at.
Using AIDA as a principle
The AIDA marketing model is something that those of us who studied marketing at college or university probably remember all too well!
When applied to email, it can be a really useful tool for understanding which parts of our emails are important to focus on.
Essentially, it describes a common list of events that may occur when a consumer engages with a brand message, and the journey that they go through before fully engaging.
A – Get people’s attention! Use your “from name”, subject line, and the “pre-header” text to get attention.
I – Raise their interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits – pre-header text, headings, titles, images, and videos.
D – Convince them that they desire what you are offering them, and that the product or service will satisfy their needs – use your subject line, images, videos, and body of the email to achieve this.
A – Lead them towards taking action! Links, buttons, and icons arranged properly will allow people to act.
Also consider that there are some other key ingredients to emotional connections with recipients, such as authenticity, relevancy, transparency, personality, and a sense of community. Without these it’ll be hard for your brand to stand out against everyone else.